The Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles presentation of “Not Entirely Wicked” was entirely wonderful

I’m a few days late on this but wanted to make sure I wrote a little something about a most fantastic show I attended on Saturday night at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills.

It was the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles presentation of Not Entirely Wicked featuring guest performers Stephen Schwartz and Liz Callaway.

I arrived to the theater a bit upset after my invited guest had to beg off only hours earlier and I did not have adequate time to get a replacement. Then the Will Call line outside the theater was an utter disaster – total chaos and lots of ticked off people trying to remain cool.

Finally got my tickets and gave the extra one to a nice lady I had met in line. Had come straight from a movie at the LA Film Festival downtown so didn’t have time to grab dinner. Bought some popcorn in the lobby and the lady selling it assures me that yes, I can take it into the theater.

I start to walk into the theater with my popcorn and the lady at the door says: “I’m sorry, you can’t bring your popcorn in.”

Okay, who do I have to kill?

I throw the popcorn away and walk in and my mood lifted when I discovered that my seat was in the front row center – perfect!

Then the 8 pm concert didn’t start. Then it was 8:30 and it still hadn’t started. At around 8:40, GMCLA Executive Director Christopher Verdugo took to the stage, apologized for the delay, apologized for the Will Call fiasco, asked us all to take a deep breath and pretend it all never happened.

Yeah, good luck with that, pal.

But damned if we did.

From the moment the show started until the moment it ended, we were thoroughly entertained, dazzled, charmed and at times deeply moved.

The show featured songs and medleys from Wicked, The Baker’s Wife, Children of Eden, Godspell, The Magic Show and Pippin, along with screen favorites Enchanted, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas and The Prince of Egypt.

What an absolute thrill to be able to see Tony nominee Liz Callaway perform and towards the end of the show, she belted out one of the best versions of Meadowlark from The Baker’s Wife that any of us will ever see. Her voice is a dream and her radiance and confidence is striking.

Schwartz, the Broadway legend and Disney composer whose stage and screen music was showcased in the concert, debuted the song Testimony. It’s a song about teens struggling to come to terms with their sexuality and thoughts of suicide.

The song’s lyrics were taken from and inspired by the It Gets Better Project.

As the chorus sang the song, photos of kids who have committed suicide in recent years – some of them made headlines – were shown and it hit so many of us deep inside that they were not able to hang on. We lost them, all of those beautiful kids.

The part of the song where they sing about all the things in life you would have missed is what got to me the most. As the song ended, I was a bit surprised to discover tears had streamed down both sides of my face. They just fell.

I don’t have video of the LA chorus performing the song but there is YouTube video of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performing it.

Here it is:

The chorus was guest conducted by Dr. Timothy Seelig who was literally about five feet from me. He was fun to watch!