Comedienne Sandra Bernhard, Scissor Sisters lead singer Jake Shears and downtown drag artist Justin Bond are joining forces on a reading of their new musical Arts and Crafts, according to The New York Times. Gordon Greenberg will direct two performances of the show on March 7 at Joe’s Pub.
Arts and Crafts will feature music by Bond, Bernhard, Lance Horne and Shears, and a book by Bernhard and Bond. The two will also play cousins—one who went from rock chick to born-again Midwest mother, the other from small town gay to urban art world sophisticate—who reunite at a family wedding.
Bond is best known as bitter chanteuse Kiki in lounge duo Kiki & Herb, regulars on the downtown cabaret scene who took their show Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway up to the Great White Way in 2006. Bernhard’s solo show I’m Still Here . . . Damn It! ran on Broadway in 1998, and she most recently appeared off-Broadway in her 2006 one-woman show, Everything Bad and Beautiful. Shears is the co-author of the new musical Tales of the City, adapted from the novels of Armistead Maupin, which will premiere in San Francisco in May.