NEW YORK’S SKIVVIES TAKE IT OFF
AT THE RED BARN THEATRE
How many of us have hummed a tune while padding around the house in our undies? But more than likely none of us thought, “Hey…if I do this on Broadway, I’ll become the hottest cabaret act currently playing in New York.”
Well, Nick Cearley and Lauren Molina did just that. Known as The Skivvies, Perez Hilton said they’re “…the best thing to happen to NYC nightlife in years…”, and the New York Times reports they’ve become “…so popular that Broadway stars like Lin Manuel-Miranda and Lauren Benanti (now starring in ABC’s “Nashville”) regularly join them on stage.”
Cearley and Molina will be bringing their red-hot Skivvies show to the Red Barn Theatre in Key West for a very special four-night event, Wednesday through Saturday, January 21-24, with shows each night at 8 pm. Tickets are in short supply already, and can be had by calling 305-296-9911 or by checking out the Red Barn website at redbarntheatre.com
“This is a real coup for us,” said Red Barn artistic director Joy Hawkins. “They’re skyrocketing right now, heading into a television series, touring, and have been solidly booked. It’s amazing we both had these dates open. It’s going to be a very funny and entertaining four nights.”
And as a special bonus, Key West’s own Randy Roberts will be joining The Skivvies onstage for several numbers each night (except Friday, when he has his own show to do at La Te Da).
“You can imagine how much fun that’s going to be,” Hawkins said. “I wonder what he’ll wear.”
While the Skivvies show has made them stars, it was a complete accident it ever happened, according to Molina. Both she and Cearley trained in musical theatre – she at the University of Michigan, he at the Boston Conservatory. Both are consummate, multi-instrumental musicians – everything from ukulele and xylophone to melodica and cello. They met up in 2003 when both signed on to a national tour of a children’s show based on Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories”. They became best friends travelling the country, constantly listening to pop radio (the only thing they had), and writing songs and parodies of the songs they were hearing to pass the endless hours on the road.
“We were hanging out one day,” Molina said, “and I suggested we do a YouTube video of one of our song parodies – “We Found Love” by Rhianna. I was walking around the house in my bra and panties at the time…”
Cearley chimed in (they often finish each other’s sentences, as will be evidenced during the show), “…And I said, since we’re stripping the song down as a parody, why don’t you just wear what you have on for the shoot? It fits the concept of what we’re doing.”
The video went viral, exploding across the internet. The next thing they knew, people were asking them to perform. And not just anywhere – but the top clubs in New York. So they put together a show. This was in 2012. They haven’t stopped since.
“It just takes someone to notice you, I guess,” Molina said. “We’ll be the first to tell you doing a cabaret show almost nude was a gimmick, but frankly, you have to have the chops to back it up when opportunity knocks.”
And they do have the chops, both musically and theatrically. It’s one thing to play a song. It’s another altogether to strip it down, analyze its chordal progressions, filter its lyrics, and reconstruct it all by mashing it together with other songs to make a hilarious parody sequence. And then to make that entertaining theatrically. But they do it, and they do it extremely well.
“It’s amazing how inane pop lyrics are when you really look at them,” Molina said. “But it’s wild how funny they become when you play around with several sets of them. And we love to take the hooks from songs and mash them together, playing on the themes – take a highly electronic house beat and put it to cello or ukulele, bring it into another reality. It’s refreshing, creative, silly, whimsical.”
Absolute fun, in other words. Watching the show, it’s almost like listening to a strange radio station – “Skivvies radio,” Molina laughed. “As an example, we take Paul Simon’s “Feelin’ Groovy” and mash it together with Delite’s “Groove Is In The Heart” and Phil Collins’ “Groovy Kind of Love”, and Peaches and Herb’s “Shake Your Groove Thing”, using “groove” as the thread. Add what we’re doing visually, and you get the idea.”
Expect a very funny, sometimes titillating, always entertaining musical evening. It is an adult show, make no mistake, but it’s not offensive.
“We like to toe the line,” Cearley said. “We don’t go vulgar. There’s sexual innuendo, but it’s not ugly. Our arrangements are very adult, yes, but honestly, it’s almost childlike, more than anything else.”
Actually what the Skivvies do is a lot like what Jimmy Fallon is doing musically on the Tonight Show these days…playing with music and lyrics. “He stole our stuff,” Cearley laughed, half-seriously.
People Magazine calls the Skivvies the “Most Playful Performers in the Most Talked-about Bodies of 2014”. Call the Red Barn for tickets at 302-296-9911 and come see what the buzz is all about. What you wear is up to you.
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