Dear Constant Reader,
Please vote for The Boston Babydolls every day!
My last couple of missives were rather time consuming to put together, so today you get a short one.
I’ve heard a rumor that voting is only open for another week or so, so go vote, vote, vote (The Phoenix wants you to vote *every day*!). You know we’re the best, so let everyone know it. And then we’ll have a big Victory Party!
And if that approach didn’t work, allow me to play on your sympathies: I got some bad news about one of our projects yesterday and I’m coming down with a cold. You vote would cheer me up immensely.
Lastly, I’ll try bribery. Here’s a photo of me fan dancing at the 2012 Victory Party to “Jezebel”, sung by Miss Imani with Stella & Alissa backing her up. Photo by John L. Bilotti.
King Evie fights battles, receives her crown, and knights her loyal followers, all while shedding clothing and armor. Black-clad Stella, Lara & Ginny play the opposing army, Evie’s subjects, and scenery.
This act was several years in the works and I’m so glad to finally have presented it. I originally thought of myself as being Queen Titania, but we already had a Midsummer act, so I became Ariel. It was a toss up between that and Queen Mab from Romeo and Juliet. There’s no shortage of faeries in Shakespeare. I’m really happy with this costume, which came out pretty much as I wanted. I have to thank 
We certainly weren’t the first to re-interpret Shakespeare. We had to pay tribute to the great Kiss Me Kate. (Seriously, songs by Cole Porter? We’d have been fools to ignore that opportunity.) Stella’s got a great Broadway voice and excellent comic timing. She lounged against the bar, insulting male patrons as she sang. None of them seemed to mind.
Betty’s tribute to the Queen of the Nile, longing for her Antony. There’s no striptease, but who cares — Betty dances with a sword. She routinely stunned the audience when she balanced it on her head and then slid into a low lunge and down onto one knee (while wearing high heels, no less). I love Betty’s costume for this, which I suspect was made from one of the many saris she brought back from India. Scratch introduced her as a performer with “great pyramids and a killer asp”.
We couldn’t present a tribute to Shakespeare without acknowledging his work as a poet. Brigitte wanted to present a modern dance to a spoken word piece, so everything worked out nicely. Lara recited the first sonnet (“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”, then there was a little musical interlude, and Scratch read the second sonnet (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”). Poetry in motion, Scratch called Brigitte.
We were the Three Weird Sisters, only cuter. Devora had a magic wand that forced us to take off our clothes. When we joined together against her, the wand wouldn’t work against its owner and we had to rip off her clothes the old-fashioned way. Many thanks to Scratch for building us a wand that would come apart into 3 sections on cue.
We had 2 couples running away into the woods, but sadly, both the guys wanted Hermia (Ginny) leaving poor Helena (Me), sad and unwanted. But I upstaged everyone in the end! Most amusing part of this act was Betty & Devora in white suits, kind of like the one Scratch was wearing to host.
Brigitte & Butch dance adorably together until Brigitte goes in for a kiss and comes away with Butch’s mustache. Butch is slowly revealed to be Stella! Everyone’s favorite moment is when Brigitte reaches into Stella’s jeans and pulls out a couple of long socks knotted together. From backstage we would hear this huge swell of laughter and know they had just revealed The Dick Sock. Everyone loved The Dick Sock.
I’ll be honest with you. This act wasn’t actually inspired by Shakespeare. Evie & Devora created it for The Wrathskellar, but Devora wasn’t able to be a part of the show, because of several broken bones. They planned to perform it at the Marathon, but a week before, Evie broke her foot. (From now on everyone gets bubble wrap suits.) It was just too good to allow to go fallow, so Scratch put it in this show. He thought about making it our tribute to Richard III (“Was ever woman in this humour wooed? Was ever woman in this humour won?”), but decided to use it to show the power of the sort of simple stage devices Shakespeare would have used and how the audience was willing, nay, wanted, to believe. Special thanks to Richard Gilbert of 
Scratch says that during the research for this show, he found a reference in Pepys’ diary to a scene in The Merchant of Venice which did not appear in the First Folio. He and Ginny recreate that missing scene. It’s actually an old burlesque comedy routine, known as “Post Office”. Yes, it’s old and corny, but still fun.
From Denmark With Love, a James Bond/Hamlet mash-up opens in May and we thought it would be appropriate to give our audience a sneak preview. Creator John J King and a roster of lovely singers presented “Ophelia” (to the tune of “Goldfinger”). The picture shows Emily Hecht, but we were also graced by frequent Babydoll songbird Alissa Coates and a couple of others whose names I can’t remember right now.
As the show began, so did it end, with disembodied voices quoting Shakespeare. This time they were asking questions (“Is this a dagger I see before me?”) occasionally peppered with the title of this song. I will confess, this act didn’t have much to do with Shakespeare. It’s been the finale to our last couple of Valentine’s shows and we like it a lot. Sometimes Scratch sings it for us, but he got a break this show. And we got new parasols! I do like the mix of colors; it makes us look even more like a flower garden.
Oh, The Glamourous Life! 