Everything's Coming Up Roses

I saw this on my blogger friend Stephen’s (who is also an actor/singer & a Stephen R. with a shaved head) Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Stephen. The clip is very funny & very frightening at the same time. The kid is really talented & really gay. He reminds me of myself at that age, although Patti was still in high school then & I was doing Carol Channing in front of the bathroom mirror instead of a camera on my computer. Thank God there was not the technology, or I would have been doing all the great musical theatre icons to be broadcast around the world, I am sure.



During the summer of 2001, the Husband & I had a collective mid-life crisis/nervous breakdown pique & we decided to up & move to Portland. In September of 2001, I was regularly taking the train from Seattle to Portland. I would be met by our real estate agent- Celia & she would drive me around all day & look at houses & then I would take the train back to Seattle.

One evening after a long day of house looking, I was seated in Portland’s beautiful & historic Union Station, & I fell into a pleasant, if reserved, conversation with a smartly dressed & handsome lady in her late 60s. When the conversation turned to my being an actor, she told me about her grandson who was making his professional debut in Gypsy at Portland Center Stage. He was 11 years old & she said- “We just don’t know what to make of it. He will spend hours alone in his room playing CDs of Broadway shows. He seems to know every one of them. Sometimes he will improvise a costume & come downstairs & do a couple of numbers complete with choreography for the family & guests. He is really quite talented, but he shows no interest in sports or anything else. Just musicals. For hours. He doesn’t even want to sing in church anymore because they won’t do songs from Le Miz.. He is thrilled to be in the show; he has been doing this since he was 6. What do you make of that?” I turned to her with a sympathetic smile & said- “Grandmother, you are in for some real heartache. What you have is a little gay musical comedy queen for a grandson. Give him lots of love & plenty of applause & everything should be coming up roses.” She then scowled & removed herself from the conversation.