# 19: Clay Aiken: glorious voice, excellent comic actor, master of character and man in tights!

[liney23]

Gibby, GREAT photoshop!!!

He's going to have a ball, we're going to have a ball, theatregoers are going to have a ball.

Lots of this going on...

[bottlecap]

Clay posted in the spamalot thread on OFC post 774....I love him even more!

And that's aikim's OFC post that Clay quoted. Congrats to our Calender Girl! How cool!

[luckiest1]

Here is a direct link to Clay's post on the OFC tonight:

http://forums.clayonline.com/showpost.php?...p;postcount=775

He quotes another post....I think it may be someone who is a member here under a different name....and he underlines certain things in her post that mean the most to him.

I swear every day I think I couldn't love him more, and then I do.

[merrieeee]

e how exciting!

This is the best day ever.

[cindilu2]

Awww, aikim, think you'll ever come down off that cloud??? What an awesome post. THANK YOU for saying what so many of us feel, and making our boy misty.

:F_05BL17blowkiss:

I'm going to bed now, before anything can spoil this most amazing day!!!

[jamar1700]

YAY KIM!

[Scarlett]

Here is a direct link to Clay's post on the OFC tonight:

http://forums.clayonline.com/showpost.php?...p;postcount=775

He quotes another post....I think it may be someone who is a member here under a different name....and he underlines certain things in her post that mean the most to him.

Awwwwwwwww! *shamefacedly changes siggy....* Yay aikim!!!!! Woohoo!!!!

[YSRN]

Awwwww. He's so sweet!!!

Yay, Kim!

[ldyjocelyn]

Great post aikim -- and WOOHOO for Clay quoting you!

But then, I have to ask....are there people who aren't happy with the news from today? I've not seen any, but then, I usually stay in a pretty small world, ie., here.

[luckiest1]

I've seen a few, but most just had reservations at first, and have already come around. Of course, there are always the few usual suspects..... but I can ignore those pretty easily.

What a great day this has been! Night all. :F_05BL17blowkiss:

[liney23]

aikim... I love you!!! :F_05BL17blowkiss: That was one of the most beautiful posts I have ever read and I got all misty myself thinking about Clay reading it.

I have often cringed when thinking about him reading some of the stupids over there with their criticism and nastiness. I just about started crying thinking about him really reading good stuff for once! Thank you!!!!

Are you not thrilled that he quoted your post? Let us know when you come down from cloud 9...

AND, he let us know he's off the Paxil. That is soooo awesome! And, since he went to the UNICEF shingdig in that last month, that means his main reason for needing it is better... I am so thrilled that it helped him when he needed it.

I don't know how I'm going to be able to ever get to sleep tonight...

[wandacleo]

AIKIM???? AIKiM????? Wake up!!! Breathe!!!! Breathe!!!

[rohdy]

Wonderful post and well worth quoting aikim!!

Now.....I hope it is you he is PMing in appreciation!

[Ansamcw]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE our calendar girl!!!

what a thrill aikim...it was a great post too...one that I would gladly WORD!!!

I started watching spamalot...it was a homemade video taken of the Broadway show....I just can;t stop laughing...it is sooooo funny and exactly what I thought Clay's humor to be like. I think he is perfect for Sir Robin!!! I am sooo excited to see his interpretation of this character.

What an exciting experience for him!!!!

[Couch Tomato]

YEp..great post AIKIM....I'm thrilled that he took something so special to heart!!

[aikim]

OMG! I went over to the Spamalot thread to see what he wrote and I did a double take...couldn't believe he actually quoted me!

Sorry it took so long to write this, was talking to a friend...had to share the news.

I think my heart is finally beating normally, but I don't think I will be able to sleep tonight!

Kim

[muskifest]

Well, beginning Jan 2008, Clay might not be Lancelot, but Sir Robin will have a lotta lance.

ETA: aikim....that is so very, very cool. :F_05BL17blowkiss:

[aikim]

No, it wasn't me he was PM'ing...that would have killed me dead! LOL!

Kim

[wandacleo]

Oh, God, (whimper, snortle), I just noticed the little emoticon with the heart Clay put at the end of his message.

ACK!!! I cant hardly stand it, he's so frigging sweet.

[duckyvee]

Thanks, Kim! What a wonderful sentiment. Made me misty, too, especially knowing how it must have felt to Clay. :F_05BL17blowkiss:

He cyberkissed you!

[Claygasm]

Dang it! GIbby just called and purred over the phone, trying to get me to whip it out!

My Amex card, that is.

AaAARRGGHHH! Our daughters' school vacations are the same week in March and when I checked the performance Gibby and her husband have those great center 2nd row tix for, I saw that there are two seats in the center third row available!

AAARRRGGGHHH!

AND it looks like I could use my AMEX Rapid Rewards points to buy the tix!

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

OMG...omg...OMG....omg....WHAT TO DO!?!??!?!?!?!

OMG!!! My lurking friend and I just went a little nuts! We decided Saturday or Sunday matinees worked best for us to avoid staying overnight in NYC (its expensive!), so......

We got 8th row center Saturday Feb. 9th and FIRST ROW CENTER (great seats to look up Clay's skirt) on Sunday March 30th!!!!!

Strange thing was, it seemed no matter what date we tried, the same seats were always available!!!

So that was a quick $250! YIKES!!!!!

And I can probably be talked into another date or two......

Now, if only real life doesn't mess this up......

[ldyjocelyn]

Anybody besides me hoping that Clay will appear on The Daily Show to promote his appearance in Spamalot?

[playbiller]

Well, I think Clay took a post of a sensible, intutive person and quoted that, would that we all could be that, heh.

Ack, tomorrow I lose my sink for a couple of weeks - no dishwasher, no sink, no floor, no plaster wall. I did have to order extra small bathroom sinks so they wouldn't overpower the rooms.

I think there is some sadness from the rockstar! hopers. There is some angst from some westcoasters, and I understand that, but it seems to be pretty much over the top for a very few. Mostly there is jopy in the fandom, and possibly over zealous hope. Is it wrong to look at this as a gig and not expect it to be "the kick off of super stardom at last!"?

It seems to be a fun thing that Clay wants to do and will be convenient for me to see and enjoy. Fopr some reson, I don't seem to need more.

[jazzgirl]

Does the performer who plays Robin usually play the piano part himself? In the video I was watching on YouTube, it seemed to me that the actor was just pretending..

David Hyde Pierce, if that was the actor, is an accomplished pianist. He studied classical piano at Yale.

aikim, as I said elsewhere, I think you got the equivalent of a kiss from Conrad Birdie (in the play "Bye, Bye Birdie", one lucky girl from his fan club won a kiss from the heartthrob who was leaving for the service). Lucky you!

This article, although old, is very interesting in regard to Spamalot's appeal to a male audience:

New York Times

April 10, 2005

'Spamalot' Discovers the Straight White Way By JESSE McKINLEY

HE other night at the Shubert Theater, home of the freshly minted hit "Spamalot," there were lines everywhere. There were lines at the box office and lines at the cancellation window. There were lines at the souvenir stand and lines at the bar. There were lines upstairs, lines downstairs and lines on the stairs in between.

But there was one spot with no line whatsoever: the ladies' room.

That's because "Spamalot," Broadway's hottest show, drawn from the 1975 cult film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," has managed to tap into a rare, highly prized Broadway demographic: men; specifically, the kinds of teenagers and 20-somethings who find jokes about fish, flatulence and the French absolutely sidesplitting and who normally wouldn't be headed to the theater unless dragged by a girlfriend, school trip or court order.

"They are what the movie preview experts call young males under 35," said Mike Nichols, who directed "Spamalot." "And we have them."

Indeed, "Spamalot" may have created an entirely new breed of raving musical theater fan, one who has probably never heard of Rodgers and Hammerstein or Kander and Ebb or even - gasp - Stephen Sondheim, but who can quote full stretches of dialogue from 30-year-old films by British sketch-comedy troupes.

"I see guys in standing room yakking it up, hounding their girlfriends, elbowing them," Mr. Nichols said. "The guys actually lead it."

Guys like Jerry Gioia, 23, an air-conditioning duct worker (or "tin-knocker" as he prefers to be called) who lives with his parents in Bellmore, N.Y., and who, before last week, had seen exactly one Broadway show. (It was "Beauty and the Beast," and it was "very creative," he said.)

But last Saturday night, Mr. Gioia - a self-described huge Python fan - headed to Broadway with his uncle and two cousins.

"I like the dry humor," he said, standing outside the theater at intermission, a cigarette in one hand and a bag of "Spamalot" merchandise in the other. "I hear other plays have comedy on Broadway, but I don't know. This, though, is hysterical. It's even better than the movie."

Nobody's saying that "Spamalot" is only drawing men, of course; since opening on March 17, the show has regularly sold out the Shubert and built an advance of more than $20 million, a figure that indicates that it is selling in every demographic imaginable. (And women are certainly attending; on Saturday night - date night - the queue for the ladies' room was almost, but not quite, as long as for the men's.) Industry officials, though, say they are impressed by the show's ability to draw men in their 20's, 30's, and 40's, and their kids.

"It seems so far that 'Spamalot' has the potential to become a show for young guys like 'Wicked' is for young girls," said Jed Bernstein, the president of the League of American Theaters and Producers.

As such, "Spamalot" may already be grasping the holy grail of Broadway: new audience members. Faced with an aging consumer base - the average Broadway theatergoer is older than 40 - producers have become increasingly desperate to build new groups of potential ticket buyers, whether they are Beach Boys fans (targeted by the new musical "Good Vibrations") or devotees of East German transvestite antique collectors ("I Am My Own Wife").

Last year's revival of Lorraine Hansberry's "Raisin in the Sun," starring Sean Combs and Phylicia Rashad, illustrated how another niche audience, blacks, could contribute to a play's success on Broadway. Musicals like "Wicked" and "Hairspray" - both big hits - have done well in part by drawing hordes of women in their teens and 20's, many of whom identify with the young, flawed-but-strong female protagonists. (In "Hairspray," the heroine, Tracy, is overweight; in "Wicked," Elphaba, the nice witch, is just plain green.)

In fact, Broadway's audience is now nearly two-thirds female, according to statistics from the League of American Theaters and Producers. Women, who also make up the majority of ticket buyers, are more likely to be regular and repeat theatergoers. (Men, it seems, have some commitment problems.) And when it comes to young men, the numbers are even more discouraging; men under 35 - coveted by advertisers, television programmers and others trying to get their hands in the pockets of America - make up only about 12 percent of the average Broadway audience.

No one knows how many of these men are straight and how many are gay. What's certain is that, right or wrong, there is a perception that Broadway is awash in gay-themed shows, a stereotype amplified by high-profile productions like Boy George's "Taboo," "The Boy From Oz," starring Hugh Jackman, and this year's revival of "La Cage Aux Folles," all of which have gay characters at their centers.

And while avid theatergoers, including many gay men, will go to see almost any musical regardless of subject matter, young straight men not in the habit of seeing plays seem to need some assurance that they will find something familiar and likable. And what could be a safer bet than a guy movie like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"? (It's worth noting that another of the season's big musical comedies, "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," also comes from a film that traffics in bawdy humor and boys behaving badly.)

Harvey Fierstein, who in addition to currently playing Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof" also wrote the book for "La Cage Aux Folles," says it would be a stretch to say the needs of straight men are not being met on Broadway: "When have straight white men not gotten what they wanted?" But he agrees that Broadway has been doing a bad job of catering to the desire for the type of broad, silly, overt comedy currently on display at the Shubert.

"There's always been a place for a show like 'Spamalot,' " said Mr. Fierstein, who saw it in previews. "But we as a Broadway community got narrow minded and stopped doing those type of wild, slapsticky shows. We forgot how to do it."

Indeed, "Spamalot" also seems to be tapping into a sort of nostalgia for adolescent humor that is a staple of movies of the Farrelly brothers (and the Marx Brothers, for that matter) but that is rarely seen on Broadway.

Brian Peltonen offers a case in point. A video-game programmer from Boston, Mr. Peltonen, 27, said he had seen all the Monty Python movies several times ("even 'Jabberwocky,' " he said, citing a tangential entry in the Python canon) and bought four tickets for "Spamalot" as Christmas presents, including one for his buddy, Karl Hutter, 28, who flew in from Beijing to see the show. (Mr. Peltonen also brought his girlfriend, Alicair, who had never seen a Broadway show.)

"I figure the Python people wouldn't bring it to Broadway unless they thought it was good enough," Mr. Peltonen said, adding that if it wasn't for "Spamalot," there would be about "a 10 percent chance" of his coming to Broadway. "It wasn't exactly Ionesco or O'Neill, but we were laughing pretty hard."

In "Spamalot" the heroes aren't deep or even genuine, but they are funny, which is what matters to many men. "Gags about cruelty and violence and sophomoric dopey things have a kind of male feel to them," Mr. Nichols said. "It's what guys do and like to hear about on poker night."

Tim Curry, who plays a very silly King Arthur in the musical, confirms this, claiming to regularly see packs of young men chortling along to the show.

"They come in pockets of four or five guys from the frat, or who four or five guys who were frat brothers," he said, sounding a bit like the narrator of a National Geographic wildlife special.

Mr. Curry, of course, knows a thing or two about cultish fan bases, seeing as he was the star of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," which like "Holy Grail" was released in 1975. "I think they are the same in that when young people experience a movie it becomes a badge of their smartness," he said. "And then it becomes a club."

As such, there's also probably a small cultural movement at work here, too, as evidenced by the rise of recent adaptations of many of the ur-texts of male geekdom, from the blockbuster film saga "The Lord of the Rings" (which is also being turned into a musical) to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a movie being released this month. (And the BBC recently announced that Dr. Who was coming back.)

Still, the "Spamalot" phenomenon surprises some who have been going to - and performing on - Broadway for years.

"If I were of frat boy age and I had $100, would I opt for a Broadway ticket or would I want to spend that on booze and drugs?" Mr. Fierstein asked. "Even I, and I am as gay as a pink leather piñata, would choose booze and drugs."

Mr. Nichols said he hoped that his audience would be permanently converted. "The excitement is having gotten some of those men back who might have approached the theater like it's modern dance and not without provocation," he said. "It's nice to have them back."

Or coming for the first or the second time, as in the case Mr. Gioia, who said he loved "Spamalot" and would probably go to see other Broadway shows: if, of course, there was anything that held some appeal. "It's like reading a book," he said, "I'm only going to read something that interests me. Otherwise, how often am I going to be here?"

[jmh123]

Awwwwwwwww! *shamefacedly changes siggy....* Yay aikim!!!!! Woohoo!!!!

You've got to stop doing this to me. John Perry Barlow is one of the Grateful Dead's lyricists, and a fascinating person. Never thought of him as a poet, per se, but now I'll have to check out what else he's written besides Dead songs.

Aw, Scarlett, I wanna go to Spamalot with y'all peeps, and I'd love to go to the museums with you too!!!!!!!! But there's this thing about not having a job at the moment. Or for a long time. I'm working on that. I am going to one show, in March. EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I do have all my pretties unpacked now (and shelves rearranged, and more brought over from my mom's), thanks to your inspiration. (And boxes and bubble rap all over the apartment.) So now I have my own little poor-woman's museum to look at again.