Toto Does Bingo!

This past Wednesday night, the Ark Theater Company, one of the two theater companies co-producing Say Goodbye Toto, had their annual Drag Queen Bingo fundraiser at Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood. For those of you who’ve never been, it’s just like your grandma’s Bingo, though it’s run by the sarcastically hilarious Drag Queen Ms. Bridgette Of Madison County, and Bingo Boy, the creator of it all.

They like to have Celebrity Ballcallers to assist Bridgette, so our very own Renee Scott, who plays Dorothy, and Joe Porter, who plays Toto, gamely dressed up in their costumes and lent a hand, or a paw, as it would be.

Joe forgot to bring his makeup to put on his Toto nose and other markings, so he grabbed a green Bingo dauber, and painted it on that way. It worked surprisingly well.

(Shall we take a moment to admire Toto’s sprightly ears? I made that paper mache headpiece, and attached the ears to it. Lion and Cat also sport the same kind of headpieces, and I made those too, having had no previous paper mache experience. It’s amazing what you can put you mind to and make happen when you have three days until your show opens, ha ha ha.)

Renee and Joe did great, and almost charmed the dress right off of Bridgette (who promptly christened Joe “ToJo.”) Everyone had a lot of fun, we raised money for Ark, and Jake Elsas, who plays the Wizard, ended up winning the grand prize of an Ipod Shuffle. Jake’s been suffering through a sinus infection, and has been told to rest his voice to save it for show nights, so as he won and jumped up to claim his prize, Joe as Toto ran up with him and interpreted his words, which ran something along the lines of “Wow! Thanks! Cool!”

It was awesome.