Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad

Sun., June 21, 8 p.m., $13-$15, The Note, 142 E. Market St., West Chester, 484-947-5713, nicejewishgirlsgonebad.com.

by Lauren Fleming

We don't normally condone the type of ethnoreligious jokes that Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad thrives on. But since they're being dished out by the very people who've been the punchline of the past, oh, 10,000 years or so, we'll make an exception.

Susannah Perlman, the troupe's ringleader, founded it as a one-woman act in New York City six years ago. Now an ever-changing spectacle of Jewish jokes and talents, it's since grown into what Perlman calls a "comedy-variety-extravaganza-bat-mitzvah-supreme," which features everything from burlesque and standup to spoken word and song.

Nearly everything in the show has a comic touch. In past performances, the girls have belted an ode to gefilte fish (which Perlman calls "Fear Factor for Jews"), done a Hasidic striptease and acted out Fiddler on the Roof parodies. "The show is super thematic. We do Yiddish songs that are spun off to sound like light FM and other acts that take inspiration from our Jewish backgrounds," says Perlman. "But that doesn't necessarily mean you have to be Jewish to like the show."

No, but it helps if your mother's ashamed of you.

Sun., June 21, 8 p.m., $13-$15, The Note, 142 E. Market St., West Chester, 484-947-5713, nicejewishgirlsgonebad.com.