I was sorry to hear that ebullient Linda Ryan has walked away from the annual New Year's Eve festival "First Night" in a dispute with the event's board of directors. You can’t dress up
First Night riftAnd although I concede I don't understand what all the hubbub is about, I have to take Linda's side in the fracas since, after all, she's the only person ever to get me to wear a dress in public.
It was a long pink dress and I looked as smashing in it as a 250-pound man with a mustache can look in ladies' attire. I wore it during a number during "Summer Follies," the "First Night" fund-raiser a few years back. Funny, I don't even remember the song we did, three other guys and me in dresses. It obviously was not entertaining enough to launch the entire "First Night" enterprise onto a path of financial security.
Linda was the one who convinced me to join the Follies, first as a writer of the spoof songs that make up the night's entertainment. Then she coaxed me into being part of the stage performance, which was something like a glorified Gridiron production with large show tunes and small skits mixed together. The cast was an equally eclectic mix of professional actors, singers and dancers; talented local celebrities and television news personalities; and the odd sprinkling of largely talentless civilians who have no business being on stage. I was a member and chief executive officer of the last group.
Linda charmingly led me along, cajoling, wheedling, wrangling and using Vulcan mind control techniques until not only had I had been inserted into every major number as a dancer and singer, I had somehow agreed to dress as a woman.
I admit that throughout the entire process, I never really understood the concept of First Night, a completely alcohol-free New Year's celebration. The thought of thousands of sober people milling around downtown Honolulu at midnight watching musical groups and jugglers to me seems ill-advised.
The idea of convincing a bunch of people to donate their time to put on a summer fund-raising stage production in order to pay the acts for the New Year's show was equally baffling. But what do I know about the entertainment industry? I was amazed the system worked and, aside from the occasional nervous breakdown on the night of the summer performance, everyone seemed to have a grand time.
Now, it seems, the system didn't work. As the New Year's eve celebration grew and grew, so did "First Night's" inability to pay the bills. The fund-raising situation apparently has gotten so bad that Linda has now stepped down as executive director.
Although the "Summer Follies" raised some money, other fund-raisers weren't so successful. Linda particularly criticizes an effort to get people to pay $25 a head to see the movie "Singing In the Rain" in the Hawaii Theatre. I'm not sure I would pay $25 to see "Singing In the Rain" if a limo picked me up at my house in Kaneohe and delivered me to the front door of the theater.
Obviously, "First Night" board members need to seriously knock noggins and come up with ways to keep the event going.
The entrepreneur in me envisions a "First Night Micro-Brewery Beer Garden" but I suppose that's not really an option.
Or maybe they could have an "All-Comers Ultimate Fighting Championship Night" at the Hawaii Theatre. Last man standing on stage gets to put on a pink dress and sing "Music of the Night" from "Phantom of the Opera."
In the meantime, I know that unsuppressible Linda Ryan will land on her feet and those feet will be dancing. Anyone who can get me to wear a dress has powers of persuasion that any company or community organization would be nuts not to snap up.