Love is a Grand and a Beautiful Thing

So there goes the title of my autobiography.

"Still Mad About the Boys" had been appropriated by Billy Christopher Maupin for an evening of cabaret.

The fun was to be at Richmond Triangle Players, so I invited my favorite theater-lover to join me.

Knowing that songs, stories and a bar were in our future, we stopped at Lunch for a nosh first.

Within fifteen minutes, the restaurant was full of people I recognized from going to the theater.

A one-block proximity is hard to resist.

Inquiring of our soon-to-be harried server what Rose they had, she checked and responded, "The Seeker," a Rose Prudence and I had discovered on the Rose crawl two weeks ago.

"The Seeker?" we gasped in unison. Yes, please.

Dinner was a shared bowl of brown sugar bacon chili and corn griddle cakes with pulled pork and cole slaw.

I don't know that I've ever eaten lightly at Lunch, but then that's the pleasure of it.

Leaving the Cure blaring and the other theater-goers finishing up, we headed over to Richmond Triangle Players.

There we found a room full of actors, directors, dancers and a few people like us, mere theater-goers with no actual talent beyond fandom.

Our seats were separated by a table, just the place for a bottle of Sciarpa Pinot Grigio.

We saw a guy in the shiniest of jackets and asked if we could touch him (he said yes), only to find it was a brushed fabric, almost velvet-like, but shiny silver with thin black stripes.

He even took it off for us, looking for a fabric tag (there was none) and sharing the story of how he'd arrived in Rome but his baggage hadn't, so he'd headed down the Spanish Steps and found a shop open.

There he'd bought this beautiful Versace blazer ("Back when Versace was alive," he clarified, so pre-1997) which we were now stroking.

Ah, the pleasures of a theater crowd.

The reason for the evening, Billy Christopher, I'd seen act, direct and sing at the Ghost Light afterparty.

Tonight he walked onstage in a black shirt, jeans and barefoot and proceeded to sing a well-chosen program interspersed with the moving story of his coming out and love life.

It was nothing short of extraordinary.

"It's just you and us," he said gesturing at his two musicians. "For the next hour and a half. I think I just peed in my pants."

That was the beginning of the self-deprecating humor that pervaded the evening.

He said he'd last done a solo cabaret in 2008. "I've become much more terrified as a performer since then," he admitted before breaking into song.

After introducing his pianist Joshua and his guitarist Tristan, he spoke about his upbringing and college years in his hometown of Campbellsville, Kentucky.

It is apparently a school where homosexual acts were punishable by expulsion when he went there and are now punishable by mere suspension. A hard place for a gay kid to go to school, in other words.

Luckily there was a mall an hour away and on his first visit to Hot Topic, he locked eyes with a blue-eyed boy who became his first boyfriend. The rest was personal history, as we heard tonight.

He spoke about his farmer father, a simple man very different than himself, and one he clearly adores, saying, "Dad is possibly the boy I'm most mad about."

BC did a beautiful version "I'm Beginning to See the Light" before talking about his "forever fiancee" Jackie Jones and how their relationship had developed.

His best tribute to her was singing her standard audition song, an hysterical one about Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's seafaring, salty dog of a husband.

Getting everyone going with "Bring On the Men" from "Jekyll and Hyde," he couldn't resist playing the ham, running his hands through Tristan's thick hair or stroking Joshua's back as he sang.

So let's bring on the men
And let the fun begin
Another touch of sin
Why wait another minute?

There was nowhere to go from there but to intermission.

Starting the second act, he put on the sandals of a woman in the front row (marveling that they fit) and sang "Mad About the Boy."

That was followed by a monologue that began with, "I really hate camping."

I feel your pain, BC.

This was an introduction to a story about camping with a former boyfriend in Crabtree Falls, where he was promised a hike, a waterfall and an air mattress.

After explaining how the air mattress deflated and he ended up on vinyl over twigs (his worst fear), he sang the perfect song, "Good Thing He Can't Read My Mind," a feeling anyone in a relationship has probably experienced.

The song about suffering along to the opera ("I don't understand a word, even when it's in English"), skiing ("There's no exhilaration, I'm only feeling terrified") and sushi ("I'm poking with a chopstick at a living, breathing fish stick") was laugh-out-loud funny and we did.

From those hi-jinks, he moved on to telling us about the only man he'd ever called "partner" and how once they acknowledged their feelings, "I never slept in my bed again."

As we all have learned, even the best relationships sometimes end, but his acceptance and memory of the relationship was touching, to say the least.

"That was perfect and I'll never have that again and that's okay," he said and sang "Once Upon a Time."

Just as we were all ready to cry, he lifted us back up again, saying, "Every act has a great medley. I made that up because we have a medley."

And not just any medley, but a reconstruction of a reconstruction of a medley from his first solo cabaret.

Even better, it was a Richard Rodgers medley.

By this time, I thought I was going to explode out of my seat, except the woman next to me was even more crazed than I was about it, whistling and yelling.

BC kicked off with "Wonderful Guy" from "South Pacific," went on to "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" from "Pal Joey," and then did "I Wish I Were in Love Again" and "My Funny Valentine," both from "Babes in Arms."

The crowd was hooting and hollering with delight at his renditions.

"Tonight's been about love for me," he said to wind up the show. "I challenge you each to love someone or everyone. Why not?"

His last song was "The Rose," achingly sung and the perfect finale to an evening of soul-baring and classic song-singing.

To take it over the top, certain appointed people in the audience rose one by one and joined him, singing harmony or background and giving the rest of us chills.

One guy even lit his lighter in tribute.

After a standing ovation for both him, Joshua and Tristan, who had added immeasurably to every song, BC bounded back to inquire if we wanted an encore.

Why, yes, we did as a matter of fact.

Could there be a better way to end a cabaret than with a song from "Cabaret"?

"Maybe This Time," with its hopeful and poignant lyrics sung with every ounce of his heart and soul brought the house down.

Maybe this time I'll be lucky
Maybe this time, he'll stay
Maybe this time for the first time
Love won't hurry away

There's nothing like hearing someone sing it like they mean it.

I do hope Billy Christopher is lucky.

I know very single one of us in the audience felt that way by the time he finished with us.