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L.A. Scene September ’09: Mia Kirshner’s Benefit, GLAAD “Top Chef” Invasion, and The Gay Marriage Plays

L.A. Scene is a monthly column that chronicles lesbian nightlife and events of interest in Los Angeles. Sarah Witness, an East Coast transplant and obvious femme, has been navigating the snark infested waters of Hollywood since 2001. Although she’s an NYU trained actress, she prefers sipping vodka and making idle chit-chat at really gay nightclubs. I Live Here While browsing for lattes in the bookstore a few months ago I noticed the book I Live Here by Mia Kirshner (and others). I assumed it was something trite about the experience of playing a WEHO lesbian on Showtime. I didn’t bother to flip it over. Turns out it’s a seriously intricate portrait of war, globalization, ethnic cleansing, and AIDS. So I’m an ass.

It seems that Mia has been seriously committed to bettering the world for the past eight years. Now you feel bad about knocking Jenny, don’t you? Well probably not, but this isn’t a dialog ladies.

Mia recently held a benefit for the Kachere Juvenile Prison in Malawi, where she is trying to improve conditions for the young inmates, many of whom are held in sordid and dangerous conditions for petty crimes.

Thankfully, Dara Nai already covered the situation in Malawi in her AfterEllen interview with Mia last month. So I’ll just tell you about the party.

It was held at the Causecast headquarters in Santa Monica , a really cool space that looks like a barn that’s been converted into a nightclub. On arrival I noted a very attractive woman loitering outside in a dress and heels, who turned out to be Rose Rollins who played Tasha on The L Word.

On entry all guests were handed a flashlight and instructed to head toward the exhibit, where dark corridors were covered with art and writing created by Kachere inmates. The display was beautiful, agonizing, and fortunately spit us out at the bar. Perfect.

Suddenly it was a wild party filled with lesbians, hors d’oeuvres, even a photo booth! Eventually we were brought back into the main room to hear more about the organization. Mia kicked off the auction, and she was very gentle and demure, i.e. Canadian. That kind of attitude can get people to open their hearts, but not their wallets. Fortunately, the louder and taller Rose Rollins stormed the stage, took the mic, and successfully got the ball rolling. The auction wound up being a huge success, with people bidding on elaborate Mexican vacations and agreeing to purchase necessities like soap for Kachere inmates. There was a silent auction as well. Bridget McManus was the ecstatic highest bidder on a giant basket of colorful undergarments. The event struck the perfect balance of raising awareness and allowing the guests to just have fun. After the auction everyone was released to mingle once more.

“Oh, are you one of those people who wanted me dead?” was Mia’s opener when I introduced myself and admitted to writing a column for AfterEllen.com. I assured her that Jenny was already dead before I turned in my first article and anyway I don’t usually write about television because that would involve research.

I didn’t admit that I had totally misjudged her.

GLAAD Top Chef Invasion On August 23rd, GLAAD held a fundraiser at a private residence in Hancock Park (a gorgeous neighborhood in Los Angeles reserved for the gainfully employed).

The crowd was a mix of button down-sporting gay men, a handful of performers in risqué unitards, and celebrities like Thea Gill (Queer as Folk), who was inexplicably convinced we somehow knew each other. We don’t. So that was confusing.

Still, we had a lovely chat and it turns out she’s a huge fan of AfterEllen.com. The afternoon’s unique entertainment featured a Hedwig-esque drag queen and the unitarded peeps doing some sort of performance art that involved writhing around on the ground and a series of fan kicks. They were followed by a singing and dancing girl group. I sincerely admired everyone’s showmanship, which couldn’t have been easy on a 5 x 5 pallet of parquet in somebody’s backyard.

The main event was a cook-off between Top Chef alums Jamie Lauren and Richard Sweeney. The contest was judged by celebs Robert Gant, Elizabeth Keener, and the omnipresent and adorable Wilson Cruz (Rickie!). Richard won by a tiny margin and was awarded a giant golden whisk. Jamie received a petite condolence whisk. She took it like a lady. Unlike Ms. Lauren, though, I forgot my manners and sprinted across the lawn after spotting what appeared to be chocolate ice cream cones. Tragically, they turned out to be steak tartare in wontons. It was like something out of a vegetarian horror movie.

Famished I went off to dinner with Jamie Lauren, Richard Sweeney, and Elizabeth Keener. Going out to eat with chefs (and Elizabeth, of course) is highly recommended. We went to Street, which is the first solo venture of out-lesbian chef Susan Feniger, half of the Too Hot Tamales duo behind Border Grill and Ciudad. Street is located in the former Highland Grounds coffeehouse space, a place I’d been dragged more than once to hear earnest lesbian poetry slams. The building has been totally revamped to resemble an urban alley, albeit a very clean and hip one. The clientele is also clean and hip and not likely to be found hanging out in actual urban alleys. The cuisine is Feniger’s take on street food from around the world; that is, what you might buy from a street cart while visiting, say, Egypt or India. It’s all served tapas-style to enable sharing.

Susan and her long-time partner (girlfriend partner, not cooking partner), Liz Lachman sat with us. Liz, fyi, is an accomplished screenwriter and a really great dinner companion. She and Susan were both funny and charming and I’m trying to figure out how to make them my best friends without seeming like a creepy stalker. In what seemed like a Lucy and Ethel conveyor belt moment, Susan sent out everything on the menu. No really. And, to my total and unexpected delight, she whipped up a vegetarian version of each dish! I assumed she was being accommodating because of who I was sitting with, but she assured me that she would actually make veggie versions for anyone who came into the restaurant. That makes me want to stalk her even more.

The food was amazing, Richard and Jamie were very impressed, and I was stuffed for the week. Now if only Susan and Liz would lift that pesky restraining order.

Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays The theatre was the number one venue for social change for about a billion years. Where did it go? Nothing on YouTube, but there is something to be said for people who are actually artistically trained.

When Prop 8 passed, the Attic Theatre’s Artistic Director Brian Shnipper contacted accomplished American playwrights and asked them to write short plays on the subject of gay marriage. The result was Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays, a one night staged reading benefiting the Human Rights Campaign.

The event was held at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood, an area of Los Angeles I don’t frequent unless I’m craving a carjacking. The theatre itself is stunning, old, and smallish, with 354 seats. I didn’t count them. I just have Google.

The evening was kicked off by Miss Coco Peru, a funny drag queen who has hosted at least five events I’ve been to this year. We must have common Facebook friends or something.

Eleven short plays made up the night, which opened with Susan Miller‘s lesbian-themed play Human Affairs, starring Amy Brenneman, Roma Maffia, and Zachary Quinto. Amy Brenneman made a very hot lesbian. She should consider it full time. Susan is a two-time Obie winner and co-creator of the hit web series Anyone But Me.

Another play, Resolution, by Nancy Nyman and Heather McNama was about lesbians in the 1800s where one was actually living publicly as a man. The comedy came when they attempted to switch roles, as somebody had to be a man in that society, and the one who’d been doing so got tired of it. You think we’ve got it rough in 2009? Think again.

Also lesbian-centric was the play Doubtless by Albert Innaurato, which featured gay nuns played by Kate McGregor-Stewart and Mindy Sterling.

Gay kudos should also be given to Debra Messing, Alfre Woodard, Peter Paige, Timothy Olyphant, Dan Lauria, Wilson Cruz (Rickie!), and hugely to Jason Alexander who was really really excellent as a homophobic businessman. Also to everyone else, but this list is getting boring.

The plays lasted two and a half intermission-less hours. Hopefully all slow-moving audience members have recovered from any injuries suffered as a result of my vaulting over them on my way to the restroom.

A reception followed with lots of wine, elaborate food, and wedding cake. For a while I tried in vain to find someone I knew. Nope, only people I knew from television. I thought about approaching Debra Messing but she was busy looking worried as usual. I wouldn’t look so freaked out all the time if I had had her decade.

I caught up with the aforementioned playwright Susan Miller, who was there with her partner and son. I also ran into Paul Adelstein (Private Practice) and his wife Liza Weil (Gilmore Girls) who were there to lend their support. This caused Zachary Quinto to come over and chat, followed by Timothy Olyphant and his wife Alexis. Lots of wine was consumed by all, apparently too much by me. When Wilson Cruz walked by I’m pretty sure I accused him of following me there from the Top Chef event. Ugh. At least I didn’t call him Rickie.

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