Bubbies watch out! If you’re still trying to find your grandson a nice Jewish girl to settle down with, five of them are coming to Ontario this week.
Susannah Perlman, left, is the ringleader of Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad.
Except these girls are known for deconstructing years of tradition, expectations and guilt, in a fast-paced vaudeville extravaganza.
“It’s a lot of fun,” says Susannah Perlman, the ringleader of Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad, a New York-based troupe.
She says the show is a combination burlesque, comedy, musical, variety show. “Then there’s this Jewish thing that keeps it together.”
It’s been described as a night of comedy told by girls who learned to smoke at Hebrew school and got drunk at their bat mitzvahs.
“People relate to this show in many ways,” she says. “We’ve been told it’s pretty edgy.” Part of the show has the group taking traditional Jewish songs and giving them a humorous, modern twist. “For instance, we do a surf version of Hava Nagila.”
Perlman is a comedian/chanteuse who has performed across America and was featured on the TV show Last Comic Standing.
Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad started six years as an event for the American magazine Heeb. It was reformatted two years and was successful during a run off-Broadway. It has since toured across America.
“We are now hitting every place where we haven’t been before,” Perlman says.
The Girls play the Rivoli in Toronto on June 11 and 12 (416-597-0794), Modern Fuel in Kingston on June 13 (613-548-4883) and Zaphod Beeblebrox in Ottawa on June 14 (613-562-1010). Tickets can be purchased at www.brownpapertickets.com. Visit the Girls’ website at –www.nicejewishgirlsgonebad.com.
