NO-CLOTHES POLICY NOT ONLY WILL SAVE COSTS, IT WILL HELP BALLET TAP INTO "LECHEROUS OLD MAN" MARKET
PITTSBURGH - Last month, the financially troubled Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre decided to use canned music during its performances instead of hiring musicians, a move expected to save the Ballet $500,000 per year.
Now it plans to save another $20,000 -- by ditching the dancers' leotards.
"The ballet is supposed to highlight the human form, so leotards are a wholly unnecessary cost," said the Ballet's Executive Director Velveeta Warhol-Sammartino. "Besides, discarding the dancers' clothes will allow the Ballet to tap into a new demographic -- namely, the 'lecherous old man' market," she said.
But Bob Haas, owner of nearby gentleman's club Bare Elegance, is staunchly opposed to the move and intends to do something about it, even though Haas admits that he has never attended a performance of the Ballet. "It is shameful that those highly artistic girls would be forced to do their delightful pirouettes, and what have you, without leotards, thus exposing their delicate bodies to the chill of that drafty theater," Haas said in a written statement. "I am therefore donating whatever funds are necessary to clothe these talented lasses so that art lovers, such as me, will have no need to attend the ballet in order to see naked women."
Haas denied that his philanthropy is motivated to stem competition for Bare Elegance. "My only goal is to keep those fetching dancers completely healthy, for the sake of the arts," he said.
But Haas' philanthropy doesn't extend to the Ballet's male dancers, who insist they need to wear at least some clothing in order to provide them support. "Otherwise, when we do The Nutcracker," said dancer Pierre Knox, "it quite literally will be 'the nutcracker.'"
