“Fabulous” might be, literally, one of the most overused words in the English language, but there’s really no better way to describe “Arias With a Twist.” A theatrical experience that combines the outsized talents of Joey Arias and Basil Twist, the show has returned to the HERE Arts Center eighteen years after its debut.
If you ask Arias how the show came to be, he will tell you, “I was a huge, huge Basil Twist fan,” and Twist will say that “I’ve always been a super fan of Joey.” Although NYC was Arias’ home, he had spent six years performing in Las Vegas with Cirque du Soleil’s “Zumanity” as the Emcee (aka the Mistress of Seduction/Ceremonies) before he came back to the city.
“Basil and I had some wine and were talking,” Arias recalls. “He mentioned that there was an opening in three months at the HERE theater. And he says, I need to do something – do you want to do a show together? And I just melted!”
Twist, a MacArthur Fellowship recipient for his work as a puppeteer and director, has a resume that includes his Symphonie Fantastique, work with the American Ballet Theater, the Royal Shakespeare Company, an upcoming collaboration with a major opera house and Broadway productions such as “The Pee-Wee Herman Show” and “The Addams Family.”
Just one of those days…..Joey Arias living the dreamPhoto by Bob Krasner 
Joey Arias in the garden. Costume concept by Thierry MuglerPhoto by Bob Krasner 
Joey Arias in ‘Arias With a Twist’Photo by Bob Krasner
Arias, a favorite of the Downtown New York scene for decades, has performed with David Bowie and Klaus Nomi, as well as Ann Magnuson and the aforementioned Cirque du Soleil, whose show he wrote songs for. A regular fixture at the legendary Wigstock festival, Arias is equally at home singing Led Zeppelin tunes as he is with Billie Holiday, which he did in a show titled ‘Strange Fruit,’ which ran for over a year at the Astor Place Theater.
Arias recounts, “Basil asked, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I immediately said, I want to be abducted by aliens. I want to go on an acid trip and I want to be on a Busby Berkeley cake with a million legs. And he went, ‘Okay!’ And that was literally the beginning.”
“I wanted to do something special with Joey”, Twist says. “ I thought, well, I’m going to bring my grandfather’s puppets out of their cases and pair them with him”. Those marionettes, now almost 100 years old, were created by his grandfather, a bandleader in the thirties and forties named Griff Williams. Although Williams passed away before Twist was born, his grandmother Dorothy B. Williams gifted them to Twist, who loved them but had never used them before this show. His grandmother also made a donation to HERE, which resulted in the creation of the Dorothy B. Williams Theater, where the show is now being performed.
“We put the show together in two months,” Twist recalls. “We just went for it and made this show and surprised ourselves with how phenomenal it was.” After its initial run, it was revived – and revised – for the much bigger Abrons Arts Center in 2011 for another successful run.
Joey Arias in ‘Arias With a Twist’Photo by Bob Krasner 
Joey Arias running with the devilsPhoto by Bob Krasner 
Joey Arias in ‘Arias With a Twist’Photo by Bob Krasner
While the show has been shrunk down again to fit into HERE, Arias notes that it hasn’t really changed that much, although he mentions that the perception of it may have altered. “Everything means something different now because of the temperature that we live in now,” he muses. “I think the only thing that’s changed is that it’s twenty years later. I think I’m better and quicker than I was then. And Basil and I are more seasoned. So everything is a different taste to it.”
“Of course,” Twist adds, “There are small changes. When we made the show, George Bush was president. That was how different things were. We had a reference to George Bush at one time that was taken out, but the show is too timeless to update it to our current president.”
“You know,” Twist notes, “The show was built around Joey, like a couture gown, but what’s even more clear to me as I got back into the space is how much it’s built for that space. It’s built for the Dorothy Theater and it all fits in there like a glove.” One of the endearing aspects of the fantastic sets is the mix of sophistication and handmade DIY look. “You know, I try to not make things crooked, but sometimes they end up that way because they’re handmade and I allow that”, admits Twist.
While some of the tunes – a mix of standards, classic rock and originals – were already in Arias’ repertoire, two of them, ‘Jungle of Eden’ and ‘Lately’, were both written for the show by Alex Gifford of the electronic duo Propellerheads. And one, the Led Zep classic ‘Kashmir’, was given the green light by none other than Jimmy Page himself. “We were all dolled up and we went to Indochine to have a quick bite before a gig at Bar d’O,” Arias recalls. “Jimmy Page – who I had never met – sat down with us and talked about music and life for like an hour. He was fascinated with us! I told him that I wanted to do ‘Kashmir’ and he goes, ‘please do, very curious to see how you do it’.”
Basil Twist, Ricki Lake, Joey AriasPhoto by Bob Krasner 
Joey Arias at the HERE Arts Center performing in ‘Arias With a Twist’Photo by Bob Krasner 
Joey Arias in ‘Arias With a Twist’Photo by Bob Krasner
That song is the start of it all, the soundtrack to the first scene inside a UFO, which leads into a modern Alice in Wonderland journey that is never less than totally entertaining. Twist notes that “The show is a star vehicle for Joey Arias. It’s about a being who finds himself far from home and has to make their way home. It’s just a journey, it’s the hero’s quest, the journey home. And that the hero just happens to be Joey Arias, who is, you know, singular and unique.”
If you leave the theater raving about the experience, you won’t be alone. Cyndi Lauper and Ricki Lake have already checked it out and loved it. There’s no doubt that Twist’s wish for his audience comes true at every performance: “I want people to take away the imaginative possibilities of live performance and the thrill of being in a room watching people make something beautiful.”
For further info: basiltwist.com, @joeyariasnyc, @basiltwist3 and @ariaswithatwistnyc on Instagram.
Ticket info: here.org/shows/arias-with-a-twist-2026.
Everyone should have a mini-mePhoto by Bob Krasner 
Joey Arias performing with the 100 year old marionettes that were created by Basil Twist’s grandfatherPhoto by Bob Krasner