When Tony-Award-Winner Michele Pawk was in rehearsal as Dorothy Parker for my one-person musical, You Might as Well Live, she regaled us with stories from her career. This one particularly struck me. Because she’s unequivocally a beautiful woman, I could not imagine how anyone could make such a mistake. Here’s the tale as told me and as published in my autobiography The Wrong Side of the Room: A Life in Music Theater.
When she performed in Crazy for You, she was married to Kevin McCollum, the producer of Rent. After one matinee, without removing her stage makeup, she and Kevin went out to dinner. As they were leaving the restaurant, their waiter rushed up to her and said, “Thank you so much, and good evening, sir.”
“That’s mam,” Michele responded most firmly.
“Right. Well, whatever.”
“No, not whatever. It’s mam!” and she proceeded to lift her shirt to prove it, before Kevin stopped her and pulled her out the door. The waiter apparently was convinced that she was a drag queen. How he could have made such a mistake is unfathomable.
