The course - at a cost of $95 - may be taught by a professional, but the students on this day have less lofty goals.
"I want to learn how to be sexy," says Emily Duffy, a 21-year-old Temple film student who not long ago joined the revue's pickup crew - meaning she picks up their discarded clothes on stage and flirts with the audience. "It helps boost your self-confidence if you feel like you know what you're doing."
Duffy's friend Amber Scott, 20, an advertising major at Temple, has a decidedly unsexy reason: "It's more fun than my statistics class."
Shea reviews what will be covered during this first of four weekly classes. The bump. The grind. How to show off certain parts of your body. And attitude, an essential component of striptease visible in the framed portraits of burlesque performers at photographer Dale Rio's Studio Noir.
It was Rio, publisher of burlesque magazine Shimmy, who suggested that Peek-A-Boo Revue hold a class in the East Falls space, where she also offers Pin-up 101.
"You have to believe you can do it. You have to believe it looks good," says Shea, 5-foot-5 and 118 pounds, whose black outfit contrasts with her precisely applied bright red lipstick and pressed-powdered cheeks. Somewhere, a production of the musical Chicago is missing a cast member.
"I spent many years being cute," Shea says. "I didn't think sexy worked in this body at all."
She does sexy now, which she demonstrates during a saxophone-heavy recording of "I Love Paris" (in the springtime).
Not a single piece of clothing - not even a thread - will be removed as part of today's class. And although clothing might be shed later in the course, the real stripping happens at the intermediate and advanced levels. Still, Shea is philosophical about the barest parts of her art.
