celebrazzi (celebrations-paparazzi)

he Fleur De Lis Divas brought co-emcee Brittney O’Bryan, guest star Jasmine SX, co-emcee Elizabeth Bouvier and the legendary Teryl-Lynn Foxx he Krewe of Petronius Cocktails and Crowns Again bash presented 2009 Tto the stage at Show Bar of the Year, Cowpokes, in New Orleans. royalty and ball theme of The Can Ball at Fredrick Guess Studio in New TOrleans. The Krewe of Petronius Bal Masque XLVIII is set for Sunday, February 1, 2009 at Scottish Rite Foundation. For more info visit http:// kreweofpetronius.tripod.com. (Photo: King Petronius XLVII Charles Turberville, King & Queen Petronius XLVIII Elect Arthur Alarcon & Fredrick Guess, and Queen Petronius XLVII Dawn Falgout-Loebig)

ne of the fab divas joins Oz GM Tommy Elias for the kick- utter’s Jimmy Kilgore and Ooff of Fabulous Friday Par- Dudley LeBlanc join April ties at world famous Dance Club of the CArtist of the Month Joshua Year Oz in New Orleans. The Toga Party Stearns (center) for his opening recep- featured Oilcan Harry’s own DJ Sid Licious tion at Cutter’s in New Orleans. direct from Austin, Texas.

nternational recording artist Kristine W wowed the mega crowd closing out Mobile’s annual Pride Fest weekend at Bienville Square in beautiful downtown IMobile, Alabama.

riday’s midnight Starlight Revue brought Entertainer of the Year Princesse ill assist Lord King XXV Michael Ducote for the Lords of Leather Toga Party Stephaney, show director Marcy Marcell, Miss Gay New Orleans America at JohnPaul's in New Orleans. The event raised funds to help produce the FPassion Armani Cassidine, Opal Vanderhurst and Starr Daniels to the stage BLords of Leather Bal Masque XXVI set for Sunday, February 22, 2009 at the at Starlight By The Park French Quarter Fest weekend in New Orleans. Alario Center. For more info, visit LordsOfLeather.COM. MAIN~16 of 52 • AmbushMag.COM • April 22-May 5, 2008 • The One & Only Official Southern Decadence Guide • SouthernDecadence.COM GayMardiGras.COM • GayNewOrleans.COM • GayEasterParade.COM • April 22-May 5, 2008 • AmbushMag.COM • MAIN~17 of 52 25th French Quarter Fest brings almost Classical music on the Southern a half million revelers to the Quarter Comfort Stage at the Old US Mint during French Quarter Fest

Getting some of Bywater Bar.B.Que’s tasty eats at French Quarter Fest Crack Whore 9 Chris Morton pops in for snap Monday Movie Night at the Phoenix paparazzi

Keith, Joe & Rusty workin’ Bywater Bar.B.Que’s booth at French Quarter Fest Marty entertains the daytime crowd at the Phoenix In The Spotlight ~ New Orleans

Easter Grand Marshal Orlando heads up the front line at Bywater Bar.B.Que’s Booth Kenny, Joe & Nat pose at the Phoenix The Toga Party kicks off Oz’s Fabulous Friday Night Parties with DJ Sid Licious from Oilcan Harry’s ~ New Orleans The Toga

Bywater Mike flippin’ his French Ted & Catt at Phoenix’s Quarter Fest burgers Monday Movie Night MAIN~18 of 52 • AmbushMag.COM • April 22-May 5, 2008 • The One & Only Official Southern Decadence Guide • SouthernDecadence.COM GayMardiGras.COM • GayNewOrleans.COM • GayEasterParade.COM • April 22-May 5, 2008 • AmbushMag.COM • MAIN~19 of 52 her activism and aerobics, it’s been easy audiobook. Diamond failed to transform to forget how great an actress Fonda is. the book into a worthy dramatic vehicle trodding the boards Liz Mikel, a self-described “big, angry, and, with little dramatic tension, its literary black woman” who earlier had ranted roots showed throughout its tale of young against insensitive doctors (“Why the flash- Pecola and her sad life. by Brian Sands light like Nancy Drew?”), stepped into an I’m not sure what else she could’ve E-mail: [email protected] indisposed Oprah’s shoes for the final, done with this material, but Adella Gautier’s newly-written VM of a big-hearted local static staging did not enliven things. Those woman preparing a metaphorical meal. scenes which Diamond actually drama- The Who’s Tommy difficult sometimes to catch all the lyrics. Though moving and wonderfully done by tized, however, such as when Pecola gets But this is the kind of vibrant, vital theater Mikel, I failed to see the vagina connection; her first period, Gautier brought alive at NOCCA that all of our local theaters should be in a post-Katrina world of increased sexual movingly. or all those keeping track of presenting. violence, Ensler’s focus struck me as As the suffering Pecola, Coti Gayles’ such things, NOCCA’s produc- somewhat misplaced. wonderfully transparent emotions brought Ftion of The Who’s Tommy was V To The Tenth at New If the evening ended with a rousing R- muted passion to this downtrodden char- not only the most exciting production of a E-S-P-E-C-T done by Faith Hill, Jennifer acter. Alozia St. John and Giselle Nakhid musical seen in New Orleans in the last Orleans Arena Hudson and Neville, its emotional high- gave authoritative performances as twenty years but it was as good as, and in ne cannot help but admire light was the introduction of Dr. Denis Pecola’s friends and the audience’s some respects even better than, the Broad- the magnificent movement Mukwege from the Congo who is doing guides. way version. OEve Ensler and her Vagina heroic work to heal women devastated by Despite The Bluest Eye’s flaws, I do Time has not dimmed the power of Monologues have spawned in the last ten violence. In that, and for all of its 2+ hours, admire ABCT for presenting this new work. this rock opera. If anything, its themes, years to end violence against women and V To The Tenth was a glorious event major and minor, of child abuse, pedo- girls. And bravo to her and her krewe for celebrating the humanist in all of us. Crimes Against Nature at philia, the transience of fame, the accep- selecting New Orleans, the “vagina of Backyard Ballroom tance of one’s true self, etc., are more America” as she put it (“love her fishy A Soldier’s Play/The Bluest resonant now than when it made its the- taste”) for a two day 10th anniversary cel- rimes Against Nature starts atrical debut some fifteen years ago. ebration benefitting local groups. Eye at The Anthony Bean off with an animated (in every Director Blake Coheley didn’t merely But would the play, first seen in a Community Theater Csense of the word) sex scene replicate the Broadway production but small off-Broadway theater hold up in an hat nine months from now, and keeps getting more outrageous as it brought his own genius to it, beautifully arena with a puff-puff celebrity cast? America may have its first black goes along. Billed as “A Love Story,” it’s an staging the show with a cinematic sweep Booooyyyyy, or rather, ggiiirrrllllll, did it! Tpresident makes Charles episodic road comedy with tragic flour- as one scene flowed into the next. His Beginning with a different kind of flood Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier’s ishes as when conjoined twins fall off a dances filled the stage with 30+ bodies than the Katrina-induced one, Doris Rob- Play of 1982, not so much passé as train and are eaten by alligators. exactingly conveying the change in youth- erts, along with Didi Conn, was ineffably hauntingly prescient in its ultimate hope A throwback to Off Off-Broadway in the ful moves from the 1940s thru the ‘60s. sympathetic as a woman who hasn’t “been for this country. Wilbert L. Williams’ grip- 1960s, CAN owes much to commedia As the “deaf, dumb and blind boy,” ‘down there’ since 1953.” ping production of this too seldom seen dell’arte, Punch & Judy shows, and under- Michael Moore could have been a bit more Kerry Washington and Christine Lahti work reminded us that though much has ground comics in its gender-bending cel- of the rocker but radiated an inner cha- were both fine as women dealing with, been achieved, much has yet to be done. ebration of sex, bestiality, death and dis- risma that served him best at the end of his respectively, a man who loved everything Taking place in 1944 on a Louisiana memberment. And if all that sounds like amazing journey as he beatifically ac- about vaginas, and a domineering hus- Army base, Soldier’s Play sets a murder something from an old Jerry Springer cepted the fate of his life. band who wanted his wife to go, um, mystery against the background of black show, Otter’s script sprinkles it with such Bruce Landry’s Captain Walker hairless. troops aching to be sent off to war to fight joie de vie that what could’ve been some- achieved the perfect balance of loving his Our own Charmaine Neville deliv- for their country. Two Captains, the white what twee emerges as wicked fun. child while being immensely frustrated by ered a heartfelt Do You Know What It Charles Taylor and the black Richard Against Dennis Monn’s pop art set on the situation he finds himself in. Samantha Means? and, detailing the things she Davenport vie with each other and against which a two-dimensional cactus, train and Helmstetter made Mrs. Walker a more missed when she returned home won- the system to discover who killed a black giant bong appear, CAN tells the tale of sympathetic mother than I recall from dered “Where was the UPS man? I wanted sergeant. Happy Daye (Monn) and Gaye Daye (Ot- Broadway though finally got to show off her to see those legs.” Amen to that! Williams’ direction took a little while ter). These lovers traverse the desert and astonishing voice and let loose her frus- Rosario Dawson and Kristen to come into focus, but once it did, it head to the Big Easy where the churlish tration in Smash The Mirror. Krepela, a Croatian actress, made the grabbed the audience and didn’t let go. Happy succumbs to NOLA’s evil charms. As the cheesy opportunist Uncle horrific use of rape in wartime Bosnia Along with his actors, Williams shaped a As Gaye, innocent if naughty at heart, gives Ernie, Matt Artigues strikingly portrayed a extremely touching in the profoundly sad true sense of the unit’s cohesiveness. away all sorts of bodily parts to support child molester with a brave characteriza- telling of one woman’s experiences. Anthony Bean was all righteous an- Happy’s drug habit, one has to wonder tion in one of Coheley’s most imagina- New to me, and very good in the Boys ger and spit’n’polish as Davenport and he why she stands by her slug of a man but tively staged numbers. And in the find of Don’t Cry mold, was a monolog per- was well-matched by Nick Thompson as eventually they triumph. While one wishes the show, Josh Smith took what had pre- formed by Calpernia Addams and Leslie Taylor. Genuine sparks flew between them the verbal dexterity matched the show’s viously been a throwaway role and cap- Townsend that was recently included in and if it got a little overwrought at times, visual wit, it’s all delightfully perverse. tured Cousin Kevin’s toughness, smug- an all-trans cast performance of The Va- without that level of engagement their As Gaye, Otter achieved true pathos ness, swagger and, ultimately, true affec- gina Monologues in . Ali debates could’ve turned awfully dry. like a weirded out Giulietta Masina from tion for his little cousin, drawing the Larter, Stéphanie Bataille and Amber Harold X. Evans added another fine Fellini’s movies. The androgynous Miss audience’s eyes to him whenever he was Tamlyn rockingly let everyone know not to portrayal to his gallery as the dead ser- Led, busty Veronyka Belleto and protean on stage. An acting/singing/dancing triple mess with them just because they were geant whose self-hatred has curdled his Dwight C. Byrd, whose Hump and Dump threat, Smith seems destined for a great wearing a short skirt. soul. just may be the strangest character(s) I’ve career in theater, ballet or both. In one of the evening’s highlights, Although all the soldiers were very ever seen on stage, all contributed to the In addition to the leads, the entire Lilia Aragon, Lela Costa, Shirley Knight good, Dui Moorman stood out as the tragic manic fun. large cast was topnotch with special and Monique Wilson represented a world- country boy C.J. Memphis. Without ever Weenie jokes; a dance on roller mention going to Christopher Newhouse wide sisterhood, and parsed, dissected, falling into caricature, Moorman infused skates; Mardi Gras-esque costumes by who made the 10 year old Tommy a sen- analyzed and reclaimed the vulgarisms the character with authentic life and an Otter & Oliver ; fabulous wigs tient if closed off being. cunt, coño (Spanish), fica (Italian) and underhanded intelligence rather than just from Fifi Mahoney’s; Thomas Little & Lisa Musical Director Jefferson Turner puki (Portuguese) to hysterically funny playing the stereotypical small town hick. vanWambeck’s dirty animation; a very coaxed a generally fine performance from effect. Everyone understood every word of It’s a mark of the production’s high well-trained dog; and nudity both real and his student band though they seemed what each of the brilliant actresses said caliber that even the two relatively small illusory, further add to the merriment. slightly more attuned to the score’s “mu- even if they didn’t understand the actual parts of the white officers who are impli- Not long after I saw Crimes Against sical” side than its rowdier “rock” one. language they were speaking. cated in the murder were played well and Nature, Otter and her husband were in a Julie Winn’s costumes well-defined the Another fun sequence was Jennifer convincingly by Matthew Madden and T.J. terrible car accident. I wish them the various eras. Gary Solomon, Jr.’s lighting Beals and three of The L Word women Toups. speediest of recoveries and look forward combined rock’n’roll spectacle with scene- demonstrating different kinds of moans With a persuasively lived-in set de- to seeing more works birthed from her setting theatricality to become another women make during sex; the African- signed by Chad Talkington, this was an- extravagant imagination. persona on stage. American moan, “Aw, shit!”, got the big- other commendable achievement for An- One could carp that without knowing gest audience response of the night. thony Bean Community Theater. the original song cycle, some characters’ And in what proved to be the evening’s Unfortunately, the same cannot be Advertise Today relationships were, especially at the be- dramatic highlight, gave a said for The Bluest Eye, Lydia Diamond’s Advertise Today ginning, unclear. And, unfortunately, some penetrating account of being in the deliv- adaptation of Toni Morrison’s novel which 504.522.8049 problems with the sound system made it ery room as a relative gave birth; amidst came off as a three dimensional 504.522.8049

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