The SoHo Playhouse sold out almost every performance after the play’s shirtless stars snagged the cover of local gay bar rag Next, and the promise of skin was definitely fulfilled. With its many references to universal gay dilemmas and local gay nightlife, it was easy to see why the show was so popular with slutty club rats who watch Bravo religiously but probably don’t see a lot of professional theater. As a Hell’s Kitchen resident and avid theatergoer who’s promiscuity is now comfortably in the past, I don’t think my eyes have ever rolled so far back in their sockets.
 
If The Boys Upstairs taught me nothing else it’s that there’s a finite number of “bottom” jokes in the world, and I’m pretty sure I heard them all used again in America's Next Top Bottom: Cycle 5! at the Actors’ Playhouse. The Hollywood import, in which the audience votes by ballot on the winner, features seven “ass-piring” contestants who “stretch” themselves in various challenges because they want to “get it in the end.” See what they do there?