Helen Hayes.

After a breathless day which was wrought from the fruits of procrastination, I had a great time at the HH's last night.
Until then, I had not so good a time.
I was running around like a crazy man...first to Arena to pick up a W-2, then to walk doggies for about 4 hours, then home to do the remainder of my taxes...
UGH!
The stress of that time crunch, with the nearest post office closing at 5, Fred coming to pick Matty and me up at 5:45, and I am staring at my computer screen thinking...what the hell is this thing asking me?
I called Fred and explained how I was running late, and we ended up leaving at about 6:30.
*sigh* I'm sure he wasn't ecstatic about that.







Fred and Matty and I encountered little traffic, and zoomed right in to the $28 parking lot. (Really, people...$28??) After trading some "Female Trouble" quips in the car and on the way in, Fred went somewhere to find someone, and Matty and I found Donna Migliacio and her husband, John Migliaccio.











We sat down and chatted, then decided to partake in the spread.



THE DINNER
I eat like a 10 year old boy, so the spanakopita or whatever it is called didn't fly with me. I got in the buffet line, and kept walking....and walking...I saw nothing that I could even pronounce. My general rule, if I can't spell it, I don't eat it. I started to think while looking at the selection...*sigh*...I'm gonna be so damn drunk.
Aha! Some pasta and sauce...bingo-bango. A roll! Yeah! then, the holy grail...Roast beef.
The roast beef lady slapped 3 skimpy pieces on my embarrassing plate. I said..."Hit me again."
"What?", she asked...
I suddenly realized that I wasn't playing poker with deal-a-meal cards, and asked for a few more slices. "This will be mostly what I am eating..", I offered to explain. As if she cared. She slopped on 3 more pieces, and I took my childish and safe plate back to the table with Donna, John, and Matt's much more adventurous plates, ablaze with color and excitement. You take your excitement. I'll stick with old reliables.




Had some beer..."Stella Adro.?.." I can't remember how to spell it, but it was damn good. Maybe that's why I can't remember how to spell it.
It was great to see everyone, as always. You get to have 4 sentence catch up with folks all night. It is kind of strange. Strange, yet wonderful. If it happened more often, and lasted much longer, it wouldn't be as special.

Then we got the bum's rush in melody from some roaming employees with small xylophones...strange.
Fred, Matt and I headed out of the Marriott to start the walk down to the Warner for the awards...but first we were given these little golden boxes full of truffles. Having no place to put them (no, we had no man purses), we decided to use the boxes as purses. We quickly decided against it when we noticed that they didn't match our shoes. I kept mine and ate the candy while watching the awards. You can do that, you know...




THE AWARDS


It was great to see Brad Oscar, who was a hilarious host and nominee. Also, the unexpected treat of seeing Meg Gillentine, who not only looked gorgeous, but won the award, then made one of the most touching speeches of the evening.
I was happy to see all my friends in Urinetown do so well...I was SO GLAD when Karma Camp won for her hysterical work on Urinetown...Also that Will Gartshore and Erin Driscoll won as well. Well...the Urinetown sweep was not an unexpected thing in anyone's minds, I think. Job well done.


I particularly laughed at all the song parodies (well done, Donna), and the gentleman who was presenting the KPMG award. He got up and said "Thank you all for letting me bring the evening to a grinding halt."
I laughed at that more than anything.
Now...Eleasha was supposed to get into Reagan at 9ish from Alaska. I texted her the whole night, keeping her aware of how many awards were left until her category. Sadly, she didn't make it till the party...
The awards wrapped up and we made our way outside, where we met up with Matt Diess, my good college buddy from Take Me Out at Studio. Since Take me out won, he was very happy. This is me and him being happy.













THE RECEPTION
Ok, so we made it down to the Marriott again, and I got to see Chan McQuay, which is always a treat and a half...















And here are some shots of some of the Damn Yankers reuniting...(Meg Gillentine, Brad Oscar, J. Fred Shiffman, Diego Prieto)











So we go up for a smoke, and when we come back down the escalator, who do I spy with my little eye??
ELEASHA IS HOME!!!!!







I hugged her for maybe 10 minutes. It was fantastic. SO GLAD to have here home.
The rest of the evening went by in a whirl of booze, bad 90's club music, and colorful dresses...
speaking of which...on the way out of the joint to go home, I snapped a shot of these 2 gals, obviously discussing their choice of apparel.




This was so funny, I made them smile for me...good sports.
If you want to see some other coverage of the event, here are some great links...
Click HERE to read Donna Migliaccio's retelling of her evening, and see some unfortunate photos of yours truly.
Click HERE to read Callie Kimball's evening.
Click HERE for DCTR's coverage.
Click HERE for EVEN MORE terrible pictures of me on Rabbit's blog.
Click HERE for the summary of the awards recipients.
I'm gonna go lay down in my jammies now. I started rehearsal for a workshop of a show at Ford's today, and walked doggies before that. I think a nap is called for.
TTFN,
SGS