Singing naked and loving every minute

The penis is a funny thing. Away from the trappings of pornography it really just hangs there.

The brainchild of Robert Schrock, Naked Boys Singing: The Movie takes the form of a cheeky Chippendale-style musical revue.

A celebration of male nudity in all its buffed, bronzed and otherwise beauty, Naked Boys is out to make a point. The repertoire includes naughty ditties like Gratuitous Nudity (written by Stephen Bates), Muscle Addiction (Mark Savage) and Perky Little Porn Star (David Pevsner).

The film will be screening at the Palace Academy Twin on 16 and 25 February as part of the Mardi Gras Film Festival.

Naked Boys‘ sensitivity is overtly gay and Schrock and his co-director Troy Christian take aim at some of the pillars that prop up gay male sex culture.

Naked Boys Singing: The Movie has been cast with sex appeal very much in the fore. No unsightly love handles here. The cast of 10 fellas represent different racial and body types -“ stocky, slender, Asian, black, Anglo, Latin.

But what type of actor fronts up for a musical that requires of the cast full frontal nudity? Quite by accident, singer/actor Joe Souza found himself up for a Naked Boys audition.

I was actually auditioning for another project when the casting director, who happened to also be casting Naked Boys Singing: The Movie, asked me if I would be interested in auditioning for this project as well, he said.

I would be lying if I said the nudity wasn’t an issue for me.

Souza had performed nude on stage in a production of Terence McNally’s AIDS drama Love, Valour, Compassion. But for a budding Hollywood actor, dropping your daks on film is another thing entirely.

It would be seen by many more people and would be out there forever, he said.

The strength of the show convinced Souza to sign on the dotted line. In the movie he gets to do The Bliss of Bris, a song that charts the adulation of the penis right through to questionable practice of circumcision.

Fawning and flattering, worshipping, swooning… Remember it doesn’t need any more pruning -¦ are the lyrics.

Naked Boys Singing: The Movie screens at the Palace Academy Twin on 16 and 25 February. Details: www.queerscreen.com.au. And if you love the movie, you will be able to buy it later this year from Out Video. Details: www.outvideo.com.au.

From bnews -“ www.bnews.net.au