The obvious answer is Naked Boys Singing, and EQUUS is probably the most famous due to Daniel Radcliffe’s getting naked in the London and later Broadway productions. What are some others that feature “live on stage nekkid” scenes?
Some that I know of, though individual productions often opt to either use ‘nude suits’ or thongs or otherwise work around it:
Hair- usually in the ‘Be In’ song
Take Me Out- a comedy drama about a baseball player who comes out of the closet; features shower scenes. (The most surprising thing about this one is that I’ve seen a couple of college productions of it where the unpaid actors went full monty, speaking of-)
Full Monty (but only for a second at the end)
O Calcutta- there are pics of the 1970s production that feature a naked Bill Macy, later the husband ‘Walter’ on MAUDE. Really disturbing; some people you don’t wanna see nekkid.
“A Cry from Heaven” is an obscure-but-rather-good retelling of the story of Dierdre from the Ulster Cycle of Irish myth. AFAIK, it’s only been produced for one run at the Abby Theatre in Dublin in '05, and I was lucky to catch it.
There are two mute characters portrayed by nude males wearing bull masks. Interesting use of nudity since there’s no sexuality implied nor is there any specific need for the nudity, but I suspect it was intended to emphasize the pagan nature of the story.
Back in 1993, Rope was produced in Chichester UK. The play, loosely inspired by Leopold & Loeb, had been given a polite film treatment in a 1948 Hitchcock production. The 1993 production starred John Barrowman, Alexis Denisof & Anthony Head & did not shilly-shally: “taking a thoroughly modern line with the homoerotic subtext which, in Barrowman and Denisof’s committed performances, becomes overt lust.”
Although not officially part of the play, this production evidently began with an artistically lit nude scene.
The show has probably been spoiled for you long before I came along, but there is a moment in the piece where it is absolutely necessary to the plot that someone be naked onstage, however briefly. I shall say no more, except to caution that the Wiki site gives the game away in the first sentence, and therefore the show is spoiled even by searching for it in Google.
The Hot L Baltimore ends the second act with a woman completely nude – with nothing to hide her. I saw it that way at a local production and judging by the script, it probably played that way when first performed.
I’m not sure if there was any actual nudity in the Broadway version of “You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running,” though the plot involves an actor who is required to appear nude on stage.
???
I saw Godspell back in the 1970s, on a major stage in Boston. There was no nudity. I’ve never heard of nudity in Godspell. It would seem to go against the basic setting and theme.
Godspell is known for it’s openness to interpretation. It has been set everywhere from hippie communes to preppie academies, from big cities to junk yards. The particular adaptation that the poster might have seen (the nude one) was perhaps a more “Garden of Eden” type setting than the 70s hipster setting you may have seen.
I think every time I’ve seen it, it’s been set in a different place and style. The show is supposed to do that.
