So yesterday, the world exploded when Stephen Sondheim mentioned that there would be some plot changes to the film version of Into the Woods.  (See Playbill.Com's Article Here.)

Many of my friends immediately came running to me for my reaction:  I view St. Stephen Sondheim as close to deity as exists on the planet, and clearly, I was going to uphold their sense of moral outrage that there would be changes to this absolutely perfect piece of art and pop culture.

They were shocked and surprised when I said I wasn't outraged, and let me explain why.

In 1988, we were extraordinarily lucky to have the original broadway cast of Into the Woods captured on tape for American Playhouse.  This was well filmed, well produced and is an absolutely excellent record of the piece that Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine created in the mid-1980's. As such, it was also a product of its time.  So much of the subtext in it comes straight from Bruno Bettleheim's The Uses of Enchantment, but is also colored by a Reagan-Era fear of nuclear annihilation, the onset of the AIDS Epidemic, and the need for found/created family.  So, we have that piece.   Set in stone.  Captured in time.  Brilliant as it is.

Wait..Brilliant as it is?  Let's look at that.  The first act of Into the Woods is very nearly perfect.  I'm going to go there and say that.  Seriously.  Very Nearly Perfect.  It doesn't need "Our Little World."  It doesn't really need "To Be Continued..."  It is a gorgeous, completely plotted 90 minute musical in and of itself.  Act Two is a second one act musical that picks up the story, compounds and complicates it and underscores many of the deeper, darker themes that are introduced in the first.

But Act Two also has a problem.  The ballad problem.  "Moments in the Woods." "Any Moment."  "No More." "No One is Alone."  "Children Will Listen."  With the exception of "Your Fault/Last Midnight" two thirds of the second act are gorgeous songs that individually have weight and meaning and beautiful lyrics, but collectively weigh the fucking show down and make you go, "Didn't you say that?  Twice?"  We used to joke that "No One Is Alone" could be parodied as, "Sing this song forever/On and on again/Cause you now remember/It's Reprise Number Ten/"  Sondheim himself cut the verse of "Children Will Listen" to move things along.  (Sadly, I love those verses, and thank you Barbra Streisand -- yes I went there -- for giving them to us.)

So.  Sondheim is bowing to Disney to make Act Two less dark?  Good.  If it means that Rapunzel doesn't die (pity.) or that the Baker's Wife doesn't have an affair with Cinderella's Prince (huh?), then we simply have to see what they have in mind.  But here's what I have to say on that:  TRUST THE GODS.  Sondheim and Lapine wrote it in the first place.  They're getting a chance to rewrite it themselves.  If you like their work, TRUST THEIR WORK.  Of course, we may not love the end result.  I certainly loathed the changes they put into the 2003 revival (getting rid of the whole nice/good/right them?  No thank you, boys!), but it's a different time and a different age.  For my friends under the age of 28, you weren't around when it was written in the first place, so calm down.  Change happens.

In fact, change can be great.  The film versions of The Music Man, Oliver, Grease, Cabaret and Chicago are all amazing.  Some tweaked from the originals, some wholly reconceived, but all changed.  The film versions of Rent, Phantom, Evita, Hairspray...not really changed.  Not really good.

So what I'm saying is look, the piece was written to express the mood of its time and the original creators are still around and alive to update it.  Are they doing it because Disney doesn't want to kill off one of its lavishly branded princesses?  Sure, but you know what?  Disney is putting up the cash. No other studio wanted to, and let's face it. It's business.

Want the art?  Come on over some night, we'll drink wine and watch Bernadette, Joanna, Chip, Robert, Danielle, Ben, Tom and the rest of the gang do the original.    But on Christmas night, 2014, I know where I'm going:  Into the Woods.

I don't know when it happened exactly, but at some point in the last year, I seem to have become the reigning queen of New York's Leather Community!  I'm Emceeing Leather Pride Night for the second year in a row, will be hosting Folsom Street East with the fabulous Will Clark, continue in my role as the Angel for Team Eagle/Cycle for a Cause, and am looking forward to hosting my second Halloween show at The Eagle in October.

Wait, you say, how does that make you the reigning QUEEN of the LEATHER COMMUNITY?  It's not like there was a pageant for a tiara in the back of The Eagle.  No, it's true.  It's a self proclaimed title that I will happily give up when someone else demonstrates that it's their time, but for now, I'm happy to wear the invisible, lightweight and yet, sparkly as all hell crown that goes with the territory.

When I was crowned Empress of New York in 2012, I took as my personal style, "The Elemental Broadway Empress of Community, Camp and Collaboration."  It took me a long time to come up with those last four words, but those are the very concepts on which I based my coronation walk, my reign and my post-reign life.

Community is critical:  though Gay Inc., would have you believe that we are winning the battle for marriage equality (and the platinum band on the third finger of my left hand would serve as testament to that assertion), we are still fighting wars for trans rights, economic justice, bullying and gay youth suicide and other topics that still need our help.  Sadly, the "gay" community is more fractured than ever.  We don't presume to know someone just because they're gay, and there are so many options for personal style, happy hours and political causes that we almost NEVER run into each other on the street.  Until we do.  And are reminded through acts of violence that our community NEEDS to come together once in a while and focus on the common good.  

Camp.  Girl, what's a drag queen without camp?  Susan Sontag wrote about it brilliantly in her essay, "Notes on Camp."  (Yes, kittens, click on the link to read it.)  Somehow I've managed to bring a style of camp to the leatherworld that says, "yes, boys, I'm one of you and can occupy the same space in my corset, lashes, and HEY...nice boots!"   Seriously, the leather world and the drag world are exactly the same except for the definition of "lash."

Collaboration:  None of us can do it alone.  We all have skills, backgrounds, ideas and resources that collectively can make this possible.  It's why I help fundraise for Team Eagle, it's why I'm delighted to Emcee Leather Pride Night, and it's why the shows that I produce are so much fun:  collaboration between different elements.

I'm not perfect, but I am usually pretty thoughtful about things of permanence.  My style is one of them, and I take it very seriously.  But with plenty of camp.

So, that said, I hope you'll help me collaborate in the coming week as we celebrate leather pride at LPNXXXI and Folsom Street East!  I'll be looking for you to do your part, whether that's showing up fabulous or dropping $2,000 at an auction or both!!

xo