Read the review in the Chronicle
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol17/issue12/arts.exhibitionism.html

Later@Live Oak Cabaret,
State Theatre
November 15

With apologies to Irving Berlin:
"There's no people like show people,
They know how to hit low...."

Yes, even when you can't depend on them to know their own lines, to remember a bit of direction from one performance to the next, or to show up at the theatre on time (much less sober), you can still count on actors to tell you what's disastrously wrong with the rest of the cast's work, who has appallingly bad taste in clothes, and who's working only because they slept with the director. And to do it in the most entertainingly bitchy way possible. I can't say why thespians so love talking trash, only that they do and that some do it with such style that they've virtually turned it into an art form.

Case in point: the debut last week of the revue Naughty Austin. In some 30 musical numbers, fired off with the rapidity of an Uzi, a half-dozen local performers ripped, reamed, and roasted scores of the city's theatre artists and companies and their onstage efforts, but did it with such finesse - the word carefully chosen, the impersonation sharply observed, the tone bemused, not bitter - as to be artful.

Blake Yelavich can be credited for much of the show's skillful air. He penned the parody lyrics to the songs, and he's most adept at laying new words onto familiar tunes, getting them to scan just so while getting across his own joke. And those jokes.... Yelavich knows Austin's stage scene inside and out, and can dish on it in detail, from the choreography of Austin Musical Theatre's Scott Thompson and Richard Byron to the propensity of actors in VORTEX productions to show a little skin. Moreover, he understands the scene and what behavior is excessive enough to justify spoofing, as with the Zachary Scott Theatre Center's literally dazzling Rockin' Christmas Party at the Paramount, which Yelavich has drawing all the power from the rest of Congress Avenue, or the local cabaret trend, which he accurately spears as "one step removed from karaoke." Occasionally, he focuses a tad too closely on his subject - his spoof of Man of La Mancha lead Edmound Fitzpatrick was a bit obscure if you weren't actually in the show - and a handful of his barbs fall short of the target, but he finds the yellow circle more often than not.

To help him sling his arrows of outrageous spoofery, Yelavich recruited several actors with crack aim and no sense of shame. Lauren Adrian, Neal Gibson, Cathie Sheridan, Dan Sullivan, and Laura Walberg gamely don wigs and doff their clothes in the course of delivering Yelavich's parodies, selling most of them with the fervor of an Act One finale. They also manage some memorable impressions of local stage personalities, with Sullivan scoring the most laughs with his Dave Steakley - chatty, with birdlike tilts of the head - and Scott Schroeder - standing on his knees, singing in a sharp, high voice just this side of a Pomeranian's bark. Who knew that inside this lantern-jawed leading man was such an exuberantly gifted clown? Let's see more.

For that matter, let's see more Naughty Austin. Skillful parody is still pretty rare in this community and this troupe's debut was sharp and funny enough to warrant encouragement. If these show people want to talk more trash, I'm happy to listen. - Robert Faires

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