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This is no Disney high school musical

The sexy, youth-oriented musical "Bare" is hot stuff in Bellmore. (Handout)

BY STEVE PARKS | steve.parks@newsday.com

March 26, 2008

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Francine Nemeroff doesn't look like someone who'd produce a musical with simulated sex acts and dialogue that would be censored from "Saturday Night Live."

No, "Frantic Fran," which is also the name of her East Meadow-based theater company, looks more like the Jewish-mother producer who got into the theater business because her daughter Lara's grade school didn't have a drama department. In 2001, Nemeroff launched Frantic Fran's Theatre and produced "Bye Bye Birdie" at a local temple. Later, she directed and produced children's shows at the Nassau Cultural Center.

"How I got from 'Bye Bye Birdie' to 'Bare,' I'll never know," says Nemeroff, referring to the Long Island premiere of this R-rated twist on "High School Musical" now playing at the Bellmore Movies. But Nemeroff knows very well how it happened. She listened to the young people she's directed in her drama school and summer arts camps.

They talked her into producing the irreverent cult classic "Rocky Horror Show," the first theatrical performance at Bellmore's vintage single-screen cinema - now also home to Plaza Theatrical Productions, Long Island's leading touring company.

Future shows Nemeroff has in mind - Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins" ("in time for the election," she says), along with "Reefer Madness" and, after its Broadway run and national tour, "Rent" - give you an idea of where she's coming from. "I want to do shows that reflect what young people are thinking about," she says. "Shows they don't see much out here."

That's why she chose "Bare," a musical about emerging sexual identity in a Catholic high school. The pop opera by Jon Hartmere and Damon Intrabartolo is a favorite among young actors, though it ran barely a month Off-Broadway in 2004, after premiering in Los Angeles in 2001. Rich Martino, who starred in Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" at Cultural Arts Playhouse, approached Nemeroff about obtaining rights to "Bare." He's now co-producer and co-star of this polished, intensely energetic show that plays two more weekends at Bellmore.

Martino, somewhat too mature for the role, plays Peter, a Catholic school senior who wants to quit the closet. His lover, Jason, played by Dan Wagner, is more conflicted, leaving himself open to a fling with gorgeous and flirtatious Ivy (Tracy McDowell received Actors Equity dispensation to play this nonunion role). Erin Edell as Jason's ugly duckling sister spews taunting epithets at all the popular kids who make her life miserable as she auditions for a role in the school's musical take on "Romeo and Juliet."

"We didn't need to audition," Nemeroff says. "When word got out that we were doing 'Bare,' I had people calling from California begging to be in it."

Led by music director Jared Stein, a sizzling rock band brings Hartmere's score to pulsating life.

"Bare" is an emotionally naked epiphany that could be seen as profane by observant Catholics. But it's also edgy youth theater - think "Spring Awakening," but more raw - the likes of which is rare on Long Island.

But that may change if Frantic Fran has her way.

WHEN&WHERE

"Bare," at the Bellmore Movies, 222 Pettit Ave., Bellmore, Friday and Saturday and April 4 and 5 at 9 p.m., Monday at 8p.m. Tickets $20, 866-811-4111, theatermania.com.