The Night Of 1000 Gowns

Last night I attended the Imperial Court of New York's 25th annual Night Of 1000 Gowns, which this year benefited the Ali Forney Center and the Trevor Project. Swirling amidst all of the winking pomp and circumstance were empresses, emperors, duchesses, dukes, viscountesses, dowager empresses, and probably a dozen other royalty titles unknown to me. Also in the room were 100% of all the rhinestones and tiaras to be found in North America.

Among the bold-face names in attendance were the evening's honoree, longtime activist David Mixner, the cast of Logo's A-List, the cast of RuPaul's Drag Race, director Chi Chi LaRue, "JMG addict" Wilson Cruz, and actress Ally Sheedy, who cracked up when I asked her to say "No disassemble!" Miss New York 2010 Claire Buffie spoke eloquently about her LGBT rights platform during the Miss America pageant, gay pop star Ari Gold arrived with two slave boys on leashes, Dan Choi walked in on the arm of a statuesque attendee he "met on the escalator," and My Princess Boy author Cheryl Kilodavis worked the room with a handsome man in one hand and a stack of her books in the other.

This was my first Imperial Court event and I found the entire evening simultaneously spectacular and spectacularly silly. But one got the distinct impression that everybody there was totally in on the joke and folks, this group has raised buckets and buckets of money for LGBT causes over the decades. Check out the slideshow at the bottom of this post for many, many photos of the glamor, plus lots of celebs not mentioned above. Full-screen versions of the photos can be found here. You'll also enjoy Matthew Rettenmund's coverage at Boy Culture, where you'll find many red carpet video interviews.

SLIDESHOW: 2011 GLAAD Awards

On the GLAAD Media Awards red carpet: Ricky Martin, Andy Cohen, the Fabulous Beekman Boys, Denis O'Hare, Wilson Cruz, Tracy Young, Jarrett Barrios, Russell Simmons (and lots of reality/cooking show folks I don't really know) followed by lots of shots of the awards show, including winner Tina Fey. Full-screen versions here.

Broadway Stars - It Gets Better

Susan Blackwell of the Tony-nominated [title of show] brings together Nathan Lane, Wilson Cruz, Terrence McNally, Denis O'Hare, Cherry Jones and dozens of other well-known Broadway stars for their It Gets Better message.

(Tipped by JMG reader Beau)

The Out 100 Awards

Friday night I attended the Out 100 Awards at Gotham Hall. It was a fancy-schmamcy shindig populated by pop stars, publishing honchos, pouty models, glamazon drag queens, and a veritable who's who of the gay glitterati. I spent most of the evening in the company of handsome Robert Cameron (VP of Levi's) and activist/radio host Michelangelo Signorile, we had a blast together. There were several musical performances over the evening - Nikki Costa rocked with house with her Janis Joplin-meets-James Brown act, but the absolute highlight of the night was the very first performance of the reunited Labelle in 33 years.ABOVE: How amazing does Nona Hendryx look? She's 64! She's openly bi, you know.ABOVE: Cheyenne Jackson accepts his award.

I'll have video of the Labelle's first number up a bit later - Patti got quite verklempt at singing with her old bandmates for the first time in so long. For the last number, she asked for three volunteers to come up and perform Lady Marmelade. One of the volunteers was actor Wilson Cruz and he fucking stole the show, seriously everybody thought he'd been planted, he was that good. I ran into Wilson at the rally on Saturday and he was still on a complete high, but denied that it had been staged. Below is a slideshow of the evening - I got some amazing shots. Go here for full-screen versions of the photos plus captions.

UPDATE: Here's the video. I was right under the speakers so the sound is lousy, but after the song ends there's a couple of minutes of applause and you can see how moved they were by their reception. Later in the set, they spoke passionately about marriage equality. I'll try and find a clip of that.