Video from Don't Quit Your Night Job

A few posts ago, I talked about Don't Quit Your Night Job. We'll they've put some video from the show up...and this is the most family friendly one I could find. Enjoy!

CHEAP: the new off-Broadway

Everything is moving to New World Stages these days. Avenue Q was the first to make the leap from Broadway back to off-Broadway, and many other shows are finding their 2nd, and 3rd lives at New World Stages......which is conveniently next to my gym.

Yes, I was the girl in workout clothes at the 3pm matinee of Toxic Avenger today. I know what you were thinking....damn, she looks good in spandex.... I digress.

How does one describe Toxic Avenger? Best run-on sentence ever: A tongue-in-cheek farcical re-telling of a bad movie about a dork in New Jersey who gets toxic waste spilled on him and becomes a mutant superhero who is in love with a blind nymphomaniac librarian and tries to save his town from the evil mayor and her toxic waste accompanied by two male actors who repeatedly dress in drag and have better legs than I do. Starring American Idol's Diana DeGarmo. With a Helen Keller joke. or two.

With songs like "Thank God She's Blind" and "Choose Me, Oprah!", it's a comedy for the whole dysfunctional family.

CHEAP: A Pot o' Gold

A few weeks ago, Gina and I saw Finian's Rainbow in previews. If you are unfamiliar with the original show or movie with Fred Astaire.....anyone? Anyone? Didn't think so. Let me give you a brief and simple plot summary:

A mysterious Irishman, Finian (Jim Norton), and his beautiful daughter Sharon (Kate Baldwin), arrive one day in Rainbow Valley, a small Southern town of tobacco sharecroppers in the mythical state of Missitucky. The town has its own resident dreamer, Woody Mahoney (Cheyenne Jackson).

Finian's come to the town because he's stolen a leprechaun's crock of gold and plans to plant it in the ground so it'll grow faster (or else why would the Americans have rushed to dig the gold out of California only to plant it back in the ground at Fort Knox?). But trouble arrives in the form of Og (the hilarious and charming Chris Fitzgerald) the leprechaun, who has followed Finian to America and is bent on retrieving his gold.

Meanwhile, the bigoted Senator Rawkins plans to take the remaining parcel of land needed to stop the project - Woody's, which Finian has purchased to save from the auctioneer's gavel. But then the government's geologists reveal to the Senator that gold has been detected on the property! Rawkins and his men confront the sharecroppers to seize their land using as an excuse an obscure law making it a felony for blacks and whites to live together, but when Sharon, outraged at this bigotry, cries out while standing right over the pot of gold, "I wish to God you were black ..." all hell breaks loose as wishes come true.

Then the Senator turns black.....and did I mention that Woody has a sister named Susan the Silent who speaks through dance?

OK. OK. The plot is...awful. It's hokey and contrived, and I can't believe that The New York Times gave it such a glowing review. (Ever since Charles Isherwood raved about Rock of Ages, I've been wondering about his mental health.) However....I love the cast, there are a few iconic songs sung beautifully by the equally beautiful Kate Baldwin and Cheyenne Jackson, and Christopher Fitzgerald steals the show as the leprechaun whose pants get shorter as he becomes more mortal.

If you can get a cheap seat, and really, who can't during this time of the year, go see Finian's Rainbow. Have a drink or two before, it's a "Necessity". (That was my cheesy allusion to the show-stopping number sung with sass by Terri White.)

CHEAP: Famous People Making Idiots of Themselves for Charity

Forgive my absence......it's called graduate school.

Lots to catch up on. But since I'm awake at 2:23 on a Friday morning (that's Thursday night), I want to let you know why I'm up so late.

It's called Don't Quit Your Night Job, and it's the shizzle. Don't Quit is the brainchild of B'way all-stars Steve Rosen, David Rossmer, Sarah Saltzberg, and Dan Lipton. They invite all their fabulous and talented B'way friends for an evening of improv. Huh-larious. It's only $20, and the proceeds go to TDF Open Doors program.

With games such as "Musical Madlibs" (where Finian's Rainbow star Kate Baldwin had to sing "How are Things in Glocca Morra, with the lyrics altered by us, the audience), the party game (where Richard Kind from Spin City and Mad About You and everything else.. had to guess what musical each party guest was representing), and my personal favorite, You Sing So Awesome (where Montego Glover from Memphis had to sing the iTunes agreement, instructions for feminine products, and "Where the Wild Things Are").

Below is my favorite clip from DQYNJ