Another reason (in case you needed one) to move to Minneapolis is that there are wonderful local locos who, during June, performed live at the Bryant-Lake Bowling Alley.

Many a light lad might wish he could be in my shoes (and pants, and undershirt and shirt) while I played the spellbound spectator in a show written and performed by Kevin McLaughlin, Thom Melcher, Michael Dahl and Jon Mikkelsen.

And with reason. Word spread quickly about this funniest show in town, one that's just as gay as crepe paper! The music is wonderfully queery too, thanks to Dan Chouinard.

In one skit a performer notes "America loves drag queens." How true. A cute sad/bitter truth, in fact, proved in 1948 with the reception given Milton Berle's dress-capades. What many in America have more difficulty embracing are those regular girls-next-door (much less boys) as gay.

And this Hot Dish in Minneapolis is no drag show.

Hot Dish is a wild bitter-full-evening of witch's brew by gays (four of them) for gays.

The photo used in the ads (three of the cast in drag) gives no clue about how bitter/gay this show is or how very politically-incorrect.

The opening skit is as mild as easy-to-take as a summer camp barn show: three guys dressed as bananas singing "Gay-O" and then -- (summer camp is ended here) a fourth emerges as a pubic louse and the real show begins: what it means to be a "fag".

Now the four come out as themselves and display titles for this show they couldn't run in our local (straight or gay) newspapers such as "Touched by an Uncle" or "Straight Boys Take It Up the Ass".

We are, they explain, "In Minnesota/Where we cannot relax one iota."

Next they take us, in an unforgettable series of skits dancing about in a Gay/Straight/Mad World.

In one, a mad queen out of Aveda Academy goes to a crisis-ridden Third World Country and "treats" the infants (these are played by dolls) who have terminal conditions brought about by malnutrition while this reviewer (holding ten fake five-dollar bills distributed by management to be stuffed in drag divas bras during the finale) thinks of the self-ghettoization of gays so self-removed from a real world of poverty and need.

In another skit, a "cowboy singer" sings, "He's not gay, he's my buddy" and we're reminded of a treasured kingdom of male-male camaraderie from which gay affection is excluded.

Still another: one of the four performers, playing a snide effeminate reviewing this year's Pride Parade's proliferation of "rainbow" merchandise—reflects that the merchants are now selling Rainbow Dental Dams.

And another : a lonely soldier, the only straight (and so-labeled) in the Army of Alexander the Great, he represents part of the army's attempt at liberalization. Alexander's top brass, however, insists that the presence of straight soldiers is Bad for Morale.

Thanks, probably, to theatre director Dean Seal the skits gain speed and audacity.

Four queens dish each other: two insults (of more than two dozen): "Oh go lift that house off your sister!" and "You look happy. Did you run over a Christian Fundamentalist with your car?"

The show ends with a bang-up sketch of Mary (yes, that Mary) talking about the Last Supper.

Turns out was she who cooked it, had to reduce number of guests when one dish broke, kicked out Judas ("I knew she was vicious queen") and rejoices in being the only one who gave G-d an orgasm.

No one in the audience walked out. Everyone hooted, laughed like crazy, applauded.

A rollicking, stupendous show with enough Marys to shake a stick at.

And a hot hot dish.