Only Make Believe

The Only Make Believe 10th Anniversary gala was Tuesday night. It was at the Shubert Theater, hosted by Sir Ian McKellen and honoring some people I'm not quite familiar with. If you're on Broadway there's a good chance I'm not quite familiar with your work, unless you're Jude Law and you're dreamy.

As the arrivals approached, all us press people had to join forces and google the sort of unknown Broadway stars. We figured out that Alex Ko is Billy Elliott, and he won and award for that. The others, well, we had to guess and look up what their Facebook status was. It's not very professional to start off a Q & A with 'who are you?'

Alex Ko stopped by, he's young and he's on Broadway, that's really all I can tell you. I almost felt like giving him Halloween candy, but I knew that would be rude. Or make a Michael Jackson joke, too soon? Christopher Meloni, of Law & Order was there, he was also at the premiere of 'Capitalism: A Love Story' but he didn't stop at that one. He stopped at this one, he's a nice guy, I feel like he and I and Mariska Hargitay could hang out together - or he could just stay home. Maybe Ice - T would stop by, and then I would probably be asked to go home.

Sir Ian McKellen, the evenings host, caused quite a stir. He and Christopher Meloni had been singing at the other end of the carpet, so naturally when he came our way I wanted to ask if he could sing. Sadly, because of my non-Boston accent, he thought I said 'could you say something?' and he said sure, what? and I said I dunno, whatever you sang back there. He didn't understand - and then my camera woman jumped in and said 'SING!' and he said 'Oh, no I don't do that, you have to pay for that.'

Up next was his loveliness Jude Law. Jude is very British, and I didn't really know what to say to him, so I asked him about the event. I asked him to discuss any upcoming movies he's doing, but he wasn't there to talk about that (he should have been, I think). It's disconcerting when you ask a normal question and a celebrity isn't there to discuss it, what else do they get paid to do?

After Jude, we saw The cast of Hair and The Lion King test their pipes out. They can sing, and you have to love the hyena woman from the Lion King who knows her talent is to do the hyena laugh, so that's all she does. After this, there was a lull, and then Andrea Martin from SCTV stopped by. I caught her off guard by my three questions in one technique - sometimes it works and sometimes it confuses people. She was nice though, she has some performances she's doing, including an SCTV reunion in Chicago.

So check out the Only Make Believe foundation, they put on interactive theater for sick children in hospitals across the country, and soon to go international. Good work folks.