Entertainment

The bare essentials

Less is more. That might well be the Skivvies’ coat of arms, but there’s nothing to pin it to — this duo plays in their underwear.

Happily, Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley have both the chops and the abs for it. On piano, guitar, cello, glockenspiel, drums and ukulele — though not all at once — they perform pared-down pop, hip-hop and Broadway classics with a lightly classical touch. A recent show at 54 Below featured a mash-up of all things sultry, starting with Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” and moving on to “It’s Hot Up Here” (from Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George”) and Buster Poindexter’s “Hot Hot Hot.”

Though they’d been performing together — fully clothed — for 10 years, they discovered their skivvy selves when they put up their version of Rihanna’s “We Found Love” on YouTube in January.

“We were ready to record it, but I couldn’t decide what to wear,” says Molina, 32. “I was walking around my apartment in my bra and panties, and Nick said, ‘Just wear that. After all, we’re stripping down the song!’ ”

After all, it wasn’t as if they never performed nearly naked before: Cearley, 32, danced in his underwear three years ago for the one-man show “. . . And Then I Wrote a Song About It,” and Molina once played a stripper in Broadway’s “Rock of Ages” in a pink push-up bra and thong.

After Molina’s boyfriend gave them their name, the Skivvies started getting gigs at places like Joe’s Pub. Often they have Broadway-headlining guest stars like Laura Benanti, who recently flashed the crowd during a mash-up of “Bootylicious” and “Freak Like Me.”

They’ll open Broadway Bares tonight at Roseland, where they’ll be surrounded by people, for once, wearing even less than they are.

“Since I’ve made my Broadway debut, I’ve either performed with a cello or took off my clothes, or both,” says Molina, the cello-playing Johanna of John Doyle’s orchestrally stripped-down 2005 revival of “Sweeney Todd.” In “Nobody Loves You,” opening off-Broadway next month, she strips to her underwear as a bad girl who tries to lure “a good Christian boy” into a hot tub.

“I’m actually most comfortable behind a cello,” she says of her Skivvies shows. “It covers me the most. But if you do play a wrong note, people forgive you, because you’re in your underwear.”

Forgive them they do. Fans include “Running With Scissors” writer Augusten Burroughs, who directed a music video of their “Hardbody Hoedown,” a medley of raunchy hip-hop and rap songs. Granted, Burroughs is married to their manager, Chris Schelling.

Cearley calls his husband the Skivvies’ biggest fan. “There’s always a lot of hooting in the audience, and it’s always started by him,” Cearley says. “Lauren’s mom flew in for [last week’s] concert — and we dedicated our dirtiest songs to her.”