In other news, today is my first no-smoke-iversary. Technically, I think it might be tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter, it’s been a full year since I quit smoking. I celebrated by pushing myself for a really fast run in the park this morning. I was on track to do 5 miles in under 40 minutes, but about halfway through I ran headlong into about 5000 marathoners going in the opposite direction and I was forced to take a break and figure out how to get around them.

I also looked at some apartments today. There’s one in Harlem that I really, really like, although the guy who is moving out just said this morning that he doesn’t plan to leave until June 1 and I have to be out of the dorm May 28 at the very latest, so it might be impossible.

I started reading Changeless by Gail Carriger yesterday. It’s the second book in the series after Soulless, which I read over Spring Break. A few lines had me laughing out loud in Sheep’s Meadow this afternoon.

I also took myself to see Clash of the Titans last night. I was a great date, but I did get a little handsy later. Anyway, I thought the movie was fine summer popcorn fare. They did exactly what they promised to do – update the original film with modern special effects. Same plot. Same characters. Same opportunities for respectable actors to chew the scenery as mythical gods and monsters and warriors.

Otherwise, school is school. It’s not as stressful as last semester, but it’s not as new and exciting, either. We had a rather intense Constitutional Law week, covering 3 weeks of material in 3 days. Even though it was interesting material (14th Amendment Equal Protection stuff), it was rough. Interestingly, we had more classroom resistance to heightened scrutiny of gender-based laws than we did to applying a higher standard of review for laws that negatively impact gays, lesbians and bisexuals (again, not an especially trans-aware discussion). Whatever, I mostly keep my mouth shut in class these days and listen, especially on issues where I feel passionate.

Anyway, I’m soaking up some sun and having some fun because once school starts up again, it’s all downhill to finals, then the writing competition for law review and journals, then summer interning, then registering for classes… aside from Memorial Day (when I will likely be settling into a new apartment), I don’t anticipate a long weekend again until the 4th of July.

We had 7 posters for the show this year (featuring the faces of faculty photoshopped onto pop culture references) and I designed 4 of them. Which one of my poster designs is your favorite?:

I know New York is a long trip for the majority of my bloggy friends, so I’ll try to point you to some video clips as soon as possible.

It has been a delightful experience putting together a show again, hanging out with people who instinctively think the same thing I do when someone working with the penal system refers to cell block 6. Hamming it up backstage. Notes from directors that will only ever make sense to this cast (“bigger and armier”). Silly costumes and props and sight gags.

Last night’s tech was a bit of a disaster (music cutting out mid-song, a sound effect cue that kept randomly appearing at the beginning of unrelated scenes, the addition of a huge and unmovable set piece in the middle of our backstage area for an undergraduate show that won’t open until after Easter, etc), but that’s usually a good sign that opening night will be phenomenal.

Wish me luck a broken leg!

I’m going to assume most of you raised your hands. (fuckers)

So, my roommates finished their finals yesterday and left for the holiday already. Since I now have the place all to myself, you know what that means… YouTube karaoke! From one of my favorite musicals ever…

I can’t resist occasionally mimicking the incomparable Ellen Greene at a few moments in this song. Particularly in her accent/pronunciation. Unfortunately, I’m also fast at times and had to randomly improvise add my own interpretive color to the song.

I used to have every single part of this song down pat. I’m clearly long out of practice (and not a big-voiced, belty black chick). This is not my best singing, but it was too much of a pain to re-shoot.

Anyway, for those who were asking… my Property exam yesterday was brutal. Without a doubt the toughest test I’ve ever taken (including the LSAT). I knew the material well enough, time management was a problem. My last exam of the semester is in Contracts and it’s on Monday afternoon. I have to admit, this was my least favorite subject this semester, and so I’ve got the most work to do in being prepared for Monday. Luckily, if past exams are any indication, the professor is more concerned with making logical arguments than mechanical memorization and application of a bunch of dusty rules (*cough*property*cough*), so there’s less drilling and memorization to do.

Anyway, reports of expected snow in Manhattan are getting more and more dramatic as the day wears on. I planned to go running in Central Park tomorrow, but I may have to settle for the treadmill if I do actually wake up to 85 feet of snow. Either way, I’m thinking a walk in the park with my camera will be required.

In the meanwhile, there are three more tracks that are must-haves for any holiday playlist:
I’ve Got a Boner for Christmas – Nerf Herder
Christmas in the Stars – Star Wars
Sleigh Ride – Star Wars

You’re welcome.

And a quick story… on my last holiday playlist post, I included an MP3 of Michael Arden singing the Joni Mitchell classic “River,” earning me the scorn of someone who wondered why I’d even bother with a cover when the Joni version exists… Anyway, I had to run to Starbucks last night to get some late-night study coffee and who should I see waiting on a drink? Yup. Michael Arden. (If I’m just crazy and it wasn’t actually him, it was his long-lost twin brother) And can you guess what was playing on my iPod at that very moment? Yup. “River” as sung by Michael Arden. So, of course, I got painfully shy, stared at him awkwardly, got my coffee and practically ran back to school. Since I so rarely get to venture off campus, this was my first random New York celebrity sighting (unless you count the Puntabugang).

Well, I should get some sleep so I can do a morning jog before the exam.

Happy Saturnalia!

And he’ll be appearing on Glee in the not-too-distant future. If you didn’t know, I’m a Gleek (which is publicity-department-generated hype-speak for “crazy obsessive fan”).

In the meantime, here’s a fun (language NSFW) video starring triple-threat and Buffy alum Tom Lenk. Incidentally, “Tom Lenk gay” is the third most common 3-word search term bringing people to my blog this month – after “Mario Lopez circumcised” and “vagina virgin gay” and coming in barely ahead of “Cory Monteith naked.” Now that I’ve used those phrases again, I can expect even more traffic!

From the opening scene.

Bartolomea and Benedetta about to get freaky – mystic trance style.

Benedetta on trial.

Two old priests have breakfast.

Rev. Hope Millens (the modern-day convention used to open the show) discusses Christian love.

The townfolk of Pescia, Italy.

The story is a wildly dramatized retelling of the life of Benedetta Carlini, a Catholic mystic and lesbian nun, who lived in Counter-Reformation Italy during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The work was a labor of love, although I cringe when I reread the script these days (it was amateur work, to be sure, but everyone was amazingly kind to my face… I have no idea what was said behind my back). I spent the better part of a year writing, rewriting, editing, defending, revising and tweaking that manuscript. I was heavily influenced by Angels in America that year and couldn’t write anything that wasn’t a call to arms for the LGBT community (some things haven’t changed much).

Then, suddenly, in a few short weeks at the end of summer, I went from fine tuning into full production with a cast that often challenged me but never questioned my ability to pull it off. I’d rewrite scenes that weren’t working. Linnea, in particular, used to really push me to go deeper in my understanding of these characters (she got so mad when I staged scenes on the fly without explaining “why” people were moving where they were). In a room with no air conditioning or air circulation, we staged a two hour show in a 6-foot by 6-foot stage at the center of a classroom turned into a “student theatre” in the round. Then we added theatrical lights and the cast wore heavy black robes. John even wore a fat suit for our first dress rehearsal (I let him ditch it after that, but I told him it was “payback” for the drama we’d had a few years earlier when we were roommates). I’m surprised any of them spoke to me again when it was all over.

Anyway, I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of amazing things in my life but I still rank Benedetta in the top ten proudest moments.

Chadaeos may have been holding on to the photos, but I still had a copy of the program:

Credits:
Written by Jere Keys
Original music by Mandee Bowler

Production Crew:
Stage Manager, Sound Operator … Mike Kari
Light Board Operator … Jamie Ficco

Quite simply, I love all these people. I’m glad that I’ve reconnected with many of them through Facebook and hope that the missing members of my cast google their names, find this entry, and get in touch.

ETA: Chadaeos was kind enough to scan all the photos he had in his collection and send them to me hi-res. Click through for larger sizes. If you’ll pardon my indulgence with 12 more pictures, I’ll throw in a hot lesbian kiss…

So, I trekked across the bridge and into Newport, Kentucky for two hours of vagina talk. If I didn’t already have six sisters who aren’t exactly afraid of talking about their bodies, several very close female friends, and a subscription to a few unabashedly feminist/womanist blogs, I suppose the show might have been shocking or uncomfortable or something. Instead, despite my lack of firsthand experience with the vagina, I found it to be pretty much what I expected: shame/pride, awakening, masturbation, rape, sex, lesbianism, rape, menstruation, smells, shaving, and rape.

That’s not to say it isn’t a worthwhile show. Clearly, there are still a lot of people who are uncomfortable talking about “down there.” And while I thought Falcon Theatre did a good job with the show, I felt the performances were a bit uneven (some actresses really excelled and others sounded like they just finished memorizing their lines this morning) and I really wished that the stories of Muslim women under the burqua, Bosnian rape camp victims, Japanese “comfort women” and Native American domestic rape victims weren’t being told to me with such righteous indignation by a group of six white (appearing) women and one woman of color. But that’s the Kentucky acting pool, I suppose.

Ultimately, The Vagina Monologues is a show that more people in Cincinnati need to see, but I fear the topless “gentlemen’s club” across the street may get a higher turnout. The show has performances at 8:00 p.m. on June 12, 13, 19 and 20. Reserve your tickets online.

Anyway, all this talk about vaginas apparently continued on into my arrival home with the news that Chaz (née Chastity) Bono, child of Sonny and Cher, has publicly announced his transition to a male body. Born with female genitalia, Chaz began transitioning to his male body earlier this year. It’s too bad that this news has given numerous gay men whose blogs I follow the opportunity to spout their typical transphobic nonsense. I don’t even want to know what the asshats at Faux News will be saying tomorrow morning, but I’m sure I’ll hear about it anyway.

As I tweeted last night: Elton John… Poison… Stockard Channing… Dolly Parton… Liza with a Z… this is how you do a medley, people.

to the closing number by Neil Patrick Harris:

Tweet: NPH’s finale number was almost as epic (in its own way) as the opening number.

You can get the list of winners somewhere else, but I’ll say that the best cast performances in the show belonged to Next to Normal, Hair and Billy Elliot. The low points in the show were the three performances from touring productions (Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys and Legally Blonde), which should have been dropped (especially Mamma Mia) for more highlights from new shows that didn’t quite make the nomination cut like [Title of Show] and 9 to 5 and 13.

ETA: I know that a lot of people were struck by the hottie Aaron Tveit, who sang opposite Stockard Channing in the opening medley and stars as the son in Next to Normal. The gods of theatre have smiled on us again this morning with the release of the publicity photo from the Allen Ginsburg biopic Howl (yes, after the poem of the same name) starring James Franco as Ginsbreg (right) and the same Tveit as Peter Orlovsky, Ginsberg’s spouse of 40 years.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,…

Announced today: Neil Patrick Harris will host the ceremony on June 7.

Without getting into a huge prediction/analysis post yet, based on the available soundtracks and various other previews (and in one case an actual live viewing), my favorites include [Title of Show], Hair, and Next to Normal.

I wish I were in New York now so I could check out the Broadway Impact rally with Tony-nominated hottie Gavin Creel.