{"id":107142,"date":"2026-01-21T13:18:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T13:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/107142\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T13:18:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T13:18:06","slug":"channing-tatum-on-bringing-his-feminist-magic-mike-show-to-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/107142\/","title":{"rendered":"Channing Tatum on Bringing His Feminist Magic Mike Show to New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTo be part of Magic Mike<\/a> Live, the male dancers go through an extensive interview process that begins with the question: \u201cWhat\u2019s your relationship like with your mother?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCreated and directed by Channing Tatum<\/a>, the show is meant to offer a more empowering and feminist take on male strip shows. After launching residencies in Las Vegas and London, the show is now set<\/a> to come to New York City starting in October in a newly renovated space in the midtown theater district.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou are going to see naked men dancing. That\u2019s just what\u2019s going to happen, and hopefully they\u2019ll be on top of you at some point. But there\u2019s also so much more that\u2019s embedded into the show,\u201d Tatum said Tuesday to a crowd of hard-hat wearing media in the gutted venue space.<\/p>\n

\n\tTatum also says this immediately after the show\u2019s dancers had performed an athletic dance number that included ripping off their shirts and thrusting to Ginuwine\u2019s \u201cPony.\u201d But the actor insists that the show has little to do with male strip shows of the past, which he says could be embarrassing and degrading to women, and, despite sharing the name, little to do with the first Magic Mike film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe success of the 2012 film, which stars Tatum and which the team self-financed, felt like winning the lottery, he says. He believes it captured the public\u2019s attention, in part, because it was \u201cswept up in this 50 Shades of Grey movement.\u201d The idea for the film came as Tatum had wanted to make a film with one of his favorite directors, Steven Soderbergh, and told him about his 10 months working as a male stripper. But he calls it \u201ca bit of a feathered fish,\u201d in that it was a movie meant for women but was not entirely speaking to their desires, and spent the time afterwards picking apart the movie and trying to figure out what worked and what to do next.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe landed on the format for the live show, which launched close to a decade ago in Las Vegas, after sitting in an anonymous confession booth in midtown New York and asking women what they really want in life. The New York show will also feature five new numbers, with the dance style centered in hip-hop, in addition to Latin, Jazz, aerial and a water number.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur main character in the show is Mike, and he\u2019s this guy that kind of starts out with this innocent dude and learns all these lessons throughout the night and learns about himself and learns about women, but at the end of the show is this fully realized version of himself,\u201d said choreographer Alison Faulk.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe cast includes professional dancers from around the world who have worked with artists ranging from Doechii to Katy Perry to Matilda the Musical. In addition to being \u201cbeautiful men\u201d and having a good relationship with their mothers, the creative team looked for \u201creally kind, amazing men\u201d who could easily approach women.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not that easy to give a lap dance. To enter someone\u2019s space is awkward,\u201d Tatum said.\u00a0\u201cYou either kind of have it or you don\u2019t. And we\u2019ve found all the men who really are good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTatum himself may also make an unannounced appearance at a forthcoming New York show, as he says he previously learned the \u201cwater routine\u201d and has not yet been able to perform it. (\u201cThere\u2019s no version of me not doing this at some point,\u201d he said.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe venue, which was once an automat and more recently the newest location of the Copacabana club, is currently an active construction zone, as the crew plans to raise the roof up to allow for a 2.5 story working bar, a stage, with the audience sitting in the round, and viewing platforms on all levels.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe space is also set to feature two lounges, with Authentic Hospitality, the group behind Pebble Bar, Jac\u2019s on Bond, and Ray\u2019s, curating one for 200 people and Tatum curating a smaller lounge for 50 people (\u201cYou want to get a lap dance in private. You don\u2019t want to do it in an auditorium,\u201d Tatum notes.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe shows in London and Vegas are going into their eighth and ninth years respectively, and given the investment in the new space, the creative team is hoping the New York show is there for a decade or more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe hope to be here as long as Lion King,\u201d Tatum quips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To be part of Magic Mike Live, the male dancers go through an extensive interview process that begins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[47951,48318,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-107142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-channing-tatum","tag-magic-mike","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}