Hymn to Her: Fabulous and Beautiful

"It took a woman to show us the light." ~Teenage Mother

What sentiment could more perfectly sum up Mother's Day than that?

After a drive to the Northern Neck to pay homage to my own maternal ancestry (sign on insurance company: "Farmers, please report corn acres planted," and sign on gas station: "Happy Momz Day!"), it was time to let the Mother's Day festivities begin.

To ensure mixing with as diverse crowds as possible tonight, first there was a picnic at Agecroft with music by the Richmond Concert Band.

It unfolded under an enormous magnolia tree and with a straight-shot  view of the conductor, a bottle of Chianti and way too much food.

This year's theme was "Virginia Connections" and featured the works of, yep, Virginians.

An outdoor concert sounds so different than an indoor one, with the sound having endless space to move around in.

Acoustically, I know it's inferior but that's balanced by the pleasures of a picnic with live symphonic music.

After the performance and a stroll of the grounds, it was on to Firehouse Theater for mockery.

Film Roasters was doing their monthly screening of a truly bad movie with Mystery Science Theatre-like commentary from a trio of wise asses.

The cinematic gem we saw was "Teenage Mother" from 1967 which featured the Young Set (complete with jerky go-go dancer, mocked by one of the improv guys as, "Some bronzer and a lampshade and she's good to go") and the star's wardrobe supplied by Betsy Johnson Paraphernalia.

I know my fashion history; Betsy Johnson was the mod designer in the sixties. Her clothes made guys say things like, "I want that chick. She's stacked."

The movie told the story of a sex education teacher from Sweden trying to enlighten an American  high school to much resistance.

Translation: between the dated dialog and endless riffing on it, I was laughing pretty much non-stop.

"Health education being taught by a woman? That's something new!" In 1967, I'm sure it was.

As we laughed along to lines about a teenager's $10 allowance and going to a drive-in to see "Girl on a Chain Gang," we never saw it coming.

"It" was the sex ed teacher's last defense to save her job when the parents got mad at her unorthodox subject matter.

She shut them right up by showing a film of a baby being born using forceps.

That's right, in the middle of this corny 1967 movie with every cliche in the world about teenagers, smoking pot and pre-marital sex, we saw an actual clip of a baby being delivered.

With, I might add, a voice over explaining the placement of the forceps and the accompanying issues.

We saw the baby's head and shoulders come out. Um, happy Mother's Day?

Let's just say that the room got unspeakably quiet as the audience tried to process what was surely most people's first actual birth footage.

When the lights came up, we were instructed, "That's it, you can go home and think about that now."

I'm guessing most people did the opposite and tried to block it out for the rest of their evening.

I thought a better solution was to head over to Richmond Triangle Players for the Ghostlight Afterparty, essentially a piano bar where all the singers are actors.

Afterbirth, afterparty, I always say.

The five hour party was underway when we arrived and the first song we caught was a fine one, "My Funny Valentine" by Carla.

With my J-Ward neighbors a few rows behind, the 'hood was representing.

The superb accompanist Sandy, this time on a grand piano instead of last month's keyboard, did harmony for her daughter's rendition of Carole King's "Where You Lead" in honor of the holiday.

Host Matt kept the show rolling with jokes, tambourine playing and his excellent singing voice.

Walking across the stage at one point, he noticed a stool with a cocktail on it and cracked up.

"That's what I love about Ghostlight Afterparty," he said with no clear idea whose drink it was since no one was onstage then.

Jason did a stellar version of "If I Loved You" after talking about his talented musical mother and why he'd turned out the way he had.

Tonight's guest star was Lisa who set the tone by proclaiming that every time she mentioned her adored 11-year old son Jamie, everyone in the room was required to drink.

A deceptively simple rule and yet one with comic results as the night wore on.

She did a "Mad Lib" version of "A Spoonful of Sugar," singing off a Mad Libs sheet of nonsense words.

Because they're actors, the hamming never stops, like when one guy paused mid-song and said, "Dramatic cross" and moved from center stage to the piano for his big finale.

Of course I saw a couple of my favorite boys, in particular Princess Di (blue pants, pink shirt) and the theater critic (on a date), both pleased as punch to see a friend.

B.C. did a terrific version of "When You're Good to Mama," while Matt shook his booty against the tambourine and Maggie danced across the back of the stage.

Afterwards, Matt noted dryly, "B.C. sings songs in women's registers better than most women do."

And that is why we come to the Ghostlight Afterparty.

Around 11:30 the pizza arrived and the hungry audience took a break and descended on it.

Susan killed it with her rendition of "The Man That Got Away" and a duet of "Suddenly Seymour" had half the room singing along.

Pianist Sandy and Audra wowed the crowd with "Just a Housewife" before we got to the last song of the night.

According to the non-actor, non-singer who took the stage, she was a straight white girl rapping like a straight black man about, you know, having what you need.

It was at that point that Princess Di turned to me and sniffed, "There's fifteen men singing along to this in the back row."

Indeed they were and having a grand old time.

And wherever their mothers were, I'm sure they'd have been very proud of them.

Cause especially on Mother's Day, it takes a woman to, well, do it all.

See the light?

Who's the Greatest Star?

Highlight #1 - Ice cream and deflowering

Visit #4 to the James River Film Festival at the Visual Arts Center was frigid (too much a/c) and charming (foreign and subtitled).

The short, "Bregman/As Follows" was about a Jewish Latin American kid about to have his bar mitzvah.

He studies, he practices, he has the ceremony and party.

And then dad takes him to lose his virginity. When he picks him up, he asks how it was.

The boy turns up the car radio.

Dad asks the boy if he wants to go for ice cream. Fin.

A charming film about a 13-year old being thrown into the deep waters of manhood.

Next was "A Useful Life," a Uruguayan film about a guy who'd worked in an art house cinema for 25 years.

When it closes, he has to figure out what to do with himself.

Like many a confirmed bachelor, he has no idea.

It was shot in black and white and the lead is  played by a Uruguayan film critic, making for a particularly un-actorly performance.

I saw it as addressing the philosophical question, what do you do when everything you know goes away?

I seem to recall addressing that very issue just a few years ago myself, but not in nearly so stylish a black and white film.

Highlight #2- Half priced and washed out

Sunday supper came courtesy of Carytown's new gastropub, Burger Bach, and I went in eager to try a grass-fed, organic burger.

Instead we bellied up to a bar with four screens (a major negative and in hindsight it would have behooved us to sit at the community table and face Thompson Street) and went seafood.

Turns out every day from 4-6 is half off mussels, oysters and shrimp.

Each came with the option of four or five preparations, so we got mussels in a traditional sauce (garlic, shallots, parsley, lemon, white wine), oysters casino (bacon, peppers, onions, Parmesan) and shrimp in a French sauce (Dijon mustard, shallots, cream, garlic and tarragon).

The place had a borderline chain feel despite being a standalone, the wine list was all New World (although no U.S.) so there were several good South African choices and tons of Australian and New Zealand.

The music was spot on, doing enough interesting alternative to keep my ears pricked.

Anytime I hear Washed Out in a restaurant two night before I'll see them play out gets major points.

A stroll down Cary Street wound up at Amici where the front was completely open in the beautiful evening air.

Lots of people were catching a pre-show meal before Allison Krause but we just wanted dessert: panna cotta and chocolate mousse with a light breeze blowing in from the street.

Highlight #3: Song for a Ukrop

The Ghostlight Party at Richmond Triangle Players had been on my calendar for a month since I always seem to be out of town when they occur.

I knew from the organizer (a fabulous bartender and chatter) that it promised to be a rollicking good time and it was.

We arrived at 8:00 for naught; by the time it did begin, host Matt came out in a black bustier, panties, fishnets, black heels and lipstick.

"Sorry for the late start. Clearly we're on drag time," he said to much laughter.

And that's how the party began and I use party loosely because you pay your five bucks and you're at the party.

It's worth it for the parade of local theater talent who show up at one point or another during the four-plus hour soiree.

One of tonight's guests was actress Susan Sanford, whom I first saw in "The Merry Wives of Windsor Farms" so long ago that neither she nor I would want to admit it.

Although I still remember it as one of the cleverest adaptations of the Bard I've seen.

Back to my point, which was that despite having seen her in many shows, I had no idea she had such a great singing voice.

When called to the stage and heralded as "the best diva here," she was quick to toss an "Oh, shut up!" over her shoulder.

Everyone was a ham and it was great fun watching them tackle theater music whether they remembered every lyric or not ("Not the point," the host Matt insisted).

And it's a theater-savvy audience with people saying things to each other like, "You can't go wrong with a Richard Rodgers."

Matt switched to a leather jacket, cuffed up girl's jeans and hot pink platform pumps to sing a pouty happy birthday to Ted Ukrop.

Ted allowed that Matt's legs were the best he'd seen in a while.

Sarah Porter got up to do "A Single Tear" (and in Italian, too; it was impressive) since it's the 100th anniversary of the Titanic.

"Do we applaud that?" Matt ruminated out loud to the audience.

Good question. There was a smattering of applause.

We heard "Because the Night" and Joe Jackson's "Breaking us in Two," resulting in a funny moment when Andrew Hamm stopped playing piano and singing and said accusingly to Liz Blake-White, "Wait, you're not supposed to be singing the harmony there."

Her guilty face said it all.

One showstopper was Sanford doing "I'm the Greatest Star" from "Funny Girl" except that she substituted names Streisand wouldn't have known.

Instead of singing "Hey, Mr. Keeney, here I am!" she substituted "Hey, Mr. Kniffen, Hey, Mrs. Piersol, Hey, Mr. Maupin, Hey, Mr. Patton, here I am!" to make it RVA-funny.

And don't get me started about the two guys who shall remain nameless singing "Suddenly, Seymour" to each other  as they tried not to crack up.

One guy was asked to remove his shirt before he sang (actually there was also unzipping of his pants).

Once we admired his body, we heard his beautiful singing voice.

That's just how they roll at the Ghostlight party.

The whole evening was truly like a party; the bar was open, there was all kinds of food (little savory meat roll-ups) and sweets (eclairs and cupcakes) and later snacks (pizza arrived around 11:30).

If you didn't want to hear a song, you went to the lobby and gabbed away.

And Matt and Maggie kept the whole show rolling along, collecting names of people who wanted to perform when not dancing or singing backup (Maggie) and making witty and/or dirty commentary between songs (Matt).

Both played mic stand at one point or another.

But let's be real here. Maggie did her job in flats and Matt was working in five-inch heels and major eye makeup.

You gotta give a man credit where credit is due.

That said, we couldn't have asked for two better hosts for an evening of divas, male and female.

By the time we left, all I could think was "Baby, Hit Me One More Time."

Scott's Addition has the best piano bar in Richmond.

I'd be a fool to be out of town for the next one.