Suggestive poses, summersaults, phallic symbols, someone’s bare ass and, yes, Debbie.

Making its Bay Area debut, “Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical,” directed by SF State graduate Eli Newsom, is a spoof of the 1978 pornographic classic by the same name, in which Debbie and her friends do the deed to raise money for a trip to Dallas, Texas to pursue their dream of becoming Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

“There are moments when it’s very funny, but also moments where the audience feels it and it’s just plain sexy,” Newsom said. “It’s just plain hot.”

Audiences agreed. Six of the play’s nine performances sold out.

The musical’s actors never actually have sex on stage, but the show’s uncut version, performed late at night on weekends, is racy.

“It’s a lot raunchier,” said Newsom. “There’s more skin, dirtier sex jokes, more cursing and improvised lines from the cast.”

Christy McIntosh, who played Debbie, said one night the cast got more skin than they wanted from an audience member who began masturbating three rows from center stage during an orgy scene.

“Luckily, I didn’t feel a bit weird about making out with a girl after seeing that,” said McIntosh.

Newsom felt the last two plays he starred in prepared him for “Debbie.”

“The production of a musical and then a spoof with a small cast and low budget made ‘Debbie’ seem natural for San Francisco audiences,” Newsom said.

The original’s bad acting, music and script made it a cult classic, which today is one of the five best-selling pornographic films of all time.

Changes for the San Francisco show made their production “a lot sexier” than previous perfor-
mances worldwide, Newsom said.

But the production’s salacious nature was not the only difference between Newsom’s production and the original musical production, first performed by a New York City company in 2001. Newsom’s adaptation of the play made modifications to the show’s music, the time period in which it is set and other changes in order to fit Newsom’s and the producers’ creative vision.

Instead of being cast in present day, like the NYC production, it was set in 1978, complete with tacky, nostalgic wigs.

A large majority of the show’s script came directly from the movie. The rest of the lines were improvised.

The most significant change made, Newsom said, was the addition of a live band. All preceding shows were done with a CD, an element Newsom disagreed with.

“I am a major proponent of live music in the theatre,” he said. “If you come to a live show you should hear live music.”

Show tunes from the original production of the play remain, with songs like “I Wanna Do Debbie,” “The Dildo Rag” and “Bang Bang,” but much more of that 70s style porn music, which Newsom calls half the fun of the show, plays during the show’s many scene changes.

Two of the four musicians in the band are current SF State music students: Luke Williams and Michael Shiono.

Shiono, who plays the electric bass, enjoyed taking part in “Debbie.”

“My role in the music is more significant than in the Broadway-style stuff,” he said, noting the “funky bass lines” that are typical of 70s porn music.

Both Williams and Shiono were given the liberty of choosing their costumes, which included “glued on
Tom Selleck style mustaches, big rimmed sunglasses and open velvet shirts.”

To inspire the band and show its appreciation, Shiono said, the cast bought them an untraditional gift basket filled with pornographic magazines, cigarettes and liquor.