Here's To the Girls Who Stay Smart

It was a theater lover's wet dream.

The preview and party for 5th Wall, the new production company from Carol Piersol and B.C. Maupin, was a great big celebration at the Hippodrome (how convenient for me) showcasing some of the major talent in this town.

Walking in, there were plenty of familiar faces - the hat, the neighbors, the critic - and before long we invited ourselves to join the table of a handsome couple we did not know.

By the time we finished introductions, the show was starting.

Host Eva DeVirgilis began by saying, "It's fun to be out on a Wednesday night, huh? Feels kind of naughty."

As someone who's out every night of the week, it feels kind of right to me.

The program was a satisfying mix of theatrical scenes and musical numbers, the cast changing up for each one. The crowd ate it all up.

In the first act, songs alternated with scenes from 5th Wall's last season, so I recognized the adoration humor of "Patti Issues," the excruciating tension of "Gidion's Knot," the touchy issues of "Race."

Singer Susan Greenbaum came out with her guitar and smiled, saying, "I learned this from my theater friends," and tossed her red scarf over her shoulder. Saying, "Despite the fact that it's twelve degrees in here..." and boy, was she right about that, she launched into "Summertime."

Seeing a scene from "Breast in Show" made me sorry I hadn't seen it.

Eva provided some humor with a monologue about how directors are always expecting her take her clothes off. "I'm an actress, too, you know," she insisted before being called over by the pianist, revealing that the pants she was wearing had no fabric over her butt cheeks.

It got her lots of laughs and we got a great view of her lovely backside.

Georgia Rogers Farmer came out looking demure with her blond hair and sweet face and began singing a slow burn cabaret style version of "Baby Got Back," so far removed from the original in tone and tempo that I'd bet some people didn't even recognize it.

It was fabulous beyond words on a night with many stellar performances.

As if her languorous version wasn't enough, she complemented the singing with some magnificent ass-shaking, twitching, hip rolling and just about any other possible bottom motion.

When she finished my friend learned over and told me that after her divorce, her husband had sent her a copy of that song because he'd missed his baby's back.

True story.

Next came Matt Shofner killing it on "Wig in a Box," but then every theatergoer in town knows he's chomping at the bit to start rehearsals for "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" this Fall.

When Debra Wagoner came out to close the first act, she walked up to the mic stand and looked up. "Every time, it's too tall," she joked.

Matt came rushing over to adjust it. "A diva doesn't move her own mic." More truth.

"Also, we need a clean-up on chair five," she cracked, pointing to where she'd just left.

Drink in hand, her version of "The Ladies Who Lunch" was hilarious, powerful and pointed.

Over intermission, I chatted with our table mates, unexpectedly discovering that we shared some common history.

You never know when you'll meet someone who's experienced the same difficult thing you have.

The handsome and big-voiced Russell Rowland did a great job with "Being Alive," pulling everyone back from the bar to their tables.

The second act began with Eva introduced as local actor extraordinaire, Scott Wichmann, and she came out dressed like him, moving like him and even talking like him, to the great amusement of the crowd.

Introducing "a woman who needs no introduction," Carol Piersol came out ("Thanks, Scotty!" to Eva) to start the preview portion of the evening with scenes from upcoming plays.

"The Lyons" provided some of the funniest lines of the evening around a dying Jewish father talking to his adult children and wife while in the hospital.

Mother: Everyone feels uncomfortable when they're intimate
Father: Your mother used to vomit.

"The Human Terrain" featured the always impressive Molly Hood in a story of an anthropologist embedded with a combat unit, something that apparently happens in real life.

D.C. actress Felicia Curry (currently appearing in "The Color Purple") came out in what had to be the best shoes of the entire evening and sang, "Whatever Happened to My Part?" from "Spamalot," subbing in lines such as, "This is one unhappy diva, Billy Christopher has deceived her."

She raved about her time in Richmond, singing "Get Here" as a love song to our city, then doing a duet with Katrinah Carol Lewis of "For Good" that had them holding hands and tearing up as they traded "love letters" to Richmond.

But when she really brought down the house was with "Random Black Girl," singing, scatting and strutting as "just the random black girl singing the soul," while the crowd clapped along.

Everyone who'd performed tonight came back on stage for a sing-it-to-the-rafters version of "Seasons of Love" from "Rent" that was goose bump worthy.

It had been an all-star coming out party for Richmond's newest production company.

Eva had the last (hilarious) words with, "Join us tomorrow night as we do it all again with a gender-reversed take on tonight's program directed by B.C. Maupin."

If only.

But if they did, my money is on Matt wearing those epic shoes of Felicia's.