N.Y. Scene November 2011: Emery Awards & After Party, DJ Tracy Young’s Birthday Bash & Gay Marriage Plays

N.Y. Scene is a monthly column that chronicles events of interest for lesbian and bi women in New York. Grace Chu has come out of lesbian scene retirement to navigate the vast and ever-evolving New York City scene, so you don’t have to.

Emery Awards and After Party – Cipriani Wall Street – November 10, 2011

While the kids in America camped out in Zuccotti Park a few blocks away, throngs of gays and lesbians occupied Wall Street to benefit the Hetrick Martin Institute, a non-profit organization devoted to serving the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) youth. By the end of the night, $1.3 million was raised for HMI. So, hey, don’t knock the 1%.

Among those in attendance were Alan Cumming, Gayle King, Real Housewife Sonja Morgan, Ralph Lauren, Kenneth Cole, and Emery Awards honoree Newark mayor Cory Booker.

Sonja Morgan

Alan Cumming

Gayle King and Cory Booker

Mike Ruiz

As dinner – attended mostly by gay men dressed like penguins – drew to a close, the ladies arrived fashionably late to the after party to dance to the beats of DJ Heather M and dodge a woman dancing in stilts.

DJ Heather M

Lookin’ great, ladies!

DJ Tracy Young’s Birthday Bash – District 36 Nightclub – November 10, 2011

What do you do when you’re an internationally known deejay and it’s your birthday? You deejay your own birthday party of course. DJ Tracy Young‘s birthday blowout was held at District 36 nightclub on November 10. Co-host designer Patricia Field had already left by the time I arrived, but plenty of shirtless men continued to dance to Young’s energetic mixes until the wee hours of the morning.

** NEWS FLASH **

And now we interrupt this article for an obligatory November TruckStop photo. Money doesn’t grow on trees, but it appears to grow and fall out of the mouths and fists of TruckStop patrons, landing in the waistbands of the TruckStop Girlz. Just another weekend night at Slate Lounge…

All right. Now that this is out of my system, let’s move on.

Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays – Minetta Lane Theater – November 13, 2011

On November 13, Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays celebrated its opening night Off Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater with special celebrity guests, including Kelly Ripa and Jerry Seinfeld. The nine 10-minute plays were read by a six member cast: Craig Bierko, Richard Thomas, Polly Draper, Beth Leavel, Harriet Harris and Mark Consuelos in a format reminiscent of The Vagina Monologues. Since the set was bare bones and the cast read the script from music stands, all attention could be focused on the message of the plays, which celebrated same sex marriage from different viewpoints.

Paul Rudnick‘s contributions are especially humorous. In “The Gay Agenda,” he lampoons opponents of same sex marriage, and in “My Husband,” an overly competitive mother becomes sick of being upstaged by her friends, who have all publicly bragged about the opulent wedding ceremonies of their gay and lesbian children, so she places a fake wedding announcement in the paper for her gay son.

The entire cast participated in Doug Wright‘s “On Facebook,” which was inspired by an actual debate that took place on Facebook after Maine’s same sex marriage law was repealed.

Kelly Ripa / Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinsky

Jerry Seinfeld / Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinsky

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinsky

While its Off Broadway run has ended, the play, which originally debuted in California, is one that could be easily produced with different casts in theaters and universities all over the country. With its spartan production and poignant and heartwarming message, let’s hope the producers bring this play to a wider audience.

All photos by Grace Chu unless otherwise noted