Every day is opening night.

Ladies and gents,

This evening, raise a flute (or three) to a Broadway and cabaret doyenne whose tresses are as silver as her wit is golden: Jamie deRoy. The inimitable producer-performer-humanitarian will celebrate 35 years of Jamie deRoy & Friends with a one-night-only spectacular at Birdland Jazz Club. Tickets? Scarce but if you grease the right palms, you might get lucky. The lineup? Pure heaven: the golden-throated Harolyn Blackwell, Grammy-winning Julie Gold, the impish charm of Rob Magnotti, and a dash of madcap flair from the Olivier-winning cast of Operation Mincemeat​.

Jamie has graced more stages than a swing during cold and flu season. But long before cabaret was cool again, she was a vanguard of New York’s cable access renaissance, like a chaste Robyn Byrd with musical chops and class for days. For more than three decades, Jamie deRoy & Friends has beamed Broadway into living rooms with a cocktail of song, wit, and a parade of friends who are as talented as they are game.

The night benefits the Entertainment Community Fund, naturally—because Jamie doesn’t just raise the roof, she raises cold, hard cash. Fourteen Tony Awards, nine MACs, 15 Drama Desks… her mantle must have steel support beams!

Meanwhile, journalists all along the Acela Corridor are scrubbing ink stains out of their formalwear, as the glitzy Broadway opening of Good Night, and Good Luck promises to boast more press types than Mike Waltz’s contact list. It may be the first time an opening night crowd possesses more Peabodys and Pulitzers than Tonys and Obies.

And speaking of theatrical openings, The Flea launched its 2025 season with Amm(i)gone, self-described “Virgo Pakistani-American theatre queerdo” Adil Mansoor’s solo riff on Antigone, co-adapted with his Quranic scholar mother. Between the happy hours, talkbacks, and queer soirées, it’s quickly become the most healing theatrical ritual south of 14^th Street. I hear it took a village of theater professionals to birth this beaut, including Maria Goyanes (formerly of Woolly Mammoth, now Lincoln Center), Kate Moore Heaney (Long Wharf Theater), Joseph Hall and Ben Pryor (Kelly Strayhorn Theater), Kate Loewald and Rob Bradshaw (PlayCo), and course The Flea’s own Niegel Smith.

Finally, baseball season is back, which means, if you see me, I’ll likely be in Dodgers blue. (A color I personally think clashes with “White House “ white.)

Tidbits from around town…

Spied playwright Lynn Nottage sipping a ginger fizz at Bemelmans, murmuring something about a musical adaptation of Frasier (don’t quote me—unless it’s true).

Spotted Elizabeth Warren, her a dead-ringer, at a recent performance of Operation Mincemeat.

Overheard Sufjan Stevens at Russ & Daughters explaining sable vs. sturgeon to a bewildered Swede.

A toast of something sparkling to you and yours!

Kisses,