Oh What a Night

Wow, I had a spectacular night last night! Now, Monday nights are always fun because of Cast Party, but last night was possibly the best Cast Party I've ever been to! First of all, Lucie Arnaz had done an earlier concert to celebrate her birthday, and she was joined by friends Phoebe Snow, Valarie Pettiford and Michelle Lee. Unfortunately, I was unable to make the concert, but lucky for me and my fellow cast partyers, Lucie and friends stuck around for Cast Party! (Michelle Lee had to take off, but the rest stayed). What an absolute treat. Phoebe Snow brought the audience to their feet with her version of "You Send Me." Lucie and her music director Ron Abel did their fantastic arrangement of "Blue Skies," and Valarie Pettiford brought the house down with her version of "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man Of Mine." In addition to these fabulous performers, grammy winner and star of Broadway's Ring of Fire, Lari White performed, as did the fantastic singer/songwriter Victoria Shaw. Oh! And Janis Ian! As I was watching all of these unbelieveable performers, Lucie's music director's name kept running through my head. I kept thinking, "Ron Abel, Ron Abel...why do I know that name?" And then it hit me - Ron wrote the music for one of the big hits of my "I Hate Men" show: a song called All the Good Men are Gay. For those of you who haven't heard it, it has to be one of the funniest songs ever written. Every time I perform it, the audience goes wild. So, here I was, in the same club as the composer. I ran over to Jim Caruso (the host of Cast Party) to double check that this was the same Ron Abel, and he confirmed it for me. So...as luck would have it, I had the music with me and I got to do the song for Ron! Jim had already paved the way by speaking to Ron and telling him not to leave until I sang. Well, I sang, and it went better than ever! Afterwards, I got to meet Ron, which was a lot of fun. And THEN...after Cast Party was done, I ended up going out for after hours drinks with none other than the fabulous Maude Maggart and Tony DeSare, both of whom were in attendance at Cast Party and had closed the night there by singing a duet of "You Belong to Me." All in all, a terrific NYC night.
That's about all for now...more updates soon!