Sundays are depressing. No matter how much activity you squeeze into a weekend, it will always end.

It’s been a good weekend so far, though. On Friday night I went to a birthday party for my friend Bert, whose play Dog Sees God is reopening in an Off-Broadway production soon. I got to see his and his boyfriend’s swanky Williamsburg apartment, and at one point, all the party guests played this game called “Celebrity,” which I’ll have to explain sometime. (It’s basically a combination of “The $25,000 Pyramid” and charades.)

Yesterday, the eight days of rain finally ended in our fair city and I saw something completely alien: a blue sky. I didn’t know it came in blue! It was a beautiful sight, and Matt and I celebrated by seeing a movie indoors. Matt was interested in seeing this new film, Where the Truth Lies, based on a novel by theater composer Rupert Holmes. It was so-so, but entertaining enough.

After the movies – which we saw at the Clearview Chelsea on 23rd Street between 7th and 8th – we walked over to 6th Avenue (crossing paths with Mario Cantone) and took a leisurely stroll back home. The weather was crisp and rainless and the streets were crowded with New Yorkers enjoying the freedom of being outdoors without umbrellas. We stopped into Best Buy and Old Navy (how Manhattan of us). At Old Navy I bought a new jacket, black and lightweight, which is just the type of jacket I’d been meaning to buy for the last couple of years. It’s already my favorite jacket. We also ran into Russ and a friend of his, who had just seen a show.

We didn’t do much last night, and we haven’t done much today, but in the evening we’re going to see See What I Want to See, a new-ish musical by Michael John La Chiusa and starring Marc Kudisch and Idina Menzel. And since it’s at the Public Theater, we can walk there! I love living here.

I’ve learned that a great way to stave off the Sunday blues is to schedule something fun for Sunday night.

So anyway, even if I feel like Matt and I have spent a lot of time sitting around this weekend, I guess we’ve done a good deal of fun stuff, too. The weekend comes and goes in a flash, but it least it’s there in the first place.

On Thursday night, I did something I hadn’t done in almost three years: I left a show at intermission. Matt and I went to see an Off-Broadway musical that Matt had heard good things about. For the sake of politeness, I’m not going to name it here, but 25 percent of the cast of this show was made up of 40 percent of the cast of a really great Off-Broadway musical we saw several months ago.

The cast itself was great – the show was well-sung and well-performed by appealing actors. But the plot was implausible and clichéd, and most of the songs were bland pop-rock (though a couple of them had entertaining lyrics). And not to be such a homocentrist, but the plot was completely hetero – it was basically about straight young people hooking up in New York – and it didn’t interest me in the slightest, though that’s probably due more to the aforementioned implausible and clichéd plot. I can enjoy a good heterosexual romance as much as anyone, but when a show is what I expect “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” to be like (“It’s ‘Seinfeld’ Set to Music!”, the ads blare), I can skip it. (I’ve never seen that show, but I have some (possibly unfair) negative preconceived notions of it, based solely on that advertising line. “Seinfeld” was a great show, but any musical that compares itself to “Seinfeld” is trying too hard.)

Anyway, I knew about three minutes into the show that I wasn’t going to like it, and I resolved to leave after Act One. The tickets were only $21 each, so it wasn’t much of a loss. Matt decided to stick it out for Act Two, but I went home, after stopping off at Gristede’s for some Ben & Jerry’s (at Matt’s request, though I’ve eaten my fair share of the pint so far). When Matt came home, he said I’d made the right decision.

Incidentally, the last show I left at intermission was Vincent in Brixton. (The ticket was free.) Yawners.

I considered walking out of Drowning Crow last year, but I found it so outrageously bad that I just had to see it through. Unlike the other two shows mentioned above, it was at least entertaining.

The moral is, if you’re going to make a bad show, you may as well go all out.

And another thing – what’s with the lines outside the Broadway theaters lately? It never used to be like this. I think it’s the tourists. When I was on my way to The Pillowman the other day I was stuck in a pedestrian jam on Eighth Avenue caused by a line of people waiting to get into Avenue Q that had stretched around the corner from 45th. It was ridiculous. Form a mob outside the theater like you’re supposed to, people!

When I got to my theater there was a long line for my show as well. I ignored the line and walked to the box office window to get my ticket. My ticket was scanned shortly thereafter and I went to my seat, all without having to wait on line.

Sheep.

This article about badly-behaving theater audiences is old news and entirely anecdotal, but stuff like this is fun to read anyway. Having a pizza delivered during a show? Are you freakin’ kidding me?

There were three rude spectators when I went to see The Constant Wife last week. The first was a man two seats away from me who began loudly unwrapping the plastic on his candy a couple of minutes into the show, even though the pre-show announcement had clearly included an admonishment to open your candy before the lights went down.

The second was this woman sitting in the row in front of me. During the first act, her cellphone rang not once but twice, despite the pre-show announcement to turn off all cellphones. The woman sitting next to her was pretty pissed. When the lights came up for intermission, the offender was looking at her phone, and the pissed-off woman said something to her. I decided to pile on. I leaned forward and said to the offender, “Excuse me.” She turned around, and I said, snarkily, “Don’t forget to turn off your phone at the end of intermission.” (If Matt had been there, he would have been so angry at me.) She said, “Okay,” clearly embarrassed. If you didn’t want to be embarrassed, you should have turned your goddamn phone off like the announcer said.

Then, right before the lights went down for Act II, this couple was moving along my row trying to get back to their seats. When the lights went down, they still hadn’t made it back to their seats. I looked over and they were standing in the row, having a whispered disagreement with the people sitting next to me, insisting that those people were sitting in their seats, which they obviously weren’t. The curtain went up and I couldn’t concentrate on what the actors were saying because the people were still arguing. The audience members sitting behind them were now pissed, since they were standing in the row. Finally the couple realized their mistake and I had to stand up so they could squeeze past me to get to their seats. As they went past, the woman on the other side of me whispered to them, “You are so rude. So rude.”

So I wound up missing the first two minutes of dialogue of Act II, which was annoying.

As for me, I caused my own (very minor) disruption a couple of days later when I saw The Pillowman. Broadway shows rarely start on time, and at the official starting time of 2 p.m. I had a slight stomach problem. So I hurried down to the men’s room and still managed to make it back with a few minutes to spare before the lights went down. But a few minutes into the play, I felt stuff starting to move around in my stomach again. I prayed that nothing would happen, but sure enough, I soon felt something knocking on the door. I sat there, cheeks clenched, trying to concentrate on the play instead. But it got worse and I realized I was going to have to get up. I managed to wait until a blackout between scenes, and then I quickly squeezed past the two people between me and the aisle and briskly walked toward the back and out to the restrooms.

When I came back, I stood at the back of the theater, wondering how I was going to find my seat again. But then I remembered that the last row was row R and my seat was in row J, so before walking back down the aisle I counted how many rows that was, and then I walked down the aisle, counting rows, and then quickly squeezed back into my seat. So I missed a few minutes at the beginning of the scene, but fortunately they didn’t seem to have been crucial, and I think I managed to do it with a minimum of disruption.

Stupid stomach. Stupid me for not having any Immodium on hand.

If only there were a TheaVo – a TiVo for the theater. Pause live theater, just like live TV! But then the show would be 10 hours long because everyone would be pausing it.

Matt and I saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels last night. Get tickets now. It’s going to be a hit. (At least until it gets overshadowed by Spamalot.)

Perhaps it’s just that there’s been a dearth of Broadway musical comedy lately. Before last night, I hadn’t seen a truly funny Broadway musical in a long time. The last time I laughed hard at a Broadway musical was at Avenue Q; the last time I laughed hard at a Broadway musical not starring puppets was at The Producers more than three years ago. (There was also The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee last month, but that’s not on Broadway and it’s also not a comparable show.)

It doesn’t hurt that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is based on what I think is one of the funniest movies ever made. In fact, the musical strays very little from the original plot – much of the dialogue is lifted straight from the film. That was fine with me, because it meant that many of my favorite moments were included. The main change to the book is that the roles of the police chief and of one of Lawrence’s marks (played by Gregory Jbarra and Joanna Gleason, respectively) have been expanded. The two perform just swimmingly in their supporting roles. Gregory Jbarra is nearly flawless as the police chief (although his accent slipped a couple of times). Joanna Gleason has much of the new dialogue, and most of her lines are hysterical. She’s always so much fun to watch.

I wasn’t sure what I’d think of John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz in the main roles, because Michael Caine and Steve Martin own those parts. But Lithgow made Lawrence his own. Butz was great as Freddy, and very funny; he, too, made his part his own, although he didn’t erase Steve Martin from my mind. Sheri Rene Scott did a great job as the female lead, Christine (the character was named Janet in the movie).

One particular musical number could be cut for length and irrelevance. But the show just began previews, so who knows what will happen, although I’m sure most of the tweaking already occurred during the show’s run in California.

It was so refreshing to be able to go to the theater and laugh again. I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Dirty Rotten Scoundrels – and that’s not something you can say about many Broadway musicals these days.

Oh, and for the second time in five months, we saw Joan Rivers in the audience, plastic face and all. (And maybe Steve Martin. I don’t think it was him, but Matt says it might have been.)

While we’re on the subject of photos, Jere mailed me a photo the other day that he took of me last winter, when he and I went to see Wonderful Town. (Seriously, he snail-mailed it — he took it with a nondigital camera and he sent it to me in an envelope. Aw, Jere, you’re so old-fashioned.)

Here’s the photo — I’m wearing my old glasses, I’m sans goatee, and I’m standing in front a bunch of beautiful two-dimensional gay men.

Which I guess describes most gay men in New York, but… anyway.

More “Pippin” concert photos. (Sigh… John Tartaglia…)

I saw Pippin in Concert last night with Matt, Mike, and our friend Dan. It was one of those extraordinary musical theater experiences that’s all too rare. The cast included Rosie O’Donnell, John Tartaglia (and Rod), Julia Murney, Laura Benanti, Terrence Mann, Charles Busch, Harrison Chad (the kid from Caroline, or Change), Michael Arden, and, most wonderfully, Ben Vereen, reprising part of his original role. There was also a hottie from “All My Children”. In addition to the principal roles, there was an ensemble of dancers and an 80-member chorus, both sprinkled with current members of various Broadway casts. At times, the chorus created gorgeously overpowering sounds.

My eyes kept focusing on this tall, floppy-haired, serious-looking member of the ensemble, and a little bit of online research (i.e. Googling every male listed in the ensemble in the program) has shown me that it’s Aaron Staton. (His hair is floppier here, in the background of the sixth picture down.) I don’t know why, but I kept being drawn to him.

After the show, we went to the afterparty, which was at — of all places — Bennigan’s, on 47th and 8th. Unfortunately, we weren’t permitted in the upstairs VIP section, but because we were near the main entrance of the restaurant, we got to see various people walk in and go upstairs, including Rosie, John Tartaglia, and others. As the night went on, we saw Rosie and her partner Kelly Carpenter get into a black SUV waiting on Eighth. Rosie’s arms were bare and it looked like she had a tattoo on one.

I am such a starfucker. I desperately, desperately wanted to meet John Tartaglia, but no luck. When starfucking, I fantasize that the famous object of my affection will meet me, inevitably discover how wonderful I am, and then whisk me away to his private home where I’ll be his kept man, and his greatness will rub off on me just by my knowing him, and all his famous friends will think I’m wonderful, too. The premise of this pathology is that the famous are different from you and me.

Anyway — eventually, Matt, Dan and I left. But Mike stuck around, and he’s apparently got a great story he’ll be blogging about eventually. I could kick myself.

Matt and I saw “Dracula: the Musical” last night. It’s currently in previews and officially opens next week.

Sigh.

I’ve been writing this long, complex entry on what I thought of the show, trying to make some interesting and nuanced points about musical theater in general, tripping over my own brain in the process and tying myself in intellectual knots. I can’t seem to say what I’m trying to say. So I’ll get to the fricking point.

I don’t like Frank Wildhorn shows. They have bad music and boring books and I can’t relate to them in any way.

There.

I think you’re either a Frank Wildhorn person or you’re not. I’m not. Granted, I’ve only seen two of his shows — this and “The Scarlet Pimpernel” (in its revised version). And I actually liked “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” to some degree — I even bought the album because it had a few good tunes — although it wasn’t a good show. I pretty much feel the same way about “Dracula.”

A point about show music. If I like the music to a show, I’ll usually know the first time I hear it. That was the case with “Avenue Q” and “Caroline, or Change.” But I’m usually not willing to say I don’t like a musical score unless I hear it more than once (unless I really dislike it). I guess I like to give it the benefit of the doubt. For instance, when I saw “Wicked,” the music made little impression on me, but after buying and listening to the album I decided I enjoyed it. (I still think the book is bloated, though — the show’s book, I mean, not Maguire’s novel).

Based on the shows I’ve seen, Frank Wildhorn writes bad music. His songs have no structure, no dramatic or emotional component. Some of the tunes are fun to have in your head, but that’s about it. Mostly it’s just faux-operatic emoting, accompanied by a big jumble of synthesized orchestrations. It’s like going on a Disney ride. It doesn’t work for me.

Another problem with the music is one of the problems with the book: I couldn’t relate to any of it. The songs have no entry point for the audience; they don’t invite you in. They just put up a wall and make no attempt to connect with you, and you’re on the other side of it, watching it all happen. It’s lifeless. It’s not a fault of the performers, but of the songs themselves.

I felt the same away about the book. I didn’t care about any of the characters or about what happened. There wasn’t much suspense about anything. A story requires conflict, and there wasn’t any here.

Another thing I disliked about the show was that there was no humor. I like shows with jokes. There are two ways for an audience to express its appreciation of a show: applauding at songs and laughing at jokes. There are no opportunities for the latter.

As far as the acting: Melissa Errico was enjoyable to watch, as were most of the performers. But there’s a character from Texas who has this total Texas accent, and he doesn’t fit in. Perhaps the character is part of Bram Stoker’s original story, but he’s just not going to work in the show unless he’s given some jokes. (Matt made that point.)

One cast member who did make me laugh, unintentionally, was Stephen McKinley Henderson, who played Dr. Abraham Van Helsing. He really needs to work on his Austrian accent, because it’s really bad. He sounded Jamaican. Matt and I both thought so, independently of each other.

So there, I didn’t like the show.

Why does Frank Wildhorn continue to write such crap? I mean, he probably enjoys what he does, and he’s not out there killing babies or anything, so he’s allowed to write crappy musicals if he wants to.

I just don’t understand why he does.

Last night I had the real treat, along with Mike and my friend Dan, of seeing theater composer Jason Robert Brown perform at a restaurant/bar on the East Side. Brown wrote “The Last Five Years” and “Parade” and was brought in to help fix “Urban Cowboy.” His show last night lasted more than two hours, and it was such a pleasure. His music isn’t what one would typically think of as Broadway music; while he enjoys wordplay, his songs are jazzy and funky and modern. He’s a terrific pianist and has a nice singing voice, too.

But the first thing I noticed was that he is a dead ringer for John Kerry 30 years ago. I swear — he looks just like him, he even talks just like him. It’s uncanny.

The evening was helped by his special guest performers, including Brian D’Arcy James, Julia Murney, and Carolee Carmello — the latter whom Matt, Mike, Jaye and I saw on Saturday in “Baby” at the Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey. Carolee Carmello twice in three days! I love her.

Now I’m going to have to listen to all of Jason Robert Brown’s stuff, probably after bumming it off Matt. After spending over two hours watching the guy perform, I have a real sense of his music now.

I love when that happens.

Matt and I were walking north along Eighth Avenue on Saturday afternoon, heading over to Studio 54 to pick up our tickets for that afternoon’s performance of “Assassins.” We were about to cross West 46th Street when I noticed someone waiting to cross Eighth Avenue who looked familiar. That looks like John Tartaglia, I thought.

I took a closer look at his backpack and saw a button on it that said IT SUCKS TO BE ME.

Yep, it was him.

We watched him cross over and walk down toward 45th Street, presumably heading over to the John Golden Theater to get ready for the matinee of “Avenue Q.”

This was just one of the treats of the fun-filled weekend Matt and I had.

By the way, John Tartaglia and his “Avenue Q” puppet Rod are going to be on “Hollywood Squares” all next week, if you want to catch them. (Check local listings, as they say.)