If the Shoe Fits...
Burlesque and Old Fashioneds on the LES

Of all the things that can go on a stage, a scarcely clothed woman climbing a silk ribbon is the best...

... is a thing you’re about to think.

Introducing The Slipper Room, a superbly cramped Victorian house of live spectacle and hooch, opening Halloween night on the LES.

Gaga used to jump on stage here once in a while, pre-famousness. Then it closed. Now it’s been rebuilt from top to bottom as the kind of gold-brocaded, fleur-de-lis-walled, darkened maison de burlesque where you’d have clambered up next to Toulouse-Lautrec in Paris circa 1888. Think a more proletarian version of the Box.

Yes, you caught “burlesque” back there. That’s happening. As is comedy on Tuesdays, and a steady diet of trapeze artists, acrobats and the occasional band on other nights. There’s a piano and drum kit just off the stage. Everything’s exactly how you want it to be. Tom Waits may as well be banging on the keys in a bowler, sporting a monocle, holding some prop cymbals and shrouded in a cloud of purple smoke.

This is final-stretch-of-a-long-first-date territory (shows go every hour until 4am). Actually, come here for Halloween, post-whatever-the-hell-you’re-doing-that-night. We suggest trying for a table on the balcony, where you’re right on top of the tall, narrow stage. A disquietingly comely drag queen will tend to your Old Fashioned or stinger needs.

Just to be clear, that means she’ll serve you drinks.