Op-ed: What the Camera Doesn’t Show

Conversely, our band bonded with Provincetown in our own unrepeatable way as large white production trucks and passenger vans replaced the flocks of  pedestrians and bicylces on Commercial Street. We attended the season’s closing performance of Ryan Landry’s Showgirls— the Provincetown must-see townie talent competition  where one of our stars ended up butt naked on stage. Literally.

We fraternized with local cross-dressing celebs Dina Martina and Varla Jean Merman, who is one of our many cameos, and took a company whale watching tour into waters infamous for some of the best whale watching in the world. We celebrated our producer Tracy Utley’s 30^th birthday, and I re-enacted every Michelle Pfeiffer moment from Grease 2with one of our new cast members, the handsome Aaron Tone – the two-time hubby of the awe-inspiring Andrew Sullivan.

There were moments of absolute serendipity. On our last day of filming in P’Town, Richard Riehle had to catch his ferry back to Boston before we wrapped. We were shooting the wedding scene between me and my young love, Tyler (the rockingly talented Joe Conti) and amongst the wedding guests were two legendary Provincetown male celebrities – “The Hat Sisters.” Richard portrayed one of the Hat Sisters in one of his many previous films. And as Richard ran off to catch his ferry, one of the Hat Sisters replaced his dress and hat with Richard’s wardrobe and played Richard Riehle. If that ain’t full circle I don’t know what is. And on that same day that we shot our wedding scene, “don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed.

(Above: Whale watching with the gang. Below: Rehearsing with Aaron Tone)