Never fear. Although the stage version of the Academy Award-nominated film The Full Monty is set in New York rather than England, Times Square's new, sanitized rules do not apply. Full frontal nudity is still the order of the day.The basic story goes like this: A group of six unemployed steel workers are scratching their heads over how to scrounge some scrilla. When a male striptease gets a rise out of the local gals, the boys decide to one-up the go-go guys and work up their own, G-string-free act. They go the full monty to rack up the Benjamins.
Massive big ups to newcomer David Yazbek and his unapologetically poppy style. Yazbek's eclectic and egregiously fun new score functions well as narrative, and at the same time pumps out hummable, memorable tunes. With titles like "Big Black Man" and "Big-Ass Rock," the show promises to give you an earful in addition to the eyeful you came for. Show opens 8 p.m. Tuesday, November 4, and runs through Sunday, November 16. Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, 800 Bagby. For tickets and showtimes, call 713-629-3700 or visit www.ticketmaster.com. $25 to $66. -- Eric A.T. Dieckman
One-Night Stand
Four lost souls straggle
to the Mexican coast for a night of tea and comfort
By the time he wrote Night of the Iguana, Tennessee Williams had overcome his impulse to simply shock. Missing from this play are the murders, suicides, abortions, rapes and castrations of his more familiar works. Instead, we're given a hard look at (the author's?) existential crisis through the eyes of an ex-minister-turned-tour guide, a 40-year-old itinerant virgin artist, her aged poet-grandfather and their host, the recently widowed maître d'hôtel. On a crumbling veranda, in view of the iguanas that have been captured for dinner, the characters reach out for each other, and Williams allows them to be heartened rather than harmed. Theatre Illuminata's production runs 8 p.m. Saturday, November 1; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, November 7 and 8; and 8 p.m. Thursday, November 13, through Saturday, November 15. Commerce Street Artists Warehouse, 2315 Commerce. For information, call 832-216-3916 or visit www.theatreilluminata.org. $10; $8 for students and seniors; $5 Halloween preview. -- Lisa Simon
Give Us Fever
Lots of Halloween parties boast a disco theme and a DJ who owns a copy of "Superfreak."
Ho-hum. This year Galveston -- of all places -- will squash disco wannabes under
its platform boots by playing host to the touring Broadway version of Saturday
Night Fever, based on the 1977 film that put John Travolta on the map and
Bee Gees posters on the walls of teenagers worldwide. A live orchestra will
hustle its way through the Top 10 hits from the movie, while the cast strikes
the infamous index-finger pose that turned paint-store clerk Tony Manero into
a demigod. 8 p.m. Friday, October 31; 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, November 1.
The Grand 1894 Opera House, 2020 Postoffice. For information, call 800-821-1894
or visit www.thegrand.com. $18.50 to
$72. -- Greg Barr
Chipper Dale
SAT 11/1
Armed with a powerful baritone and a speckled pompadour, Austin-based Dale Watson has a bone to pick with the countrified, cookie- cutter crooners coming out of Nashville's image factories. As he says in one of his signature songs, "Tell 'em that's country, my ass." 9 p.m. Saturday, November 1. Dan Electro's Guitar Bar, 1031 East 24th Street. For more information, call 713-862-8707 or visit www.danelectrosguitarbar.com. $7. -- Keith Plocek
