Carnival promises wild time
By Mary Ann Bragg
mbragg@capecodonline.com
August 14, 2010 2:00 AM

PROVINCETOWN — The annual Carnival week in town could shake the leaves off the trees this year with its “Jungle Fantasy” theme.

The traditionally raucous and eye-popping week of events and public displays of imagination-gone-wild begins tomorrow.

First, prepare your costume: Jane, Tarzan, King Kong, a coconut, a lion, a tiger, or possibly Tattoo or Mr. Rourke of the old “Fantasy Island” television show.

Then hit the streets.

There’s the “Banana Boat” and “Birds of Paradise” boat cruises and a “Tarzan’s Temptation” bar party. Dance in clubs at the “Jungala Jive,” “Jungle Heat” and “(Forget Tarzan) Jane Loves Jane” parties. “Lady HaHa of the Jungle,” otherwise known as comedian Kate Clinton, will perform, and that’s just the start. There’s the “Tribal Welcome” party, the “Piranha’s Paradise” party and the “Monkey Business” closing party, among many others.

Carnival week usually brings about 40,000 people to town, and it’s arguably the pinnacle of Provincetown’s summer season, said Nick Robertson, executive director of the Provincetown Business Guild.

The week appears to be off to a good start, at least with the number of rooms booked, Robertson said. Good weather, earlier advertising and possibly an improved economy could be the reason, he said.

“There’s not a lot of last-minute availability on the (guild’s Internet room booking) site,” Robertson said.

The guild promotes and supports gay tourism and is the organizer of the week, which runs through Friday.

No one will argue, though, that it’s the parade at 3 p.m. Thursday that can bust every seam in your Jungle Jim costume. Comedians Margaret Cho and Bruce Vilanch are grand marshals this year. The parade starts in the East End and makes its way along Commercial Street to the West End, usually chocked full of scantily clad men, ear-splitting music, confetti, pink taffeta and wildly high platform shoes, all pushing through the crowds as though there’s no tomorrow.

“The parade is probably one of the biggest we have in town,” Robertson said.

Despite the fun of the parade, though, there is a bit of sobriety — literally — to consider.

Like last year, the drivers of the floats will be checked for sobriety and whether they’re licensed to drive the float trucks, said police Chief Jeff Jaran yesterday. Alcohol is banned from the floats and the truck cabs, Jaran said. There have been reports of this activity in the past.

“It’s probably one of our easier events to police,” Jaran said. “It’s a crowd that loves to have fun, and we want everyone to be safe.”

If you go

What: CARNIVAL 2010 “Jungle Fantasy”

When: Aug. 15 to Aug. 20
Where: Provincetown
Highlight: Carnival parade: 3 p.m., Thursday
Website: www.ptown.org/Carnival.asp

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• The Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation will present a special One Night Only Cabaret July 12 at Club Fugazi in San Francisco. Bruce Vilanch To Host (bootlegbetty.com)
• Margaret Cho working and living in Atlanta (hollywoodnews.com)

Saturday, Aug. 7, the Voice for the Animals Foundation presents a night of entertainment from comedians Lily Tomlin, Elayne Boosler, Bruce Vilanch, Rick Overton and Orny Adams, as a fundraiser for the campaign to remove Billy, the L.A. Zoo’s lone Asian elephant, from the zoo and “retire” him to animal sanctuary P.A.W.S. The event, to be held at a Beverly Hills mansion, begins at 5 p.m. and ends at 8 p.m. Tax-deductible tickets range in price from $100 to $200 and can be purchased through Voice for the Animals’ website.

Submit

Screenwriters take note: Saturday is the deadline for Chicago‘s first Great Gay Screenplay Contest. (The judging panel includes Oscars joke writer Bruce Vilanch.) The winning scripts will receive staged readings in November as part of Reeling: The Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival. For more info go to pridefilmsandplays.com.

NAKED BOYS SINGING! Celebrates 11th Anniversary 7/24
by BWW News Desk

NAKED BOYS SINGING!, the fifteen-song celebration of the male form will hit yet another milestone: it will begin its twelfth year on Saturday July 24th. The Naked Boys are appearing on New World Stages – Stage 4, located at 340 West 50th Street, between 8th & 9th Avenues. Naked Boys plays Fridays at 10pm and Saturday evenings at 8pm.

Still drawing both equally gay and straight crowds, NAKED BOYS has become a New York mainstay, while the London production, which opened to critical acclaim in the West End, begins its second year. Other productions are currently running in Las Vegas, which just announced its one-year anniversary, and the annual Provincetown summer production, with more opening within the next year, including anticipated productions in Korea and New Zealand.

Naked Boys Singing! is produced by Jamie Cesa, Carl D. White, Hugh Hayes, and Tom Smedes. It is directed and was conceived by Robert Schrock, and choreographed by Jeffry Denman. Schrock and a team of 12 writers — Stephen Bates, Marie Cain, Perry Hart, Shelly Markham, Jim Morgan, David Pevsner, Rayme Sciaroni, Mark Savage, Ben Schaechter, Trance Thompson, Mark Winkler and two-time Emmy Award winning Bruce Vilanch — have written a bouncy (pun intended) and fabulous musical revue that reminds us that clothes alone do not make the man. The show opened Off-Broadway at The Actors’ Playhouse in July 1999. The film version was released in 2008 by TLA Releasing and remains one of their top sellers on DVD.

Ticket prices are $69.50, which includes $1.50 facility fee. Tickets for Naked Boys Singing! are available through Telecharge.com at 212-239-6200 or at the New World Stages Box Office. For Group Sales, call 212-302-4848, ext 18.

The show runs at a lean, hard 70 minutes, without an intermission.

For more information, visit http://www.NakedBoysSinging.com

The Carolina Theatre of Durham, Inc is celebrating fifteen years of coming out together at THE 15th ANNUAL NORTH CAROLINA GAY & LESBIAN FILM FESTIVAL (NCGLFF).

The four-day festival is dedicated to showcasing films that reflect the many voices of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community here in the Triangle. The festival will be held August 12 to 15 at the historic Carolina Theatre located in downtown Durham.

Award-winning comedy writer Bruce Vilanch will perform at 9:30 p.m. on Friday, August 13. The Festival 10-pass is $75 and goes on sale at 11:00 a.m. on Monday, July 12 at the box office. Call the box office at 919-560-3030 or toll free 1-888-241-8162 to purchase a 10-pass.

10-passes are also available online at www.carolinatheatre.org. Tickets for individual films are $9 and $6.25 for Star Members and go on sale at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 28.

Tickets for Bruce Vilanch are $37, $27 and $22 for Star Members.

The box office is open Monday through Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 pm and one hour prior to the first screening of the day, and on weekends from 1:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Bay Area Reporter
The show must go on!
On the Town
Published 07/22/2010
by Donna Sachet

Last Monday’s Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation’s cabaret show featured the touring casts of Wicked and Young Frankenstein, joined by Hollywood funnyman Bruce Vilanch and sensational vocalist Sharon McNight, in the home of Beach Blanket Babylon, Club Fugazi.

These one-night-only events are a rare opportunity to hear these Broadway voices singing music of their own choosing, not from their touring hit shows, while raising needed funds for AIDS-related service organizations. The participants deserve kudos for giving up their one night off to participate in a show of this kind. In addition to some remarkable singing, we were treated to several moving dance numbers and lots of humor along the way.

Juanita Ramirez ‘s psychic reading had the crowd in stitches, especially when she struggled to see the future of REAF’s own Gary Thackeray. Vilanch proved the perfect emcee, often seeming to shock the audience with his no-holds-barred comedy and celebrity skewering.

The highlight of the evening, however, was McNight as she compressed the first half-hour of The Wizard of Oz into a side-splitting 7-minute musical medley, complete with startling character impersonations. Seen in the audience and at the reception afterwards were Larry Horowitz, Don Berger , Richard Sablatura , Beth Schnitzer , Patrik Gallineaux , Sister Dana, and Lawrence Helman.

Revised casting has been announced for the new one-act developmental production of the Will Holt-Bruce Vilanch-Gary William Friedman musical Platinum, which will now feature Donna Bullock, Sarah Litzsinger, Bruce Sabath, Wayne Wilcox, and Jay Wilkison. The previously reported Liz Larsen has withdrawn due to a scheduling conflict.

Playbill

Naked Boys Singing! Censorship Lawsuit Settled in Milwaukee
By Thomas Peter

July 15, 2010

A censorship lawsuit that resulted from the premature closing of a Milwaukee production of Naked Boys Singing! has been settled.

The Milwaukee Gay Arts Center received a $20,000 check from the City of Milwaukee July 14 as part of the settlement. The lawsuit had been filed on the Center’s behalf by the ACLU of Wisconsin.

The Center’s production of the Naked Boys revue, an Off-Broadway hit celebrating male nudity and featuring gay content, was closed down by city police in August 2005 after complaints about its content and disputes over whether the theatre’s license had been properly paid. A local ordinance required the theatre to obtain the license that needed to be approved by the Common Council of Milwaukee, who were not meeting until September 2005, after the production was scheduled to close.

The recent settlement found the Center exempt from the license requirements because of its status as a non-profit. The city has now changed its licensing forms to make clear that non-profits are not required to obtain a theatre license, although for-profit theatres must still obtain one. No time limit has been placed on the Common Council’s approval of license applications from for-profit theatres.

Regarding the disputes over the show’s content, Milwaukee Gay Arts Center executive director Paul Masterson said in a statement, “Good theater sometimes challenges convention. The police should not shut down a play because some people find it offensive.”

Regarding the licensing disputes, ACLU of Wisconsin legal director Larry Dupuis stated, “Requiring any theater to get a license before putting on a play comes dangerously close to the kind of ‘prior restraint’ on speech the First Amendment was designed to prohibit. We are pleased that the City has clarified the process so that non-profits will know they are not required to get a license. However, we continue to believe that the City should amend its ordinance to limit the time the City has to issue any theater license. It’s too easy for the authorities to just delay giving the permit to performances they don’t like.”

The Milwaukee production was the fourth production — including previous ones in Provincetown, MA; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Atlanta, GA — of the musical shut down by local police forces.

Naked Boys Singing!‘s original 16-song score includes such numbers as “Fight the Urge,” “The Bliss of a Bris,” “Muscle Addiction,” “Nothing But the Radio On,” “Members Only” and “Window to Window.” The musical comedy revue opened in New York July 22, 1999, after a successful run at the Celebration Theatre in Los Angeles. The show’s contributing writers are Stephen Bates, Marie Cain, Shelly Markham, Jim Morgan, David Pevsner, Rayme Sciaroni, Mark Savage, Ben Schaechter, Robert Schrock, Mark Winkler and Bruce Vilanch. Schrock directed with choreography by Jeffry Denman (The Producers) and musical direction by Stephen Bates, who died in 2003.

The musical revue currently plays in New York at New World Stages at 340 West 50th Street.

Image by Sharon Graphics via Flickr

Bruce Vilanch And His Competitors (Emmy Nominations)

Outstanding Writing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Special
82nd Annual Academy Awards · ABC
Bill Maher “…But I’m Not Wrong” · HBO
The Kennedy Center Honors · CBS
63rd Annual Tony Awards · CBS
Wanda Sykes: I’ma Be Me · HBO

Read more: Breaking News – Academy of Television Arts & Sciences 2010 Primetime Emmy Awards: Creative Arts Nominations | TheFutonCritic.com http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2010/07/08/academy-of-television-arts-and-sciences-2010-primetime-emmy-awards-creative-arts-nominations/20100708atas02/#ixzz0te2UAtCh

The Emmy nominations were announced yesterday, and once again the Oscar telecast was nominated for Best Special.  The award goes to the writers, of which Mr. Vilanch, is one.  What an awkward sentence for a writer‘s blog.  So what, I say!  And, who cares, says the crowd that reads!  America is dumbing down and I am happy to lead the way!

Anyway, I am thrilled about this news, and of course, Mr. Vilanch must be ecstatic, unless he’s become jaded and sarcastic about the whole thing, but that’s not the man I know and love.  So congrats, Mister V…and break a leg!   Whatev!!!

Love, Mister D