Citizen Staff Writer
Music
SHERYL KORNMAN
skornman@tucsoncitizen.com
Oy.
Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad is schlepping its touring cabaret show to Tucson in April – just in time for Passover.
“We thought we should be wandering the desert and the mountains,” says Susan Perlman, a comic, singer and ringleader of the troupe.
“We heard there are a couple of Jews there.”
The five Jewish performers have been on the road with the show “schticking it to the man since 2003,” Perlman says.
Klezmer punk and funk come from the group’s house band, The Four Skins.
The girls – ages 25 through 36 -(36 forever, Perlman says) have no shame. Dressed as Hassidic Jewish men, sidelocks and all, they do a burlesque striptease. You can catch a bit of it on YouTube.
And they perform their own hip-hop version of a Catskills and Andrews Sisters’ hit, “Bei Mir Bistu Shein,” (“To Me You’re Beautiful”).
Nice Jewish Girls features a rotating cast of comedians. Ophira Eisenberg will perform in the Tucson show. She has appeared on Comedy Central and VH1.
Shawn Pelofsky has appeared on Comics Unleashed and on “The Chelsea Handler Show.”
Jessi Erian, a dancer, trained at the Jacques D’Amboise National Dance Institute.
Dancer Amber Bloom has appeared in “Noises Off.”
The reviews of the group have been terrific. Even “The Jewish Daily Forward loved us,” Perlman says.
The Boston Herald called the show “hilarious.”
In the show, the performers do a spoof of “Fiddler on the Roof” and also examine “the other meanings” of Hamentaschen, the tri-corner Purim pastry.
“We have a surfer song version of ‘Hava Nagila,’ ” Perlman says.
The girls also toss some autobiographical material into the mix.
“It’s a very campy show,” she says.
Perlman has a dirty little secret. She began her singing career in “Up With People” “a million years ago,” she says.
“I was the only Jew in my cast.”
The now-secular evangelical chorus played Tucson while she was a member.
She was placed with a host family.
“I stayed with some very nice people in a trailer on Valencia Road.”
IF YOU GO
What: Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad
When: 8 p.m. April 24
Where: Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St.
Price: $12 in advance and $15 at the door.
Info: 622-8848, www.hotelcongress.com