Ganymede Arts’ “Naked Boys Singing”

What you see is what you get in Naked Boys Singing, a show with a title that’s cheekily literal being staged by Ganymede Arts (making a welcome return to full-scale productions) at 1409 Playbill Cafe.

But it’s also a show that eschews Chippendales-style titillation, casting attractive but not unrealistic looking men as its five singers, who belt out tunes that wink and play around with penis puns, for sure, but also take things beyond the surface. Really, it’s cabaret at its best: a collection of songs that reveal a little something about the singer’s soul and the human condition along the way. They’re just also revealing a little bit more in the process.

The play, clocking in at an hour and 20 minutes (though still with an intermission, which seems mainly to serve the purpose of allowing the audience to refresh their drinks, which may be brought into the theater), moves along briskly and jauntily. The curtain opens with each cast member coyly covering up his manhood, but as it proceeds into the peppy “Gratuitous Nudity”, that’s really Naked Boys Singing‘s only brush with modesty.