A poetess well versed in vamp and camp

"Poetry is not up tight. Poetry is not boring. Rather it pushes the edge . . . I'm just trying to add to that great tradition of out-there-ness," said Jojo Lazar, host of "Salon Gone Wrong" at the Amazing Firehouse in Framingham Aug. 29.

She calls herself the Burlesque Poetess. When Jojo Lazar bursts onstage, she's usually clad in velvet and satin, her glamorous 1920s getup accessorized with evening gloves, a fancy hat, shiny baubles, and, well, quite a bit of original verse tucked into her lacy underthings.

"No venue's too small for me to take off my trench coat and say, 'Choose your own adventure. Shall it be the sonnet in my brassiere or the ghazal in my garter?' " said Lazar, offering an ancient Persian poetry form as her second alternative.

Poems, jokes, absurdist antics, garter snapping, and "accidental" fanny flashing typically ensue. It's a routine the 23-year-old Brandeis alumna refers to as "poetic recitation-joke striptease-comedic monologue shtick." And it's just one of many riotous, edgy, often scantily clad acts that make up Boston's thriving burlesque art scene, also sometimes called new cabaret or new vaudeville.

Tomorrow at 8 p.m., a slew of these professional provocateurs will take over the Amazing Firehouse on Hollis Street in downtown Framingham for "Salon Gone Wrong: An Evening of Poetry and Delinquency," hosted by Lazar. And by take over, we really mean take over.

Lazar is bringing a parade of punk contortionists, fire-breathing performance artists, burlesque divas, artsy comics, poets, musicians, "surprise guests and invisible guests," as well as the hugely popular, creepy, seductive alt-cabaret musical act Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys. (Really, any fan of the Velvet Underground, the Dresden Dolls, or those haunted merry-go-rounds that turn up in horror movies shouldn't miss Walter and the Toys, who elegantly merge the essence of all three.)

Sickert hosted a similar troupe at Amazing in March, and to the surprise of the arts venue's director, Michael Moran, they sold out the place - and turned up with a carnival's worth of acts that hadn't been planned.

"There's definitely lots and lots of energy in this group of people," said Moran. "It's almost cult-like. They're a cult of performers, and the whole place turned into a place from a different planet when they were here. There were fire eaters and jugglers and all kinds of crazy acts, and you just don't know what they're going to do."

For Lazar, a "Salon Gone Wrong" packed with what she calls "delinquent poets," "fictionauts," and "miscreants" is simply the party she says she always knew was going on at night after she went to bed. Only now she's part of it and wants everyone to know they are invited too.

"There have always been salons in every other era. Gertrude Stein hosted salons, and Picasso did as well. Even poor old Virginia Woolf had a culture of writers around the press her husband set up for her, so she was never alone," said Lazar. "And I've always wanted to be in a salon environment."

So last fall, Lazar went looking for that electric literary art scene most of us only read about after the fact. She found it in the dark clubs home to the new cabaret.

"Before I knew they were there, I was like a mad woman. I kept wandering around muttering, 'I just want to find a venue for vices. Where are these people? Where are they?' " she said. "And basically, by wandering Boston in very nice clothes that seem to burst at the seams, I found them, and now I have a salon. So you see, wishes can come true."

Since then, her artistic modus operandi has been to crash other acts on stage, butting in with a few of her poems and her fanny. After all, what else is a gal who likes to say she "triple majored in homelessness" (creative writing, English, and European cultural studies) to do?

For all her outrageousness though, Lazar is a serious poet, earning her master's of fine arts in poetry at Lesley College, and she has a mission.

"I am a ridiculous lounge act, and I host 'Salons Gone Wrong' (or oh, so right, depending on how you look at it), but I have a purpose," she said. "Poetry is not uptight. Poetry is not boring. Rather it pushes the edge . . . I'm just trying to add to that great tradition of out-there-ness." And if it takes a little vintage lingerie to do that, so be it. "If nothing, I make an impression," she said.

Also on the bill for "Salon Gone Wrong" are thrash jazz band the Outfielders (featuring members of Rev. Glasseye), burlesque goddess Calycadenia (Lainey of the Steamy Bohemians), comic musician Robby Roadsteamer, poet Michelle Olney, author/man-about-town Joshua Dunton, Nimue-squid woman, punk circus sideshow Odd Child Uprising, and kamikaze hoopers.

"Salon Gone Wrong" is 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Amazing Firehouse, 160 Hollis St., Framingham. Tickets: $15, students, seniors $14. Limited number of $10 presale tickets are available via requests at burlesque.poetess@gmail.com. 508-405-2787, amazingthings.org.

ROCK OFF MAIN STREET: All summer they've had extra time to jam in their basements, try out new songs in their garages, and compose new lyrics from the ether on lazy summer evenings. Now the area's teen rock bands are ready to strut their new stuff at what will likely be the loudest event of the back-to-school season: Rock Off Main Street.

Starting at 7:30 tomorrow night, the long-running series sponsored by the Center for Arts in Natick presents a host of young talents in the first of six monthly installments. They may still be budding but these are not awkward beginners. The bands, which come from throughout the area, are surprisingly slick.

Performing tomorrow are One Size Fits Most, Astonishing Tales, Six Day Slide, and TRIPMYND. Listen to music clips at my-space.com/rockoffmain, which also lists bands slated for future shows. Youths interested in behind-the-scenes roles are welcome to volunteer.

Rock Off Main Street is 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Center for Arts in Natick, 14 Summer St. Tickets $8. 508-647-0097, natickarts.org.

GO, GO, GO JOSEPH: If only for the Elvis scene, Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical hit "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" is a show worth watching over and over. So it's a good thing that the Metrowest Family Theater of Sudbury is squeezing in one more production of this foot-stomping, tap-dancing, cowboy-boot-kicking romp through the Old Testament, with three shows this weekend, before the end of summer (when many of their young actors head back to school).

With a cast of 50 youths and adults, direction by theater founder Samantha Hammel, snazzy costumes, and a live orchestra, this is a show with enough dazzle for all ages. Moving out of the troupe's usual school-based location, the show is onstage tomorrow and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon in the comfy confines of the Charles Mosesian Theater in the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown.

"Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" will be performed at 7 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St., Watertown. Tickets: $16, or $20 for premium reserved seating. 978-443-2400, mftsudbury.org.

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