Best collision of camp and Joan Crawford since Mommie Dearest
Beginning November 19, SpeakEasy Stage Company presents the Boston premiere of Johnny Guitar: The Musical, a 2003 Off Broadway hit based on the unlikely 1954 Nicholas Ray feminist Western. The film pitted Crawford's tough-sultry saloonkeeper against Mercedes McCambridge's propertied old harpy for control of a frontier town, with Sterling Hayden as the enigmatic title character whose immortal utterances include "There's only two things in this world that a real man needs: a cup of coffee and a good smoke." Nicholas van Hoogstraten's stage version, which won the 2004 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical, adds a score by Martin Silvestri and Joel Higgins that mixes 1950s country, lounge, and rock music into the cult classic. No word on whether John Kuntz will play Ernest Borgnine's character or if Ryan Landry, coat hanger across his shoulders, will stand in for Crawford.

SpeakEasy Stage Company's Johnny Guitar: The Musical, Roberts Studio Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, November 19 through December 18. Call (617) 933-8600.