Thursday, June 21, 2007

Inaugural musical extravaganza will have outgoing Dallas Mayor Miller’s detractors dancing in the aisles

By Rawlins Gilliland

DALLAS — Launching the festivities for newly-elected Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert will be Madame Mayor Laura Miller's pass-the-baton salute to her successor, headlining the first ever Dallas Follies, described as a musical variety evening review co-produced with former Mayor Ron Kirk. The event will be held at Reunion Arena.

Mayor Kirk has been active in Little Theater since his unsuccessful Senatorial race, most recently playing Stevie Wonder in Blinded By the Right, a musical drama depicting singer/songwriter Wonder as the first black Republican presidential candidate, drafted by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. In its Plano previews, Kirk’s singing and dancing left few dry eyes, according to venerable Dallas Morning News society columnist Allen Peppard.

Saluting the Trinity River project Kirk helped spearhead in the late 90s, the former mayor will kick things off singing, “Old Man River." As a good faith gesture, a rehearsal mole said this will immediately cut to a splashy solo with Angela Hunt singing a re-worked cover of the Supremes oldie “Stop! In The Name of God." Backup will be the Dallas Observer's Jim Schutze doing “interjected rap” at intervals.

Highlights of Laura Miller’s first turn as a musical headliner will undoubtedly be her pull-out-the-stops reggaeton-tinged cover of the Irving Berlin Annie Get Your Gun showstopper “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” with Tom Leppert. Miller will be dressed in a gold lame’ dashiki complete with dread lock braids in her “nod to diversity." Mayor Leppert will appear in matching top hat and tails.

Next, Mr. Leppert salutes the Southern Sector so pivotal to his win, asking unsuccessful mayoral candidate and former Mayor Pro Tem Mr. Don Hill to join him in a duet rocking out on the Ojays 70s hit “Money, Money, Money." Back up singers are said to be D’Angelo Lee and James Fantroy. Vintage South Dallas former councilman Al Lipscomb will hold court at the piano, while the statuesque Leo Chaney Jr. plays drums

Later in the show, Ms. Miller -- after a quick costume change -- does her ultimate tour de force star turn singing about the Dallas Cowboy Stadium, (with lyrics described as “contrite and conciliatory”): a re-working of the Britney Spears classic, “Oops, I Did It Again” called, “Oops, I Dribbled The Ball." No word regarding the mixed sports metaphor other than her spokesperson saying this number (said to be her favorite) “embraces the American Airline Arena."

Next will be a possible halcyon moment of the event….Mayor Leppert being joined by “runner up” opponent Ed Oakley doing (according to unnamed Heritage Alliance sources and consultants Carol Reed and Rob Allyn) an “outreach healing romp” duet from the musical Mame the inimitable "Bosom Buddies."

A patriotic vignette regarding the Iraqi war, pro and con, will anticipate the finale. Columnist/Talk Radio host Mark Davis will sing a cautionary tale song written in support of President Bush’s "Surge" called, "Premature Evacuation". The unlikely rebuttal original song, “Pullout Now!” will be performed by perennial candidate Jennifer Gale.

The evening will begin to wind to a close with Mayor Miller dancing a “lilting waltz number” with Ron Price and John Wiley Price called ‘What Price Glory" followed by a female impersonator representing Rosie O’Donnell joining Sheriff Lupe Valdez, costumed (according to GLAAD contacts) as the “bejeweled bride” performing Sinatra’s anthem, "Love and Marriage."

The touching finale will belong to Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle and Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm, described as a tearful tribute to predecessor, Chief Terrell Bolton, doing the old Burt Bacharach song, "There’s Always Something There To Remind Me." This will ebb into a tongue-in-cheek song and dance number spoofing the fabled fake drugs and more recent fake arrest ticket scandals. The backup singers, all vice squad, will then break away, vocally testifying in a mock courtroom about undercover sexual stings, a new twist on an early Streisand ballad, “He Touched Me."

The show’s wrap will culminate with “Born in the USA”: a live via FOX 4 satellite joint tribute from Mexican Presidents Vincente Fox and Felipe Calderon to Dallas’ Hispanic immigrant population and Parkland Hospital. LULAC chairman Domingo Garcia will appear lip-syncing as a pediatric doctor while the local Ballet Folklorico dance onstage dressed as mid-wives, each complete with inflated rubber babies.

Ticket information will be announced soon.

Rawlins Gilliland is the press agent for the Dallas Follies.

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