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Nearly two decades ago, a nightlife legend and a MacArthur-winning puppeteer spent a couple of months building a show in a small black-box theater off Sixth Avenue. It became one of downtown’s great cult hits of the 2000s. This fall, the two of them are back in that same room.
The show is Arias With a Twist, the pairing of drag and cabaret star Joey Arias with puppet master Basil Twist. It’s running at HERE Arts Center, 145 Sixth Avenue (the entrance is on Dominick Street, a block below Spring Street), through Sunday, November 1, according to Playbill. The revival opened September 17, is presented by Tandem Otter Productions, and kicks off HERE’s 2026–27 season.
In a behind-the-scenes feature this week, the pair told amNewYork that the show started with a bottle of wine. Arias had just come back to New York after six years as the emcee of Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity in Las Vegas. Twist had an opening at HERE three months out and needed something to fill it. Arias said his wish list was to be abducted by aliens, to go on an acid trip and to end up on a Busby Berkeley cake. Twist agreed to all of it, and they finished the show in about two months.
The staging has family roots. The marionettes that share the stage with Arias are close to 100 years old. Twist’s grandfather, Griff Williams, a bandleader in the 1930s and ’40s, made them, and the puppets sat in their cases until this show. Twist’s grandmother, Dorothy B. Williams, later gave the donation that created the theater the show plays in today: the Dorothy B. Williams Theater inside HERE.
After the first run, the show was reworked for a bigger stage at the Abrons Arts Center on the Lower East Side in 2011. The 2026 version has been scaled back down to fit its original home. Twist told the outlet the production was made to measure for Arias, and that being back in the space showed him how closely it was also made to fit that particular theater.
The soundtrack mixes standards, classic rock and originals. Two songs, “Jungle of Eden” and “Lately,” were written for the show by Alex Gifford of the electronic duo Propellerheads. The opening number, a version of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” was personally cleared by Jimmy Page. Arias said Page sat down with him and Twist at Indochine on Lafayette Street one night and spent about an hour talking music before giving his blessing.
Asked what’s different after 18 years, Arias said the material hasn’t changed much but audiences hear it differently now. Twist said one line poking at George W. Bush was cut. Otherwise the show was left as it was.
Word of mouth has started. Cyndi Lauper and Ricki Lake have already seen the revival, amNewYork reported.
Tickets are available through HERE.
