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Drag show prepares to exit Underground
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On June 4, a little over a year and a half after a jampacked New Year’s Eve debut, Atlanta drag queen “matriarch” Charlie Brown will hurl her final insult onstage at Charlie Brown’s Cabaret at Underground Atlanta downtown.
“It’s just time to go,” Brown confirmed to Buzz on Thursday. “There’s just not enough business for us to continue.”
Ironically, Underground insiders say that during the nightclub industry’s slowest months, January and February, the newly reinvented nightlife scene there did OK. However, after an article about Underground ran in the AJC in March, crowd numbers continued to dwindle.
While Charlie Brown’s Cabaret was one of Underground’s success stories, especially on Thursday nights when it hosted its popular “Drag Idol” competitions, Brown says business has continued to evaporate.
“I really enjoyed working with the people down there,” Brown said. “It’s a shame it didn’t work out.”
Underground general manager Dan O’Leary didn’t immediately return calls to Buzz on Thursday.
Naturally, with two decades under her/his garter belt, Brown is busy securing the cabaret’s next home.
“We’re looking at a dinner theater concept,” Brown hinted. “It’s going to be an elaborate, Las Vegas-outfits kind of thing. It’ll be a proper dinner theater ‘La Cage’-type show.” An October launch is being planned.
In the interim, according to Brown, the Charlie Brown Cabaret cast will move its show to WETBar in Midtown every Friday night, beginning June 16.
Overscene
“We Are Marshall” actors Matthew Fox, Matthew McConaughey, the film’s director McG and some guests having a quiet dinner in one of Pricci’s private rooms Wednesday night in Buckhead. We’re told the party dined on authentic Italian from Pricci’s chef Piero Premoli, a native of Milan, Italy. So, unlike the rest of us, Fox presumably was relaxing and not throwing stuff at his TV screen and screaming “What the [expletive]?!” at 10:59 p.m. during the final moments of “Lost.”…
When Steven Eisenstein, catering sales manager at Omni Hotel at CNN Center, was busy offering directions and assistance to guests this week, he remarked to one woman on the elevator, “You look just like one of the actresses on ‘Desperate Housewives.’ ” Turns out, it was Bree Van De Kamp, herself, Marcia Cross, who was in town for a few hours for an interview at CNN. We’re told that Eisenstein quickly figured out who Cross was when he spotted a stash of “Desperate Housewives” DVDs in her arms. Cross also popped into KEF Media’s studio in west Atlanta to chat via satellite with 16 TV stations across the country to discuss the malady of migraine headaches.
There was no immediate word whether Cross had the opportunity to pop into MetroFresh in Midtown for the eatery’s tribute sandwich, the Brie Van de Kamp (brie cheese, tomato chutney with basil on raisin nut [case] bread, natch). …
Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell at V-103’s “Love Jones: Night of Music & Poetry” concert Wednesday at EarthLink Live in Midtown. Also in the capacity audience was DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones, for whom V-103’s Wanda Smith and Miss Sophia performed their original poem, “Can a Black Man Get a Little Peace?”
Lowe: I’m no no-show
Lowe Gallery owner and charity auctioneer Bill Lowe was surprised to learn in this space this week that he had been characterized as a “no-show” at the UNICEF “Designs of Hope” gala over the weekend. “I’ve never even heard of this event,” Lowe told Buzz on Thursday. “It was total news to me.” Lowe said that not only was he in town and available for the event, he was out, taking in “The DaVinci Code” on the night in question. “Designs of Hope” organizers contacted by Buzz, meanwhile, continue to maintain that Lowe was indeed scheduled for the event through a Lowe Gallery employee. Still, we continue to wonder how a Lowe-led auction would have fared. After all, at a 2004 Rainforest Foundation-U.S. benefit, Lowe managed to get Sting to take off his shirt for moneyed females in attendance.
Sick bay update
PBS host Charlie Rose says he’s a lucky man.
The “Charlie Rose Show” interviewer was traveling in Syria in late March when he unexpectedly developed heart trouble that required surgery in Paris and a monthlong hospital stay.
He’s still recuperating, and grateful that things aren’t worse.
“You’re talking to someone who’s very, very lucky. It could have gone the other way,” Rose told The Daily Dispatch of Henderson, N.C., his hometown, for a story published this week.
The 64-year-old said his doctors in the United States were aware of a weakness in his heart but didn’t expect trouble to crop up so soon. It did just after he boarded a plane from Damascus to Paris on March 24.
“It just deteriorated faster than we thought,” Rose said.
Celebrity birthdays
Actor James Arness is 83. Singer Stevie Nicks is 58. Actress Pam Grier is 57. Country singer Hank Williams Jr. is 57. Singer Lenny Kravitz is 42. Actress Helena Bonham Carter is 40. Actor Joseph Fiennes is 36. “South Park” co-creator Matt Stone is 35.
Contributing: Sonia Murray and news services. If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
Comments
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By Harold
May 26, 2006 11:05 AM | Link to this
Harold says they should fill Underground with water and expand the aquarium into that pit.