Can You Read?

Kirk Read has listened to your crap; he hosts not one but two monthly open mikes. So you should listen to his crap, in fairness, but be forewarned: He's better than you. At This Is the Thing, Read's first full-length show ("stories and stage pictures," he promises), audiences can expect a storyteller with a beautiful ear for filthy detail, and a loving observer with flawless comic timing. In these performances, he is accompanied by Jeffrey Alphonsus Mooney, a drummer with a looping problem, who gives the stories an ambiance somewhere between Beat poet post-bop and well-scored indie film. Side note: Read truly has the most insane fashion sense outside the London club scene of the late 1990s; he's a gay icon, but gym bunnies undoubtedly run screaming from his comfy-looking, wide-legged, nipple-baring unitard or hand-painted jeans.
June 10-14, 8 p.m., 2008