And they were such nice girls!

'Nice Jewish Girls' comes to Lancaster, and these girls go bad.

Sunday News

Sep 06, 2009 00:12 EST

Lancaster

By JAMES BUESCHER, Correspondent

Bright lights. Big city. If she could make it there, she could make it anywhere, or, at least, that's what Pittsburgh native Susannah Perlman thought when she first made the decision to move to New York City in the mid-1990's.

"I'd just graduated from college, and I had no idea what I wanted to do," said Perlman, speaking from a hotel room in Indianapolis during a recent phone interview.

"I figured I'd give New York a try," she said, "and as soon as I got there I started playing comedy clubs and meeting some really amazing, funny women. Then, one day it just dawned on me: why don't we hit the road?"

Perlman, along with a revolving cast of 16 other comediennes, will bring the overblown, campy burlesque of their show "Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad" to Lancaster's Gusto restaurant at 335 N. Queen St. on Sunday, Sept. 13.

Big dreams
Hailing from Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood, Perlman attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she majored in history.

After graduating, she moved to the Big Apple to become a comic, doing the rounds at New York City comedy clubs and even scoring an appearance on MTV.

In 2002, she said, she and some friends started putting together the "Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad" show, a mix of comedy routines and dance numbers, including a go-go version of the folk song "Hava Nagila" and even a Hasidic striptease. The show, she said, has gone on to sell-out performances in places as diverse as Montreal, Quebec, Burlington, Vt. and the gay-vacation mecca of Provincetown, Mass.

"I like the show because it offers something for everyone. It's campy and colorful and a little bit dirty," she said. "We take these Jewish elements and we redefine them, but you don't have to be Jewish to be in on the joke. It's kind of a throwback to an older, and riskier, kind of entertainment, only we're doing it with a twist."

"For our audiences, it's a fun and different way to spend an evening," she said.

Currently finishing up a tour that takes the group through the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest, Perlman said she's currently putting together a winter tour that would take the group on their first-ever trip to Mexico.

That will allow them to hit American expatriate communities south of the border.

"This is a fun show," she said .

"It's our first time in Lancaster, but folks in Allentown and State College liked it, so we hope it will play."

Fun for everyone
For younger audience members, she said, seeing "Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad" is a fun romp in a style of burlesque entertainment they might never have experienced.

For older members of the audience, it's a way of remembering the kind of risqué entertainment from the days of Vaudeville.

"Audiences love it," Perlman said, referring to another beloved Jewish-themed show, "Fiddler on the Roof."

"This," she said, "ain't your mama's 'Fiddler.' "

"Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad" will be appearing at 7:00 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13 at Gusto Restaurant, 335 N. Queen St. For more information, call 945-6906.