Coming Soon, A Show Where Readers Really Bare It All

There's one thing that everyone involved in Naked Girls Reading says a lot: "It's exactly what it sounds like."

Maybe it's because the show, which is coming to the Coolidge Corner Theatre for the second time this September, is based on a concept so simple it almost defies belief: A woman, completely naked or nearly so, takes a seat on a stage and reads allowed from a piece of work, usually not her own. That's it.

"The audience members don't come so much for the titillation of seeing a girl naked," insisted Miss Mina, the artistic director of the burlesque troupe Boston Babydolls and one of the organizers of the Boston chapter of Naked Girls Reading. "That thrill quickly passes and I find the nudity of the reader provides no distraction, like a costume would, and it's easier to concentrate on the words, on hearing the story.

"The novelty of it gets people in the theatre – 'Oh my goodness they're going to be naked and reading' – and then they come back for the reading," she added.

The Sept. 18 show at the Coolidge is titled "Science Friction" and will features the likes of Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and Jules Verne, but past shows have centered around the works of Lewis Carroll or themes like "Valentine's Day." Some pieces are explicitly sexual, but most have little do with sex or sensuality.

The concept, which has seen rapid success since it was first attempted in Chicago about a year ago, is strange in more ways than one. Besides the strange marriage of nude and literary performances found in the show, Mina points out that it's uncommon to see people read aloud at all these days, especially when the material is not their own.

"Many of the reading events are authors reading from their own works: You go and they read a selection from their latest book," she said "Part of what Naked Girls Reading is, of course, is we have an entire show of reading, not just from one book, not just by one author."

And though some of the readers are indeed professionals – members of Boston's healthy burlesque community – Mina said most are just women off the street who like the idea of reading for an audience, and don't mind being naked, either.

In fact, interest in the shows is so great that Mina says she has trouble accommodating all the interested readers. The selection is such that each performance to date – Mina calls them "salons" and there have been three in Boston so far – has featured an almost entirely new cast.

"These are women who love to read – they love books and they love sharing them, and that's why I think we have so many people who are interested in doing it," she said. "There's something entirely intimate about the process of reading aloud, and it's something most of us haven't experience since we were children."

And while it's organizers like to talk about the act of reading as being the main event at Naked Girls Reading, Mina, someone who makes her dime off the idea that people will pay to see clothes taken off, admits the nakedness of the readers provides a "pretty backdrop" for their literary performance.

Burlesque, nude readings and other risqué performances are nothing new for the Coolidge Corner Theatre, which relegates most of its racier features to its re-emerging Coolidge After Midnite series. Burlesque troupes now take the stage regularly, maybe every four to six weeks, and the theatre has played host to the Independent Erotic Film Festival and other traveling shows with strictly adult themes.

"We're pretty much open to anything that comes our way," said Jesse Hassinger, programming manager for the Coolidge. "As long as we think there's an audience for it, we're willing to give it a shot."

As of yet, there are no plans for a return of Naked Girls Reading to the Coolidge after September, though both sides say they're open to it.

"They've been terribly supportive of us," Miss Mina said. "I can't really think of another venue we might use for Naked Girls Reading right now."