Writer and performer Mark Sam Rosenthal, of the one-man show Blanche Survives Katrina in a FEMA Trailer Named Desire, muses on King cake, critics and the beloved Blanche DuBois. Now playing at the Soho Playhouse through March 15.

You were born in raised in Baton Rouge, so Katrina hit pretty close to home.
Half my family is in New Orleans—aunts, uncles, cousins. So I had a lot of personal connection(s) to the whole thing, which is the reason why I wrote the show. It was very emotional. My cousins spent four months at my mom’s. After the storm in Baton Rouge, I think 200,000 extra people were there overnight. It was crazy. And I think 50,000 have stayed and become permanent residents.

Was your family able to return to New Orleans?
One distant cousin’s home was totaled, but everyone else was able to repair eventually and return.

Talk about being in the Weeds -- reviews for the Roundabout's recent Mary-Louise Parker-led production of Hedda Gabler on Broadway haven't been too kind. The New York Times' all-too-powerful Ben Brantley called it "one of the worst revivals I have ever, ever seen," so: there goes that extension. Thing is, it's not all bad. The production has a few saving graces that go without mention elsewhere, though.

Before the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of Gypsy closed on January 11, the show's star, musical theater icon Patti LuPone, went haywire on an audience member who (stupidly) took pictures during a performance, going so far as to interrupt a number and have said audience member forcibly ejected from the show. The audio of the incident recently leaked to YouTube; that was exciting enough for LuPone's fans, who are, to be kind, fanatical. But the real treasure from all of this -- like so many other YouTube sensations -- came when some enterprising Gypsy fan decided to give LuPone's rant a hip-hop/techno remix. May we present LuPWNed! after the jump, for your mid-day enjoyment. If you haven't seen a Broadway show recently, let this be a reminder as to how far those $100 tickets can take you. Seriously.

New York City Opera recently called for an aria-infused interpretation of "I wish I knew how to quit you!" when news came that Brokeback Mountain would become an opera. The whole thing seemed destined for punchlines like this one: "Well, we all know how the boys hit their high notes, hehe. Because, you see, they're total gays." But, NYMag.com suggests that history might prove helpful in warding off parody, by citing operatic inclinations towards sexual ambivalence ("Mozart’s Cherubino from Le Nozze di Figaro, Strauss’s Octavian from Rosenkavalier, and Gluck’s Orestes and Pylades from Iphigénie en Tauride, to name a few") and, yes, cowboys ("Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West").

Madonna recently told Vanity Fair that New York isn’t what it used to be, that it doesn’t feel alive anymore, and that the synergy between art, music, and fashion is no more. That’s because Joey Arias has been hiding in Las Vegas for the last six years, duh! The drag diva with the speakeasy voice was handling Mistress of Seduction duties at Zumanity, Cirque du Soleil’s carnal carnival. And in a "you can take the drag queen out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the drag queen" twist of irony, the show was at the New York, New York Hotel & Casino.

Shed clothes, but no tears, for Broadway’s Cry-Baby star James Snyder.

James Snyder may play every grandmother’s nightmare as the pouty greaser hoodlum Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker. But remove the wig and attitude, and there’s a fresh-faced California boy. As he shares with a reporter photos of his childhood home in Sacramento, his family, and his girlfriend (as well as the latter’s pet dog, sadly eaten by a coyote), Snyder cheerfully gripes that he is sleepless—not, mind you, from bar-hopping, but from assembling furniture.

It would seem that this is the year of the musical. With In The Heights, Altar Boyz, and Sweeney Todd getting major accolades, the gaping hole Rent is soon to leave once it takes off from the theater circuit in June surely won't have any problems being filled with new musicals trying to establish themselves as not lame.

It's hard to decline an invitation to ogle sexy dancers and their nipple tassels. So hard, in fact, that we couldn't. As such, we recently checked out This Is Burlesque, an old timey Vaudevillian show with '20s flair. The performance stars funny man Murray Hill and neo-burlesque star Angie Pontani. Dancers were gussied in elaborate costumes—not to mention perfectly sculpted when said costumes came off. Murray, a crowd favorite, got away with lecherous jokes without seeming creepy, and his interjections throughout the show added to the enjoyment of watching two boobs cycling in opposite directions.

From September 25 to February 8, composers of Harry Potter erotic fan fiction will have the incredible opportunity to infuse their descriptive writing with unparalleled realism. That’s because Harry himself is coming to Broadway, with broomstick on full display. Actor Daniel Radcliffe is reprising his role as a disturbed stable boy in Peter Shaffer’s Tony-award winning play Equus, which made waves in London not only for Radcliffe’s acclaimed performance, but for the then-underage star's full onstage nudity. Previews begin September 5 at the Broadhurst Theatre. Radcliffe will be performing when Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince is released on November 2, meaning his wand will cast a spell over this fair city.

Though it’s billed as a love story, Rainbow Kiss, written by Scotland’s Simon Farquhar and directed by Will Frears, is actually about its unrequited corollary. Set in Aberdeen, Scotland’s “Granite City,” Kiss follows Keith (played by Peter Scanavino), a sad fellow who spends his days hating a dead-end job, and his nights tending to his infant son alone. All work and no play, Keith despises his life, until he meets a captivating woman at a bar and takes her home with him.