Six students will bare it all Thursday night at University Theater and give the audience the "Full Monty."
The musical, based on the 1997 British comedy movie of the same name, is the last production this year from the Department of Theatre and Dance's Mainstage series.
Director Harold Mortimer said the musical has been changed from the movie but follows the same premise. It's about six unemployed steelworkers in Buffalo, N.Y., who see their wives and other women going crazy over male strippers. To retain their manhood and make some money, the six-man set becomes a team of male strippers, and they work through their struggles to liven up the town and bring it back together.
Mortimer said the production is unique. In addition to the nudity, the setting is a departure from many other musicals seen at Ball State University and features the music styles of the 1980s and 1990s, he said.
The musical has 17 scenes, all of which feature a different set of props.
One of the cast members is Sifiso Mazibuko, from Ball State's sister school Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa.
While on a Fulbright Scholar experience to South Africa last year, Mortimer set up an exchange program between the two schools. Mazibuko is the first student to take advantage of this program, Mortimer said.
"Sifiso is a gem. He is the sweetest guy and he has such a humble attitude all of the time, and he's brilliant," Ross Hannon, who plays David Bukantinsky in the show, said. "I interact with him so much in the show, it's such a blessing to get to work with him."
Hannon said he was apprehensive to become a part of the production but after becoming familiar with the script he realized it was a musical about more than stripping.
"It really hits home with what my family is going through and my friends' families are going through with this economic crisis that we are into now." Hannon said. "It still means something to the people that'll come and see it, especially now with how the economy is."
The musical is about men who come together and bring their community back together in a time of crisis, Mortimer said.
"I grew up in a town that had factories and farmers and people that hunted and fished, so I know these people," Mortimer said. "I know them to be honest and true kind of people. For me that's where it speaks to. I want to make sure they're not a caricature but people we believe in."
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