It’s not easy getting people out on a Monday night, but that wasn’t the case for a celebrity roast honoring local actor/comedian Doug Ba’aser’s 50th birthday.
The Footlight Theatre at the Parliament House was nearly full on March 29. Only the front three rows were unoccupied, and that was because no one in the audience dared venture into the site line of panelists Jeff Jones, Carol Lee, Kevin Bee, Michael Wanzie, Tommy Wooten, Janine Klien and Drew Sizemore.
The event began with an opening number by David Dorman and Miss Sammy, who became the first victims of the panel as soon as they left the Asian-themed stage, created by Doug White to poke fun at Ba’aser’s well-known weakness for hairless Far Eastern men.
As with most roasts, the panel got as good as they gave. No topic—genitals, sex, drugs, prison—was off limits. Apparently most of the panel has small penises, but Klein’s vagina is “so big that when she gave birth her son stood up and walked out.”
By the time Wooten took the podium, and the sixth or seventh round of drinks had been served onstage, the evening had turned into a tightrope walk between brilliantly arch comedy and wince-inducing self-indulgence. Dressed as “Ruby” from Wanzie’s Ladies of Eola Heights series of plays, Wooten was side-splittingly funny—and at times unintelligible. At one point Ba’aser exited to pee into a cup behind the stage curtains, and when he returned one of the panelists went backstage, grabbed the cup-o-urine and poured it back into his pitcher-sized drink. From that point on, many in the audience watched through their fingers.
But Jones brought it home, rifling through the audience, the panel and the honoree with equal abandon. Describing Ba’aser’s manhood, Jones said, “It’s old, it’s gray, and no one pays any attention to it any more—kinda like Patty Sheehan.”
Several panelists described Ba’aser as “the funniest man in Orlando,” and at the end of the long night he proved why. His roast also showcased why his friends—an immensely talented and vivid cast of characters—are such an invaluable part of Orlando’s LGBT cultural community.
Proceeds from the event will benefit the Paul Wegman Scholarship Fund at Valencia Community College.
