STRIP MAUL

What do you get when you take a bunch of weirdos, musicians, poets and performers, a 350-pound former truck driver and at least one sex addict from a straitlaced Midwest town and leave them to their own devices? Super Happy Funtime Burlesque, apparently.

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More About

• Corey Ruffin
• Grand Rapids
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

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“You know, Grand Rapids [Michigan] is a really conservative town, and so it was like all the freaks in town got together to form a kind of performance community out of this theater we work out of,” explains ringmaster Corey Ruffin. “So we did plays, poetry readings, that kind of stuff, and we did burlesque. Guess which one people actually came to?” Yes, the performance with the pasties.

But this is not your typical burlesque, Ruffin points out: The music is all original, the content is often hilariously satirical (the show takes on everything from BP to Jewish folk songs), and the star stripper is the aforesaid giant fat man. “He always gets the most applause,” Ruffin says.

The traveling striptease circus hits the hi-dive, 7 South Broadway, tonight at 9 p.m., and tickets are $10. For more information, go to http://superhappyfuntimeburlesque.com.
Sun., Aug. 15, 9 p.m., 2010