A stage review from The Movie Snob.

Desperate Measures (book and lyrics by Peter Kellogg, music by David Friedman) (B). It's not every day you get to see the world premiere of a new musical, but Friday night I did just that at the Irving Lyric Theater. From the playbill I gather that it's based on Shakespeare's comedy "Measure for Measure," a play I am totally unfamiliar with. It's a fun story set in the Old West -- young Johnny Blood is going to be hanged for killing a man in a fight over a saloon girl named Bella, even though it's entirely possible he acted in self-defense. The kindly sheriff seeks out Johnny's sister, who is about to take her final vows to become a nun, and persuades her to go to the governor and plead for a pardon. The unscrupulous governor agrees -- if Sister Helena will spend the night with him. Humorous complications ensue as the sheriff tries to come up with a plan to save both Sister Helena's virtue and Johnny's neck. The songs and music are good, as were the performances. The one sour note was the fifth and only other character in the play, a drunken priest who has lost his faith after reading Nietzsche. He is painfully unentertaining, and the playwrights should seriously rethink his whole shtick. Still, on the whole I really enjoyed it -- I may even go back before the end of its run.