I have loved this musical ever since David Sidoni (of Newsies and OCHSA fame) played “Big Ass Rock” for a warm-up at Orange County Song and Dance Summer Camp many years ago. And I’ve been waiting to see it ever since I chose not to go to the national tour at OCPAC back in 2003 (long story about surgery and not sure I would be able to sit down in a chair for that long a time). It’s been gone for 4 years! I’m so grateful to Music Theatre West for producing it!

The show is absolutely genius. I just love David Yazbek’s music and lyrics. And the story is very thoughtful as well. It deals with men not able to be men in their lives (being unemployed makes it kind of hard to bring the bread home) and finding courage to do something that not many people do…strip. It also shows people dealing with relationships and how those are built/maintained. More than anything, I absolutely loved that part of it. It’s really summed up in the song “You Rule My World (Reprise)” where Dave’s wife, Georgie (Tammi Tappan Damiano, another fabulous performer from the SoCal) and Harold’s wife, Vikki (Tracy Lore) reveal their deep love for their husbands despite the adversity (Georgie just found out that Dave is stripping and not cheating and Vikki found out that Harold’s been unemployed for 6 months and hiding it by buying expensive things).

John Bisom played Jerry Lukowski perfectly. It was especially funny to me when Dave (John Massey Jr.) called him Fabio in the song “Man” because Bisom played the Fabio character in “The Thing About Men” a couple of years ago at MTW.

John Massey Jr. is absolutely hilarious as fat b@$t@rd Dave Bukatinsky who has to deal with his obesity. And seeing the show, I never realized that while Harold (David Engel) is singing “You Rule My World” to his wife, Dave is singing it to his stomach! Kind of kills just listening to the song for me now, but that’s because I’m weird and perverted. No not like that. Jeez you guys are sick.

David Engel continues to amaze me with his versatility as an actor/performer. He’s literally the greatest thing to come out of Southern California since…I don’t know, happy cows.

So it’s not like you can see it now (I saw the last show), but I highly recommend seeing this show if you get the chance. I give an R-rating strictly for the foul language (more than 1 F-bomb means R) because the nudity isn’t really that bad. You see lots of butt and guys strutting around in thong’s, but beyond that at the very end of the show (where they go all the way) there’s really bright lights behind them eclipsing anything revealing, so unless you truly mind seeing a guy’s butt, this show is for anyone who’s ever had trouble with a relationship.