Trying for "Rent 10," the BC/EFA Easter Bonnet Competition, etc.

So today was pretty busy. I had a review session for Brain and Behavior that was stunningly boring. Then, after breakfast, I finished up my paper for European Drama, which I wrote on the play Jaz by French-African playwright Koffi Kwahule.

Anyway, I remembered yesterday that today was Rent 10, the tenth anniversary concert for Rent on Broadway featuring the original cast, so I went up to do the lottery for that around 2. I ran into Joanna and Lindsay, who I see around Hayden a lot, so we waited together until they started picking names at 3. Frenchie Davis and Constantine Maroulis announced the names, and they did a pretty bad job. Frenchie kept stopping to strike a pose, and their bullhorns weren't nearly effective enough to compete with the crowd noise. Anyway, it took another half hour to announce all the names, and, needless to say I didn't win. They ended up selling another 15 more pairs than they had originally intended to by the lottery though, which was nice. I think they had a hard time selling all of the seats for the $1,000 price.

Anyway, it wasn't such a big deal that I lost, because I got a free ticket to the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Easter Bonnet competition, which is an annual event that celebrates the Easter season, when Broadway shows get together to raise money for BC/EFA. Most participating shows create a really outrageous easter bonnet, which they display as part of a skit. There were also a lot of other really great skits throughout. It was really great, because a lot of the humor was inside humor that I felt kind of proud of getting. There was a really great skit toward the end of the show where Little Sally and Officer Lockstock of the now-closed show Urinetown discuss the current theatre:

Little Sally: That man just touched me all over.
Officer Lockstock: Sounds like a backstage tour at Jane Eyre.
Little Sally: Allegedly.
[Referring to James Barbour, who's going to be on trial soon for child molestation backstage while starring as Rochester in Jane Eyre]

Little Sally: I really hope Lestat does well. I hear it took Elton John an entire afternoon to write the score.

Oh my...what a funny show overall. There were great skits from Wicked (which featured a really creative "what if" of Wicked on Ice), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (which did an interpretive dance of the politics of the past year), Ring of Fire (which performed a send-off of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" that was really great), and Sweeney Todd (which reinterpreted "Bohemian Rhapsody" Sweeney-style). The Color Purple did a really pretty presentation called "Lilies of the Field" that was probably the best put together of the skits and which featured some of the most gorgeous dancers' bodies ever.

After the show, I came back home and had dinner before going out to do a little shopping. I got a cheap book by Brooks Atkinson called Broadway that tracks the history of the Great White Way and a CD recording of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson. It's kind of like a radio play presentation of the play.