There’s nothing like the enthusiasm you feel upon getting the spark of an idea for a skit. Excitement builds as you develop choreography; create costumes, props, sets; add funny elements at rehearsals; keep the concept a secret, and the adrenaline rush of performing to the cheering, sold out audience.

As of this writing there’s still room for more skit groups. Contact me at 302-226-6655 or ChrisRiss@JackLingo.com if you and yours would like to have the time of your life by creating a Follies skit.

Our stated purpose is to raise money for CAMP Rehoboth whose efforts to improve the Rehoboth experience benefit us all. An equally important reason is to create community. It’s that feeling of shared community that makes Rehoboth the special place it is.

If you don’t have the chutzpah to produce and perform a skit, we’ll be glad to have you as a $300 sponsor, which allows you four seats in the front rows. As a $100 host you’ll have two seats just behind the sponsors. General admission, $25, will fill in from there. Skit, sponsor, host, ticket form is on page 35. Tear it out, fill it out, and drop it off, send or fax it to CAMP Rehoboth or do it online at www.camprehoboth.com. Seats are first come, first served until they sell out.

The skits will be judged based on Entertainment Value, Costumes/props/set, Execution, Difficulty and Creativity. The best three skits win Golden, Silver or Bronze Barbie awards.

Doors will open at the convention center at 7:00 p.m. to allow attendees to find their seats and enjoy the cash bar provided by the Blue Moon. At approximately 8:00 p.m. the skits will begin in what promises to be the most outrageous night of zany comedy you’ll experience all summer.

In between skits, as the stage is cleared of the previous skit’s debris and set up for the next one, we’ll live auction various art, travel, and assorted other items with the help of our glamorous, celebrity auction models.

Some of the skit groups making plans to participate this year...

Having won both the Silver and Gold Barbies, Brent Minor’s Delmarva Divas are out this year for immortality. They need to get awfully creative to outdo 2002’s parade of states skit from When Pigs Fly or last year’s timely Supreme’s Court number.

The Power Surge gals lead by Fay Jacobs twisted "Nothing Like a Dame" and "Oklahomo" into Bronze and Silver Barbies the last two years. Now they expect a Gold Barbie for their mantel, or should I say womantel.

Their perverse rendition of the Sony and Cher show won Jon Kaplan, Cliff Lassahn, et al the Gold Barbie in 2002. Last year they brilliantly produced "Good Morning Delaware" to open the show. Now they’re back in the competitive mix. Is Cliff’s recent Ester William’s Letters cover photo, secretly taken in their Follies rehearsal studio, a hint of an aquacade skit to come?

The boys of 13 State, who had the ungodly long God skit last year, have gone atheist and have a shorter, more devilish skit in mind for this year’s Follies stage.

Mark Cosgrove who produced 2002’s "Latinas in Heat" and 2003’s "West Side Story meets the Renegade" has been writing and rewriting since last year for this year’s turn on the stage. He’s not leaving Follies again this year with nothing but a gift certificate to Spiegel’s catalogue.

Gene Cavazos and Paul Frene brought us the Hooter’s girls skit and last year’s Charlie’s Angels. How will they incorporate their Bronze Barbie secret weapon, Tony Burns, into their skit this year?

The boys who love to be girls of LeMore LeMerrier Lounge, Brian, Jim and Jack, bowed out of 2003 after finding their over the top 2002 Lady Marmalade act to be too much work. They found, after being pulled into Follies 2003 to be auction models, media production, projectionists, performers, etc., it’s easier to produce a skit then not. My little pretties will be back on that stage this year if I have to drag them by their heels. Follies will not let such talent sit idle.

There’s still room for you and yours to put a skit together. You’ll have a much more memorable time and the seats are much better up front where the skit makers sit. So do yourself a favor and join us on stage. Follies is not about a chosen few, it’s about you!

Remember what was written about past Follies...

"Oh what a night! A sold out event. Heels over head better than I ever expected. My favorite part of the Follies experience was the excitement in the Convention Center before the show. Everyone was so enthusiastic. The air was so thick with anticipation and support you could cut it with an eyeliner pencil!

What was so great about Follies was the enthusiasm of participants and attendees, which was a great cross section of our community.

We were all there for each other. It was the strongest sense of community I’ve ever felt in this town. This was the first time I ever performed, though I was thrilled we won the Golden Barbie Award, the competition part of event was insignificant. Every skit accepted and accomplished a challenge while making our friends laugh and cheer. We all won. It was truly an evening ‘over the rainbow.’

CAMP Rehoboth Follies, what a great show! I was amazed to be sitting in the Convention Center surrounded by hundreds of women and men, young and old, all laughing uproariously at antics taking place on stage. I can’t wait til next year.

If you weren’t among the thousand or so people jammed into the Convention Center for this extravaganza, you should put it on your calendar NOW for next year. What a hoot!

Our cast was delighted with the reception they got as the only lesbian act. ‘Oooh, you lesbians are so cool,’ said one youngster with washboard abs, ‘I need to meet me some lesbians.’ So we had another kind of pride, pride that Rehoboth’s gay men and gay women were celebrating together.

Two straight women friends of mine came to Follies and hooted and hollered, ‘We’ve never been to such an outrageous show and had so much fun in our lives!’ The cheers, laughs, ribald humor, and sense of community just rocked the Convention Center."

At 11 p.m., when the show was over, audience and performers (many boys still in high heels, high hair, and phony tits) spilled out onto Rehoboth Avenue, heading around town for a nightcap. It was an impromptu gay pride parade all its own.