Naked with the Mayor

We are exactly one week away from Chicago's mayoral elections.

And last week, I met one of them.

And by "met," I mean "stripped in front of."

Let me explain.

Last Friday, four members of the cast of SEUSSICAL made an appearance on ABC's 11:00 a.m. news program.

Just four of us - - Bethany Thomas who plays The Sour Kangaroo, John Burns who plays Jojo, Isaiah Brooms who plays the Mayor of Whoville and me.





Here's a production pic with Bethany on the left. That's Kelli Morgan as Mayzie La Bird on the right. Unlike Bethany and me, Kelli had the good sense not to get naked in front of a potential Windy City Mayor.

I'm getting way ahead of myself.

The four of us went to the State Street studio for ABC news, and since Bethany and I work downtown, we put put on our costumes at the studio so we could change back into our street clothes and go to work after we had dazzled everyone in Television Land.

The taping itself was eventful - - if your definition of "eventful" is "to suck massively and often."

You see, we only had one track from the show, the curtain call GREEN EGGS AND HAM, and since were only doing a quick 3 and a half minute segment with questions and then the song, we thought we were fine.

And then, ABC wanted play in's and play out's before and after commercial breaks.

We ended up singing and dancing to GREEN EGGS AND HAM about five different times, and the really funny part is, as I said, IT'S THE CURTAIN CALL!!! - - so, the first half of the number is choreographed and the second half... well... ISN'T!!!

So, when the four of us got to the "isn't choreographed" part, we were told to "improvise"...

...and our dance improvisations looked less like dancing and more like Cousin Jeri from THE FACTS OF LIFE having an epileptic seizure.

It was awful and yet we kept singing that song again and again. We sang it so much that when we were leaving, one of the techies said, "Thanks. I'll have that song in my head for the rest of the day" and believe me, the "thanks" part smelled just like "sarcasm."

So after all of that, Bethany and I made our way to the dressing room where we had changed, and even though I was in platform shoes, overalls and a 3 foot "Cat in the Hat" hat, a man tried to stop me from going in by saying, "Wait! Dorothy is in there!"

Now, at this point in the "sucking," I didn't give a rat's ass if Dorothy Gale herself was in that room.

Even if it was Judy Garland AS Dorothy Gale, I was going in, changing my clothes and getting the Hell out of Dodge before the angry mob came and burned me with their torches for putting them through such abysmal television.

So, I opened the door and the woman inside, "Dorothy" I presume, said it was ok.

Bethany and I started taking off our costumes and talking about this and that. She told me she was playing the Lilias White role in Boho Theatre's upcoming production of THE LIFE and I was (and am) thrilled for her.

So, there we are, shooting the theatrical bullshit, and something in my brain said that I should possibly ask this well dressed woman named Dorothy something before I just went ahead and did it...

"Excuse me, ma'am. Do you mind if I change my pants?"

She looked at me like I had two heads. Above my neck, not all together, you dirty, dirty thing, you.

She sort of shook her head "no," and I made some stupid comment about my mama slappin' me across the face from 600 miles away if I hadn't asked that question.

What DOES Emily Post say about disrobing in front of a complete stranger?

So, there I stood...

in my underwear...

...in front of The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County...

...and Mayoral Candidate, Dorothy Brown.

Oh, Dear Lord...