Want to laugh your ass off this weekend? Forgive the frisky opening line, but be careful sitting down after you see the two shows I’m about to recommend–THE DROWSY CHAPERONE over at The SpeakEasy, and The Gold Dust Orphans’ PETER PANSY over at the Ramrod Center for the Performing Arts, or Machine!

DROWSY is the Tony Award-winning musical which has just been extended until June 19 and stars the brightest lights in Boston: Karen MacDonald, Tom Derrah, Will McGarrahan, Kerry Dowling who will be replaced by Leigh Barrett for the extension, and Alison McCartan who will take over from McCaela Donovan. Deliriously delightful, one and all– especially McGarrahan, impishly funny as a closeted musical theater buff who’s home alone with a turntable of musicals that spring to life in his living room. McGarrahan has never been better, seducing us with a wacky gleam in his eye, and the loony logic of a 1920’s musical. It’s a breezy 1 hour 40, no intermission, and you can grab a bite after at a nearby outdoor cafe on Tremont!
See THE DROWSY CHAPERONE at SpeakEasy Stage Company through June 19!

****AND****

You only have two more chances (Sat 5/28 at 8PM, Sun. 5/29 at 5PM) to see PETER PANSY before it moves to P-Town’s Crown and Anchor next week: Ryan Landry’s latest hysterical riff on the adventures of a gay young lad and his lost boys on the island of Provincetonia! The show takes off like a shot and never lets up! Landry’s extravaganzas seem to have picked up speed and ingenuity over the years– and this is one of his funniest and most deftly directed. Fairy dust is snorted, Tink (Olive Another) is a bitch, Wendy(Liza Lott) is a deep-voiced fag hag, and hot for the screamingly charismatic Peter: he won’t grow up– and he won’t go straight either. The exuberantly adorable Michael Wood plays the part at full throttle, while this multi-talented cast sashays in and out of outrageous musical numbers staged on all sides: there’s a bath with Captain Hook (a suggestively clad Ryan Landry), a sumptuously tailed singing mermaid, a giant and terrifying “vagisaurus,” tiny little puppets, “Indians” who swing both ways, AND Ryan’s dog Rhoda in a dual role as “nana” and the “Cock-O-Dial.” (This dog has a killer deadpan.) The theater can barely contain the action, let alone Landry’s imagination. I thought the place would explode– maybe that was just me, laughing.
See PETER PANSY here at Machine–this weekend, or there — this summer at the Crown & Anchor!

Have a GREAT MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND! It’s going to be a BEAUTY!!