My autograph-hound pal Rich invited me to see My Name is Asher Lev at the Westside Theatre, based on the beloved Chaim Potok novel about an Orthodox Jewish boy born with artistic talent who must convince his strict parents to allow him to fulfill his potential in spite of his religion. I'd heard it was good so it wasn't hard to convince me to go (for free...thanks, Rich!), but Rich's motives were not the art but his religious pursuit of autographs; in this case, he was looking to snag Mark Nelson from Asher Lev and also Marilyn Sokol, who was appearing in Old Jews Telling Jokes in the same space.
Nelson as adorkable "Ned" in Friday the 13th
Nelson, now in his fifties, appealed to Rich's horror appreciation, having appeared in Friday the 13th (1980), while Sokol, 75, was a draw for having had the misfortune of appearing in Can't Stop the Music that same year. I think Rich was worried they'd rebuff him at the stage door (some actors resent being remembered for their least accomplished but sometimes most loveable performances), so having me along as a buffer and also having tickets to one of the shows was a way to ensure we wouldn't be seen as those autograph hawkers who hop from event to event stalking stars and expecting them to participate in a cottage industry the profits from which they're not allowed to share.
Last night, we attended Michael Musto's Disco Extravaganza at 54 Below, a heart-filled effort to revive the disco era decades after its death under mysterious circumstances. (Did it die out naturally like the dinosaurs, or did those "disco sucks" schmucks commit foul play?) It was a lot of fun, even if the prominent stage in such an intimate space confused some attendees about whether they should be dannnncing, yeah!, or watching the performers. Holding it on the site of the original studio 54 was as good a way as any to conjure up the ghost of Disco Sally.
Orfeh was the opposite of "meh"
The evening began on point, with the bow-tied doorman bluntly but amusingly informing those who'd arrived with extra plus ones—even the esteemed photographer Patrick McMullan—that there was no way they were getting in. He was a one-man velvet rope!
Musto said he was fulfilling his dream of bringing people together to appreciate disco
Inside, McMullan and others were snapping photos of those attendees who'd arrived in '70s wear. For anyone keeping score, the main drawback to polyester boogie shirts that haven't been worn since 1978 would be the smell.
Musto celebrating Halloween at Studio 54 in 1979
Nobody was giving blowjobs in the corner, coke dust wasn't raining from the roof and we didn't find any money hidden in the walls, but the 90-minute set list was satisfying, featuring the cruise-ship-ready stylings of Elektrik Company (great singers, great at shaming us for not dancing), the incomparable Orfeh (who blew us all away with her "Come to Me" and "Don't Leave Me This Way") and a rockin' and ramblin' "Y.M.C.A." by original Village People person Randy Jones.
Randy said the glitzy setting made him feel like Liza, "...only younger!"
Musto himself, did a carbs-in-cheek, fatphobic (wait, that's an anachronism if we're back in the '70s) send-up of "I Will Survive" but was singing, seriously singing, on "Macho Man" and "Last Dance" (he noted he'd be a disco queen like Donna Summer, except gay-friendly, then asked, "Too soon?"). I'm not saying his vocals were a revelation, but he sounded better than Ethel Merman on her disco album.
Hey, you guys!!! It's the Elektrik Company...
It was cool enough hearing those songs performed live, and then Tish & Snooky—original backing singers from Blondie and Downtown legends who were in the Drop-Outs and the Sic F*cks before opening Manic Panic—really lit a fire under us with their "Freak Out."
C'est chic to "Freak Out" with Tisk & Snooky ("the one with no STDs," Musto clarified)
Steve Rubell would've been proud. And horny. And in need of some blow. After the fold, check out some of the musical highlights...
Check out my full Broadway Bares "Winter Burlesque" coverage from yesterday by clicking here, and see all the Work Unfriendly images here. But above, click through a fat gallery of sexy shots that you could conceivably view while your maiden aunt peers over your shoulder.
Last night was the Broadway Bares installment "Winter Burlesque," a pastiche of past numbers and new naughtiness that blew hot and hotter on a cold New York night. And to think, it was all to benefit a good cause—Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
Plenty of cock 'n' tail for the two-cocktail minimum
Not saying I stole this life-sized Guto Bittencourt poster, just saying it disappeared
I arrived less than an hour early and was still one of the first in the house, the house being XL on W. 42nd across the street from my apartment. I planted myself directly in front of the catwalk's end, just behind the section of the club that had been roped off for higher-paying guests who wanted to watch the show from a seated position like civilized perverts. (I got to snap another photo of XL's hottest server, at left, waiting on some.)
Matt Anctil & furry friend were swapping gropes for raffle ticket sales
NOTE: Low-res videos of some of the show's hottest numbers are here. Hi-res and ultra-dirty photos from the show that I am not allowed to reveal on my blog are or will soon be available here. (Follow my tumblr, please.)
I was next to the house videographer and some guys who shyly confessed to being Bares-backers for many years—they own all of the official DVDs and know many of the dancers' names. If only they knew my own past with the show, they'd have realized they were in good company.
And baby got back
The show started with a bang—stunning Judah Gavra emerged, let his coat slip away to reveal his naked ass and then gestured to the title card revealing that the show's first number was to be "Burlesque is Back".
Little Ang
Angie Schworer sang the number, a saucy celebration of the art of getting naked on a stage, with the right amount of humor and bawdy sexiness. She reminded me of Wendi McLendon-Covey meets Jane Krakowski. And speaking of crack, she and her bevy of beauties didn't skimp on the skimpy outfits.
Wenslawski's "Big Hunk o' Love"
"Fringe Benefits," a classic Bares number with an Elvis theme, may have been performed before, but lead dancer Steven Wenslawski made it his own and made the audience his bitches while he was at it. When he shook his butt at us, it was with all the confidence of someone who knows that while beauty is only skin deep, it's still awfully nice to have it.
I spent half my day trudging around in the bitter cold running errands, including walking from 42nd/11th to Madison/56th and back to get my camera fixed—only to be handed a business card and sent away once I got there.
So tonight, almost nothing was gonna drag me away from cuddling with two exceptionally hairy Shih Tzu dogs.
Except Holland Taylor.
She was participating in an "Inside Look" event at The Greene Space, and I would have swum across the East River for that.
Ms. Taylor—with whom I've been fascinated ever since her delicious role on Bosom Buddies—has written Ann, a Broadway-bound, one-woman show about the late, great Ann Richards that opens in March. Richards, a force in Texas politics who went from being its most successful state treasurer to an incredibly popular Democratic governor after exploding onto the national stage with her 1988 keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. Renowned for her zingers and her vision as a progressive, she died of esophageal cancer at 73.
Taylor took the part of "Ruth" on Bosom Buddies to raise her profile for Broadway parts
The evening was a delight. Taylor, 70, has a regal air and elocution that perfectly frames her wit, her broadly engaging sense of story-telling and her intelligence. She seems like foreign-born royalty, not a chick born in Philly. The long and short of it is: She shits fabulousness.
Actually, to hear her speak of Ann Richards's magnetic charm and personable nature, it was hard to imagine who but Taylor would have played her—but it almost didn't happen. Taylor recalled wanting to do something with the governor's life story but had to remind herself, "You know people who produce things. You know George Clooney, Tom Hanks." She said she pulled over to the side of the road while driving one day because she was so overwhelmed with a rush of ideas on how to stage Ann—though it's been through several major overhauls, the basic structure of the show was born in what sounds like a 15-minute fever dream, one during which Taylor was wide awake.
WQXR's Elliott Forrest provided the Q, Taylor the A
She's performed the show in Texas, Chicago and D.C. to enthusiastic reviews. But she made clear that the most important reviews have come from Richards's family. I asked Taylor if she'd been terrified performing Ann for the governor's family the first time, and she said she'd told the family—who had cooperated with her research—that she did not expect them to attend her show; after all, this had been their dear mother. But attend it they did, and the day after she opened, Richards's two sons wrote her a glowing note of approval. Taylor became emotional remembering this (I wasn't trying to "Barbara Walters" you, Holland!), saying it freed her to never again worry about whether she was getting the real Ann—if she couldn't rely on the assurances of the Richards offspring, on whose could she rely?
It was a great talk, one that is available in its entirety (my question toward the end) here. Taylor also remembered Bosom Buddies fondly (it's where she met the man who would go on to produce Ann!), said she has been furiously texting with Tom Hanks about their upcoming concurrent Broadway runs (Hanks will appear in The Lucky Guy with their Bosom Buddies bosom buddy Peter Scolari) and said that as a part of the cast of Two and a Half Men, she spent time worrying whether Charlie Sheen would be alive from day to day during his mental break. (She says she is very fond of him, and that everyone on the show felt for him.)
I'm actually wind-burned from today! (Or is it a tan from her star power?)
After, she was kind enough to pose for a picture with me and to sign two autographs—one for me and one for my e-friend Kevin, who sends me wonderful tips for the blog as well as bringing this event to my attention in the first place.
José and I were lucky enough to be invited by a wonderful blog reader to Maureen McGovern's Christmas-themed cabaret show Home for the Holidays at 54 Below (254 W. 54th)—and we left with our stockings stuffed
with McGovern's lovely voice, great food and another delightful story of how horrible people can be.
I'd never been to 54 Below, which is the cellar part of the old Studio 54 nightclub. As such, it was exciting to be ushered in with no velvet-rope hassles. Eat your heart out, Bianca Jagger.
We had a prime seat right off the stage, which gave us a spectacular view of McGovern in front of us as well as of an over-the-hill strumpet behind us. The strumpet brought enough cheek filler to share with the class and spent the entire evening loudly chatting with/macking on her even further over-the-hill mark, who looked like a straight Roy Cohn. They were near enough that we could hear their every comment and disturbing slurp, but too far away for me to effectively shush them, so we just had to shut them out. Nobody else in the room made a peep all night.
But enough about them.
McGovern drowned them out with her command of the stage. I'd been expecting a staid Christmas program but we got anything but that—the 63-year-old diva was able to swing back and forth between expected standards (an a cappella "I'll Be Home for Christmas") to lesser known gems (José and I suspect a few others teared up over the powerful, religious-themed "Mary, Did You Know?") and right on over to charmingly goofy novelties like Tom Lehrer's "Hanukkah in Santa Monica".
Had a lot of fun at the A Better Holiday fundraising event for the Ali Forney Center at XL Nightclub,
and came away feeling good after a weekend of so much bleak news.
The Center was hard hit by Superstorm Sandy, but director Carl Siciliano told everyone that their new place will actually be even better than what they had before, including being open 24/7.
It seems to be a case of something good coming from something bad. Maybe there is a case to be made for optimism after all.
Carl Siciliano: The #1 hottest charity director?
Carl also told me he'd seen my list of hottest TV actors around a lot and suggested I do one of hottest charity directors. Where do you think he'd fall on that list? (And how long would it be?)
Randy alone, with Carl and performing
Before the show, I spoke briefly with Queer as Folk gay icon ("People say that and I don't even know what that means," he laughed) Randy Harrison, who was all smiles, and with dashing Max von Essen, currently wowing them in Evita...at least until January. (I actually really like this production, so if you haven't seen it yet, give it a try.)
Just got back from Chris March's Butt-Cracker Suite: A Trailer Park Ballet at HERE in NYC. It's exactly what the title says, including interludes informed by projections of "Dawn Davenport"/Divine's cha-cha-fueled rage, Linus teaching Charlie Brown about Christmas, the leggy lampshade scene from A Christmas Story and more.
March plays "Clara," a sort of plus-size Honey Boo Boo, and the central figure in the park, where a myriad of fanciful creatures—representing Miracle Whip, Spam and other trailer-trash signatures—dance.
