The Dirtiest Show in Town
| The Dirtiest Show in Town | |
|---|---|
| Music | Jeff Barry |
| Lyrics | Tom Eyen |
| Book | Tom Eyen |
| Productions |
1970 Off-Broadway 1971 West End 1971 Los Angeles 1980 film |
The Dirtiest Show in Town is a musical revue with a book and lyrics by Tom Eyen and music by Jeff Barry.
An attack on both air pollution, the Vietnam War, urban blight and computerized conformity, it is filled with sex, nudity, and strong lesbian and gay male characters, and culminates in a massive orgy with the entire naked cast writhing on the floor. What distinguishes it from a raunchy sex show is Eyen's clever dialogue and witty observations, which impressed even mainstream critics when it first was staged near the end of the sexual revolution that started in the 1960s.
Directed by Eyen, The Dirtiest Show in Town opened on June 27, 1970 at the off-Broadway Astor Place Theatre, where it ran for 509 performances. It subsequently toured and then was staged at the West End's Duchess Theatre, where it ran for nearly 800 performances. Another production opened at the Ivar Theater in Los Angeles in 1971, starring Michael Kearns and Eyen's muse Sharon Barr. In 1975, Eyen and Henry Krieger put together a version called The Dirtiest Musical in Town starring Nell Carter.
In 1980, Eyen directed a film version of the play for the cable TV network Showtime, making it the first "made for cable TV" movie ever produced. The updated storyline for this film version revolves around members of a New York City gym obsessing about their life situations, eventually leading up to the gay and straight characters writhing together in an orgy. It starred Sharon Barr and a young John Wesley Shipp.