NAKED PEOPLE ON STAGE!

Now that I have your attention, let me tell you about my weekend...

Nah, I won't con you. I really did see _ and you can too _ actors Amy Landecker and Andrew Elvis Miller completely starkers in Tracey Letts' "Bug" at the Coast Playhouse. I'd say it was the most, er, arresting thing about the production, but that wouldn't be accurate. And now I'll shut up about "Bug" since my review of the production will appear in Friday's Daily News and on www.dailynews.com.

"Bug" will be a movie, BTW, with Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon in the should-be-nude roles. "The Exorcist's" Wiliam Friedkin directs. It's due out May 25.

Stage nudity, also BTW, can be a gimmick, or it can be used for authenticity dramatic effect, whatever. Unless the work is "O, Calcutta."

When Reprise! did "Hair" some seven or eight summers ago, the entire cast joined in the nude scene (all, apparently, except Marissa Jarret Winokur). At the time, I heard that the male members (did I just use that term?) of the cast engaged in some backstage, er, enhancement exercises to keep themselves in fighting form for the scene. This may or may not be true, but I sure like to to believe that went down...or up, as the case may be.

There will be a local production of "Hair" opening September 14 at the MET Theatre, with nudity. (www.theMETtheatre.com)...

...Blog randomness, gotta love it!...

Back in the mid 1990s, when I was seeing shows up in the SF Bay Area, every single damned thing I saw -- and this was not 'cause _ I picked 'em _ involved full frontal male nudity. And, save your cracks and snickers. I'm talking "Othello" at ACT and "The Beaux Stratagem" at Berkeley Rep.

Those were the good old days.

Anybody else out there in reader land have memorable encounters with flesh on stage? Si si, let me know.