Ronawanda

Y'all, the October DREAM is rapidly becoming a REALITY. The press releases have gone out, the tickets are waiting for people to buy at Rust Belt Books, the posters are about to pop up all over town, the lasers and fog machines are being tested, the antelope costumes are being FedExed to us... All that's left is to write the show!

This time next Friday, we'll all be frantically lighting candles on cabaret tables, putting on our makeup, sweeping the floor, and rehearsing our opening night gala for the very first time.

I'm jokin' about that last part, but not entirely. But we DID just have our first meeting with some our house bands and guest artists last Thursday, and that's always my favorite part of the whole thing (other than doing the show itself, and falling backwards into a pool of my own sick at Saturday night's afterparty). Our dear friend Christina Kaulbach (whom you might remember from our days with the Cabaret Parasito) dropped by; she'll be performing on Oct. 9. And some of the surfer dudes and dudettes from Dimetrodon, who will be our house band the following weekend (after rocking that very same house to the ground last February), were there with their surfboards and woodies. (Oh, no, that was US with the woodies.) We got a sneak peek at Kalifornia Kim & The Transsexual Experience, who are also playing Oct. 15 & 16, and we met Kate Anderson, who is brand new to town and ready to unleash some kickass standup on y'all on the weekend of Oct. 29 & 30. And naturally our very own Dora was there representing her OTHER very best friends, the band Readybox, who will be our musical guides to the Land of the Lost Oct. 22 & 23.

After all our special friends left, we got down to work on our opening-weekend FERTILE CRESCENT extravaganza, and let me tell you it was ROUGH. For one thing, we were competing with the first Kerrey/Bush debate, which just raised the whole question of what business we have trying to make art, or political satire, or whatever it is we do, in such scary times. Now, granted, I'm a fictional character so I can't vote, and most of my Cabaret friends are imaginary too, but those of you who live in the "real" world (and I use that term as loosely as my sister North Rona uses her diaphragm) have bigger fish to fry. All WE have to worry about is trying to figure out which wig goes with which thrift store pantsuit. Y'all, on the other hand, are on the brink of thermonuclear disaster and/or the complete collapse of civil liberties and/or the demise of every principle that originally united the States, in case you hadn't noticed lately. I swear, it's awful tempting sometimes to just throw up your hands and say that nothing you do or say or create will make a difference, that the country's going to hell in a handbasket if we don't uproot the Bush. But if we don't tell our little jokes and sing (okay, lipsynch) our little songs to 30 people a night, what else could or should we be doing instead that would make any more of a difference?

So what do Y'ALL think, you audience people and fictional characters and nonfictional entities reading this? What CAN be the role of our little show--of all of our little lives--in the face of such a big, big, fucked up situation? Post yer comments here if you feel like it. Or anywhere else you can think of. Don't hold in yer despair--it'll only give you a bad cramp.

Oh, and if yer in the vicinity and still have an AM radio (remember those?), tune it to 1270 AM at 10 AM on Wednesday, October 6, cuz the Cabaret cast 'n' crew will be on Theresa Baker's supercool show "Talkback" to discuss that very subject and more. (Me, I'm still livin' on Taos Time, and I never get up that early, but I'll be rootin' for 'em in my dreams.)

And no matter what ELSE you do today, take it from Ronawanda: you make damn sure that your ass is registered to VOTE on Nov. 2 and that you tell everybody you know and love that they gotta vote TOO or you will withhold sex from them for the next four years.

And (as the Stage Master would say) that's an ORDER.