Altar Boyz * Conceived on Marc Kessler and Ken Davenport * Score on Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker * Directed by way of Stafford Arima * Dodger Stages.

Altar Boyz * Conceived on Marc Kessler and Ken Davenport * Score on Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker * Directed by way of Stafford Arima * Dodger Stages, fresh York City (open-ended run)

male child bands are largely absent from the detonation charts these days, but at of the present day York City's Dodger Stages their spirit lives on--and satirically soars in the 'N Sync-ily sexy strange musical Altar Boyz. With Backstreet lads bravado, the five fresh-faced performers portray the show's fictional singing dispose with infectious abandon, easily wooing the audience with their 90-minute concert-style mission of Christian salvation. In a dozen lays sung by the characters Matthew, Mark, Luke Juan, and Abraham (he's Jewish), publicly gay composers Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker have crafted near seriously funny spoofs of the one and the other the pop genre and contemporary Christian messages of faith. Can I acquire a witness for "Jesus Called Me forward His Cell Phone" and "Girl, You Make Me Wanna Wait"?

While the indicate could be a one-note crank what adds hilarious adrenaline to Altar Boyz is its astute subplot (It's a stripling band--it's homoerotic, stupid!) Mark, played by dint of the willowy Tyler Maynard, fawns constantly (if unconsciously) athwart Scott Porter's hunky lead singer, Matthew--providing Altar Boyz with its greatest in number inspired comedic moments. "I was hiding my veritable self," Mark says, describing a tortured adolescence. "Beat up from Episcopalian thugs because of my voice. My walk. And"--he expertly pauses--"my attention to detail."

Although I won't reveal Mark's climactic confession in the eleventh-hour number "The Epiphany," I will say that the song--with Maynard's delirious spin upon Jennifer Holliday's act-1 finale in Dreamgirls--had me laughing well after I'd left the theater.

Drake is a writer-performer whose works include Son of Drakula and The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me

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