Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley on Ten Years of “A Skivvies State of Mind”
In January 2012, Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley decided to post an acoustic cover of Rihanna’s “We Found Love” on YouTube. As they were setting up the camera, Molina couldn’t figure out what to wear, so she walked into the living room in her bra and asked Cearley for a suggestion. “Why don’t you just wear that?” he joked, a play on the duo’s stripped-down arrangement. Lauren’s then-boyfriend shouted from the other room, “you should call yourselves The Skivvies!” And the rest is history.
Since then, The Skivvies have brought their award-winning, infectiously fun, rambunctious act across the country. Their videos have garnered millions of views on YouTube and they’ve performed their unique blend of pop, rock, and musical theater on TV and in concerts from New York to Los Angeles. While the band’s vision and goals have grown a lot since its inception, they’ve never deviated from their quirky medleys, joyous party atmosphere, and unofficial underwear uniform.
Molina and Cearley met in 2003 while getting their equity cards on a children’s theater tour and the two bonded while performing “in cafetoriums at 7 a.m. to elementary school students.” After the tour, both found success on stage – Molina starred in the John Doyle-directed revival of “Sweeney Todd” and the OBC of “Rock Of Ages” while Cearley toured with “All Shook Up” – but both kept in touch and would occasionally perform in each other’s concerts. Since The Skivvies took off, they’ve divided their time between concert gigs and musicals, both together and apart, including “Desperate Measures,” “Pageant: The Musical” and “Sex Tips for Women from a Gay Man” off-Broadway and many regional credits including “Assassins” at Yale Repertory Theatre and productions of “Little Shop of Horrors” at Cleveland Playhouse, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and Portland Center Stage. In 2019, the two staged a reimagined version of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” using a group of six actor-musicians.
To celebrate The Skivvies’ tenth birthday, I spoke to Molina and Cearley about their shared history, favorite on-stage moments, and what’s next for the beloved group. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How does it feel for The Skivvies to be turning ten?
Nick Cearley [NC]: We’re both very proud of what we’ve done. It’s interesting to look at the first couple of years and see what our arrangements were and how we’ve evolved. Our first show was just Lauren and I sitting in chairs with no band. I was on the ukulele; she was on guitar or cello. Now, we have a big band. We’ve become much bigger with our arrangements and the production value.
Lauren Molina [LM]: All these different quirky instruments that have come into our mix over the years. Nick got a kalimba for Christmas and that came in. Then boomwhackers, which are these tubes that kids use in elementary school. Basically, whenever we can get our hands-on, we’re excited by. The evolvement of instrumentation, of personnel, and of traveling. Now we’re international. We’ve gone to Mexico!
NC: All these years, we wanted to record our music and we finally got to do that during the pandemic in our ninth year. We finally made an album, which was really cool. It’s so big sonically.
LM: Also, just the people along the way who have made it what it is. One of the most rewarding parts for me is creating with Nick and collaborating with the hundreds of different people who have helped us to create comedy and bad-ass arrangements that nobody would ever think to put together.
You are known for wildly inventive mash-ups, what’s your process for figuring out Skivvies material?
NC: It really depends. Sometimes there’s a story we want to tell. Other times it could be a recurring musical theme or songs that have the same chords. if it’s something we’re arranging for ourselves or if we’re doing it for a guest and they have an idea.
LM: We call ourselves a 24-hour business. Sometimes we’ll just wake up at two in the morning and text each other an idea. Then the next day, we flesh it out or say, who would be a good person to sing this? Early on, we had Ashley Brown-
NC: I knew you were going to say her! That’s so funny.
LM: We had sung [Rihanna’s] “Umbrella” before and mashed it up with “Singing in the Rain.” But because she was Mary Poppins and had her special Mary Poppins umbrella with the parrot head, her interpretation was singing this sexy umbrella song to her actual Mary Poppins umbrella. It was amazing. We’ve done very specific things like that. Right out of the gate, we liked to take raunchier hip-hop songs and turn them into ballads or hoedowns. Removing the sexual nature and making it fun or sweet. Really exposing the absurdity or the irreverence of the lyrics. We have our classic Skivvies show, which is any song goes. We also have specific ones, like the “Rocky Horror” show, a “Little Shop” show, we have a holiday show, and a Valentine’s Day show. We constantly create new material. No show is ever the same. There are always different people, different songs. It’s never stale.
Especially in the beginning, did you ever get push-back from guests or audience members about performing in your underwear?
LM: For us, it feels like a costume. It isn’t sexualized. People say, “well, it probably has a shelf life…Right?” We’re like, sure, but maybe we won’t always wear skivvies. How hilarious would it be if we were 80 years old performing together in a nursing home? We’ll be like—who is that 85-year-old cabaret singer?
NC: Marilyn Maye? I think she’s like 93. Yeah. Let’s be the naked Marilyn Mayes. [Laughs].
LM: There was a tweet that went around a few years ago criticizing us for only having ripped, white boys [join us]. No. We pride ourselves on body diversity and body positivity. Sure, we have people with rippling abs. Those people like to take their clothes off [laughs]. But truthfully, we love all ages and body types. We feel like it’s a celebration of freedom on stage that many people don’t get when they are just in a show. As Nick likes to say, The Skivvies are a state of mind. It’s not about having a snatched body. It’s nothing like that. It’s about the music and the energy and the fun.
NC: We ask people we think have similar energy. We don’t really care what anyone wears. Everyone that joins us plays the game how they want to play the game. But that tweet Lauren referred to was one of the only negative tweets we’ve gotten about that. We have been lucky. The secret is that we are in on it. We’re laughing at ourselves first.
LC: We’re in on the gimmick. That’s the whole point.
What are some of your favorite Skivvies memories?
NC: We have a lot. The audience is different every place we go. Whether it’s a beachy place like Mexico or a cruise ship or a club here in New York. All our concerts are amazing and we’ve had some hilarious moments and bloopers. One of my balls fell out on stage and it was photographed by Playbill. I didn’t know it until the next day when I was scrolling through pictures. I had to write Playbill, “please remove that picture of my balls” [laughs].
LM: For the last seven years, we’ve performed at the Florida Thespian Festival. [Pre-COVID,] we performed for 4,000 kids. We feel like it’s a Beyonce concert. The kids are screaming; they’re singing along to all the lyrics. They’re holding up their phones like lighters. The first time was like an out-of-body experience. The first time Lena Hall sang with us, she did this arrangement of “Radioactive,” where we started in gas masks. We wore masks before it was cool [laughs]. It was just electrifying and epic. We performed with Lin-Manuel [Miranda] and he wore Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pajamas and did a whole Outkast medley. Then he then asked us to do Ham4Ham for him. That experience of going out to thousands of people on the street was just next-level joy.
NC: We’ve also been fortunate enough to get asked to do musicals together. It’s always fun to take our Skivvies brand and do “Rocky Horror” in Bucks County or “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” at the Cincinnati Playhouse. That was a dream come true to create and re-conceive a classic in a Skivvies way that’s not The Skivvies.
Are there any projects you really want to do next?
NC: Lauren’s mom really wants us to do a holiday album, as do I.
LM: We need to organize it and get into a studio. We have so many great holiday songs that are absurd and fun. We’ve talked to certain guests about making an EP. “Lena Hall With The Skivvies” or “Laura Benanti With The Skivvies.” These guests come back time and time again. At this point, we have so many all-stars and incredible arrangements that we’d need to have an album with 60-70 songs.
NC: Nick [Adams] could do an entire evening of just his songs. Other goals for us would be to do our actor-musician “Charlie Brown” again and again, as well as putting our concept on other shows. Re-conceiving classics is always something that sparks joy and gets my juices flowing a lot.
What has being in The Skivvies meant for you?
LM: We’ve been so lucky. We’ve never had a publicist and have had wonderful write-ups in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It feels wonderful to have something that is our own. We’re not waiting for somebody else to give us a job — sure, maybe someone to book us — but it’s something that we control and create. That’s a tricky part about being an actor. Nick and I to be fortunate enough to have careers where we can do theater and then balance it with Skivvies shows. In the last couple of years, when theater has just fallen away, Skivvies became our main thing and our main source of and income and creativity. We also created a couple of radio plays together; we did a brand-new version of “The Importance of Being Earnest” with a three-person cast and “It’s A Wonderful Life.” All this to say is that Nick and I have become not only The Skivvies but creative collaborators. We really pride ourselves on the joy of coming together, inclusivity, and making music that brings people happiness. It’s always important, but right now, we all need pure joy and entertainment. Togetherness.
For more on The Skivvies, visit: www.theskivviesnyc.com or follow them on Facebook and Twitter. You can also follow Lauren Molina on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, where you can find ten years of Skivvies performances. You can follow Nick Cearley on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The Skivvies will next be performing March 2nd in San Diego, March 4th in Las Vegas, and March 7th in New York City