Off-Broadway show embroiled in nudity flap
( 2001-08-30 11:20 ) (7 )

Wearing nothing but sneakers and blue towels, the New York cast of the hit musical "Naked Boys Singing!" protested on Wednesday in support of the show's Provincetown, Massachusetts company, which could be shut down for breaking local laws restricting "adult entertainment."

Several cast members of the off-Broadway musical revue chanted "Nude, not lewd" as they marched outside the Actors' Playhouse in Greenwich Village, where the show has played to mostly full houses since its debut two years ago.

Officials in Provincetown, which is known alternately as an artists' and writers' colony, a gay resort and a Portuguese fishing village, have moved to close down a local production of the show on the grounds that it is "adult entertainment" and thus violates zoning laws.

The Crown and Anchor, a large inn and entertainment complex in the town's center, was served a series of violation notices by Provincetown officials on the grounds that the show's full frontal male nudity classified the musical comedy as adult entertainment.

Jennifer Dumas, a producer of "Naked Boys Singing!" which has had or has slated productions in cities including Houston, San Francisco, Rome, London and Tokyo, called the move unconstitutional. She said it was particularly odd given Provincetown's reputation as a free-wheeling, open-minded town.

"'Naked Boys Singing!' is not 'adult entertainment,'" Dumas said, and is "not a sexual show." Rather, it is a "legitimate theatrical production, the subject of which is nudity," which has played in a host of venues and never been challenged.

"These actions, in Provincetown of all places, are closed-minded, perhaps even homophobic and in violation of the First Amendment," Dumas said.

Provincetown officials have set a Sept. 4 hearing to decide the local company's fate.