Seat Filler: NYC Theater Guide for January 2012

Dedalus Lounge
Three pals drown their sorrows in a Dublin bar in Gary Duggan’s messy drama about late-December desperation. Rent’s Anthony Rapp and a sexy James Kautz play a Freddie Mercury enthusiast and a slimy male escort who unpleasantly wrestle with their latent bisexuality. Interspersed with soliloquies, interpretive dances, and original songs by Rapp and Daniel A. Weiss, the show is depressing, distressing, and deliriously intoxicating.
Interart Theatre Annex, through January 30.

Righteous Money
Written and performed by the appealing if somewhat tepid Michael Yates Crowley, this brief and biting satire of financial advice TV shows — think Jim Cramer’s Mad Money — cashes in on a cool gay twist: While promoting his new book, Buy The Recession, billionaire CNBC host CJ begins to collapse faster than the economy as he frets about vengeful blackmail at the hands of the scorned male assistant with whom he had an affair.
The Red Room, through January 21.

Him
Best known as the inspiration for Sex and the City’s Stanford Blatch, Clifford Streit wrote and directed this tart, likable comedy, which starred Dante's Cove beefcake Jon Fleming in his debut stage role — not to mention his underwear and swim trunks — as a gay actor whose bitchy publicist shoves him back into the closet. Streit plans to expand the zippy one-act, which sometimes felt like a cocktail-napkin sketch of The Little Dog Laughed.
Cherry Lane Studio Theatre, closed January 6.