Obviously I was going to take pictures backstage at The Slutcracker when I visited Boston. I emailed the director — aka, my friend, my mentor, my former troupe leader — as soon as we realized I’d be in town during the show’s run, she asked me when I wanted to be there, I showed up, and at one point I was on someone’s shoulders while everyone cheered.

I knew almost the entire cast. I had been on a stage with them before, I had been naked with them and ripped adhesive off my chest with them and made out with them and mock-humped them with a sock stuffed down my booty shorts. And usually, I’d also had my camera with me. It was just part of my hand, part of my face, a given.

When I saw that the troupe I’ve performed with just a couple of times in Minneapolis was also doing a subversive “Nutcracker” — at the Ritz, one of my favorite theaters, and collaborating with Ballet of the Dolls, one of my favorite dance companies who have a long history of beautiful, eerie (occasionally to the point of being Lynchian) and often hilarious shows — I contacted that troupe leader too. “Hey! Shooting backstage is kind of my jam. Want me around?”

They were cool with that. I rejoiced. I packed my things, I showed up.

And then, faced with the dressing room of the Dolls, I broke into a sweat.

I don’t really know any of these people, I realized. Not just that this was socially stressful, but from a practical standpoint: I don’t know who the camera whore is, who prefers privacy, who is more selective with their personal space, who might be annoyed by my mere existence in the room. And I deeply admire all of them. They’re professionals! Oh god, I was going to have to act professional.

I would announce my presence, start from a distance. I use a wide angle lens, so these photos were mostly useless, they were just warming me up, normalizing that shutter sound echoing in the room. Hihihihihi.

Okay, I’d breathe in, act casual, get closer. Now closer again. They’d look up at me, smile, or not, they had things to do. God, they were so awesome! What if this was obnoxious? What if I was in someone’s way? What if this wasn’t professional? I bumped my butt into makeup trays, broke a chair. Closer.

Full album: here.

It was cold, there were no tables or mirrors or rods upon which to hang clothing: just the sticky floor, with its dustbunnies and ambiguous grime. Every now and then the door to the gay bar would suddenly open, bringing thunderous bass and orange/blue disco lights and Gaga and some inquisitive face peering through — we would all yelp as it shouted “so what’s this door lead to anyway?”

For my act, I would be performing to “Blue Christmas,” as sung by the troupe leader. I would play it as a weeping protester to Minnesota governor candidate Tom Emmer’s concession, dragging along a bottle of wine and my gigantic protest sign that read “RE-RECOUNT” on both sides. I sobbed through the audience and clambered gracelessly onto the carpeted stage, mascara running all over my face, crystal tears adhered to my cheeks; I made out with his framed image. O Emmer! Who will save marriage now?

The eye make-up was my favorite part. I was the first act after intermission, so I’d rush down the elevator about three acts before and peer on my knees into the mirror someone had leaned underneath the florescent strip, painting long dripping lines onto my face with black liquid eyeliner and carefully plucking each crystal from its adhesive sheet with laced fingers. I wore two sets of false eyelashes, glittering white and blue shadow, and a few minutes before I was slated to head back upstairs I’d slip off my boots and put on the heels — that’s a lesson I learned a while ago. Save foot discomfort for last (no matter how cute they are).

The first night the act went over well, and I squirmed my way back through the audience and whooosh, down the elevator. The doors opened to a man in a big red suit pulling curlers out of someone’s hair.

“You still going to be one of my girls?” Santa asked.

“Oh! Oh right, yes. Let me just throw some clothes on. How much time do we have?”

“Five minutes, max. We’re the next act.”

“Yikes, okay! I’m on it.”

I pulled off fishnets and lace gloves, slipped on opaque tights, found my slip, a gold shimmering skirt, a black dress shirt. One minute! Thank you one!

“Hey, is it all right if my eyes are still weepy for your piece?” I called down the dark hallway. “Or . . . does all of this need to come off?”

“What? What?” Santa came bumbling toward me. “Oh, that. No that needs to come off. Hurry up now we’re almost on.”

I looked around in panic. “I have cold cream but nothing to wipe it off with. Do you have a tissue?”

“What? No, no. Just use panties or something.”

I was slathering the cold cream all over, and my cheeks had become a grey blue paste. “I didn’t bring any spares. You don’t have a towel or anything? A t-shirt?”

“No, no. Here,” he grabbed a white satin glove out of someone’s trunk. “Just use this.”

I stared at him in disbelief through goopy eyes. “John. How many enemies do you want me to make tonight?”

“C’mon it’ll be fine! We have to go!”

“I’m not ruining someone’s glove.”

He turned down the hallway and shouted “ten seconds, ladies! Let’s go!” Then he reached down and pulled off his sock, handing it to me. “Here.”

There were two seconds of hesitation. I’d taken the worn sock from him, was holding it in my hand. I stared at myself in the mirror: nightmarishly frosted in grey and blue, shimmering and undead in that buzz of florescent light. We have to go, we’re on in 10. I rubbed his sock all over my face, dug it into my eyes, slathered on more cold cream and smeared it off over and over until all the evidence was gone and I was back: a nice looking girl.

Upstairs, Santa patted his lap.

“Ohhh really?”

“Yes.”

“Which part of me, exactly, is offensive?”

“There’s just far too little covering you.”

“If you’re asking us to go out and get different wardrobes in the three hours between tech and the show, we’re going to need to know what you need covered.”

Her pursed lips curved. “Sweetie, frankly, you look uncomfortable out there.”

“What, I . . .”

“You’re not moving like someone who feels like they’re wearing enough clothes. So why don’t you cover whatever it is you need to cover?”

I turned bright red. “I feel fine. What do you want covered?”

She paused, looking me up and down. “I . . . suppose . . . maybe it’s this area . . .” she gestured awkwardly. “There’s too much . . . there’s too much skin . . . right around here.”

“Got it. Let’s head to Dorothy’s,” Sugar said.

It was December 31st. Outside it was sleeting, and the doors of the Boston Symphony Hall thudded behind us. “What did they expect when they hired a burlesque troupe dancing to Poker Face, anyway?”

Dorothy’s is a magical land of wigs, glitter and vinyl. We bought wide fishnets for my offending joints and also, as long as we were there, a pair of X-ray goggles. Sugar got a chainmail bra. We figured: what are they going to do, not let us on stage five minutes before the number? It’s not like we were planning on performing at Symphony Hall ever again.

Ra ra rararah!

“Where’s my main Gaga?” Amanda called into the infinite ceiling, the gilded balconies. I raised my hand and ran to the stage, where, incidentally, Neil Gaiman sat with a chainsaw. “Great. Okay. So, here’s what we’re doing: you’re going to be backstage covered in this blue sheet until the last song ends; as the applause dies down my postmodern feminist is going to lead you by the hand to this marked X, stage left. Then the song begins, I whip the sheet off, march you to the front with me, you know the rest.”

“Okey doke,” I said.

For the record, this entire evening I was 100% starstruck. That’s just the way I roll; I don’t give a shit about celebrities, their clothes, or their love lives (they got engaged that night!) . . . until they’re within twenty feet of me; at which point I inexplicably drool and say unwitty things to the utmost of my ability until they’re out of earshot. I hadn’t even known this New Year’s Eve show existed until two weeks before, when Sugar texted us. A few days later I came to a rehearsal and they put “Poker Face” on. “We’re all dressed as different Lady Gagas. Everyone starts off-stage. Main Gaga on first, until the chorus. Adrianne, you’re main Gaga.”

“Hmm?”

I am backstage, a blue sheet covering my head. Black pumps and fishnetted legs peek out the bottom (“what do you think?” I’d smiled at our principal ten minutes earlier. “. . . Perfect,” she’d stretch-smiled, wide-eyed). I am wearing a black bejeweled bikini, X-ray goggles, giant plastic earrings, black vinyl opera gloves, long platinum blonde wig. It is cold backstage. All the Gagas are shivering.

“Okay — now!” the postmodern feminist whispers, taking my hand. I focus on the dim wavering outline of the dark floor beneath my feet, and the stage door opens: we take baby steps to the front of an infinity of stage. “You’re all set,” she hushes, letting go. And for a moment I am standing here alone in the dark silence, timeless, anywhere.

Then, as trumpets, violins, clarinets play the opening notes of “Poker Face” the lights fade up: the sheet is ripped off of me and, as I brush wig strands out of my eyes, I see Symphony fucking Hall in front of me, glowing red in X-ray goggles and all applause and screams as Amanda marches me to center stage.

I want to hold ‘em like they do in Texas plays!

(Common-sense caution for parents/employers/children: in this video I wear the outfit described above.)

For the record, also, I had once been under the impression that the line went “I’ll get him high, show him what I got” which I maintain is superior to “I’ll get him hot, show him what I got.” The rhyme is too easy, and besides, any number of halfway-clad halfway-attractive people can get you hot. But shiiiiit, a woman who can hook you up with illegal substances? Not just can. Will. Try and stop her. After that, she will present some of her select belongings/intangibles to you. (Her tone implies that you will like them).

It was January 1st, 2010, and we crashed out the doors of Symphony Hall. The streets are black and wet, and snowflakes shimmer down from a black and wet sky. A few blocks away is The Cloud Club: an artist coop where the after-party is being held. My love is somewhere in its labyrinth drinking, becoming increasingly merry. I thought: this moment, these few minutes of possibility and mystery of what the night could contain, would be the highlight of the evening: because what could possibly be better than the envisioned? I have a habit of predicting magic. I am doomed to perpetually hope for the surreal, the paradigm-shaking, the eternal, all from just another last call.

We enter The Cloud Club and pour champagne into mugs, climb the narrow staircase to the second floor. And there is a treehouse. Like, with a tree.

We charge into the middle of the floor and immediately my favorite kind of dance party begins: no one is self-conscious. Everyone is moving out of pure joy.

How do these things get started. I needed a place to sit down, I’d been dancing for too long in those shoes, climbed the tree too many times to be showered with condensation from the diamond-cut window over the leopard-print bed.

A friend had a girl on one leg, I asked if I could borrow the other.

Then — suddenly? The three of us were making out. Happy New Year!

Then — suddenly? There were more. How many more? I ask earnestly. One at first, but soon others. Then there was a pile. Then there were others leaning over the pile. Kisses, kisses, kisses. Over my head, my love turns to nuzzle another’s neck. Someone is grabbing my torso. A hand lands on my knee. “You’re leaving?” I cry to a friend. “Hold up, we haven’t made out yet!” I squirm out of our pile to kiss her, then pull unsuspecting strangers back in with me. Everyone smiling. Two feet away, Neil Gaiman is proposing to Amanda Palmer.

Outside, it snowed and snowed, infinite, timeless. The impossible treehouse stretched overhead. I would wake up new.

“Oh man!” I said. “I’m going to bring my camera, and take pictures, all throughout the show without a single flash, because I’ve got that shit handled, now!”

We met up with some friends who’d grabbed a front table, and as the lights dimmed and I unpacked my gear, a familiar voice sung out from the speakers: thank you for coming to the show, and remember, absolutely, positively, no pictures. I pointed my lens toward the stage and took a test shot to check my levels. The stage manager came flying from the shadows. “Excuse me, but you can’t — oh, Lacy! Never mind. Hey, welcome back!”

It was then that I realized: I have, what we in documentary school call and covet, “access.”

And I also have, what we in documentary school call and abhor, “bias”: because I love these people with all my heart, have kissed some of them at parties, and these photos are meant to contain a message: this is beautiful, hilarious, important.

Full album: here.

Erik licks my boot (Larger)

I love you (Larger)

Full album: (somewhat unsafe-for-work, especially if you’ve got your Flickr preferences set correctly) here.

“I think . . . she has four,” came the response.

This party is out of control (Larger)

Controls (Larger)

Pixy Dust and Lolli Hoops (Larger)

“We were worried,” Sugar said at one of our curtain calls, “that, this year, with the added performances and with it being a repeat of last year, that some of the magic would be gone. That you guys would get here and just go through the motions but not really feel it, or that some of the excitement would have to go away. And it just hasn’t happened. The magic of this is still here.”

The massive gold curtain swayed heavily behind her, and behind it, the massive red curtain, and behind it, a 900 seats of jostling, whispers, cat calls.

Your penis hat is dented (Larger)

Pas De Trois (Larger

When I started this adventure a year ago, I had no idea what to expect. I worried I get on the stage half-naked and suddenly scream, run for the nearest exit. I felt alien around these new people, and stayed distant. I tried to be observant. I snuck pictures. I didn’t come here, as the reality show saying goes, to make friends. And I wound up, as one of our cast members wrote recently, finding my tribe.

“Oooh hoo, look at this!” someone cried at a party this weekend. “Lacy Gazelle is actually touching people!”

Well. That’s another adventure entirely.

P.S. what do you think of the new watermark/logo? A friend whipped it up for me the other day. People who can just create things in Photoshop blow my mind.

Full album: here.

Sugar was our Robert Palmer, and for this act we would be Addicted To Blood.

Undeading. (Larger and full album.)

Ginger Rita and I had acquired the more realistic, cap-style fangs, but Pamela had purchased what were actually labeled as “vampire dentures”: yellowed, old-man monster teeth, which required to be boiled in hot water before being stuck in the wearer’s mouth, where they would allegedly mold to your mouth and stay put. But we didn’t have any boiling water in the basement. So she just ran the water as hot as she could and let her teeth float in that for a while, and then she stuck them in, and smiled at us nervously. “BWAHAHAHAHA!” I cried for the first time in years. I wheezed and choked with glee, rolled on the couch, gasping for breath. “Nonono! Put them back in! Seriously! They, uh, they look great!”

“Screw you guys,” Pamela said. “I’m going to CVS and getting new teeth.”

“Hold up, let me get my iPhone,” Sugar said. “Could you smile again? This is going on Facebook.”

“BWAHAHAHAHA!”

Outside it was a cold, misting rain: inside we were two acts, serving to break up a vampire movie marathon that ran from 7pm to 7am; the crowd was sparse but tipsy on whatever they brought in their flasks, huddled in the theater seats under blankets, occasionally sleeping, occasionally cheering. “No one is going to like the Scarborough Fair number,” Sugar announced. “We may get some boos.” “Well . . . it’s pretty weird,” Pixy agreed. “Anyone want some rum?” Ginger Rita asked. We all looked at each other dubiously. “Is it coconut?” Pause. “Well, yeah!” “Ew NO!”

So it was only natural, really, when 2am rolled around and we found ourselves lined up backstage as J. Cannibal announced our number, that we would pop the blood capsules in our mouth and find that they began dissolving and breaking with saliva, whether you bit them or not, that Ginger Rita would run gagging to the garbage can. “Just FYI,” she whispered, “they taste awful!” Only natural that when my turn came to stagger forward and attack and devour Robert Palmer on stage, the foam guitar prop I tried to wrap around her neck would wind up smashing me in between the eyes (new scar!) and I would shout “ow!” and then “ha!”

And as the four of us descended for the final assault, writhing sexily on the stage floor and chomping down on the by-then barely-stable blood capsules which would burst and ooze in our mouths like old grapes, only natural that instead of slurping and licking the blood off our fingertips as planned, all of us would begin gagging and spitting on stage, eyes bulging with disgust. I wound up hunched over Sugar in some kind of frog position, legs bent and splayed, horking into her armpit. And then the laughter returned. For a moment, none of us could even stand.

The audience stared on, perplexed.

Full album: here (with some flagged as “moderate”, so you’ll need to be logged into Flickr with pervy preferences set to see those).

And I realized, I should really be taking more pictures.

A Line-Up

UnAmerika’s Sweetheart, The Fan Dance

The full album from Boiling Point Burlesque: here. (Nothing too racy or unsafe for work.)

And then I thought: no, it’s more likely the button-down men’s shirt I’m wearing as a dress tonight, the one that smells so wonderfully of another.

You can check out The Slutcracker blog, maintained by yours truly this year, for updates and behind-the-scenes action.