The Merylthon Experience
The middling pun turned absurd niche event saga continues...
If you’ve not read Part One, you’re only getting half the story:
Part Two: THE MERYLTHON EXPERIENCE
If you weren’t able to attend, here’s a run down of what you missed at the Merylthon on September 29, 30 and October 1, 2023.
When a Merylthoner first arrives at the 4 Star Theater, they’ll notice next to the red carpet is a Chalk of Fame - four yellow stars drawn with the names of Meryl characters.
Grab a program….
Once inside, Yours Truly was there to greet you and other Merylthoners and guide everyone through the lobby, where various stations were set up along one wall.
If you arrived in costume, like this Merylthoner, you might be asked to do your best impression:
The first station is the “merylchandise” table - where we had prints of Silky Shoemaker’s gorgeous Double Feature paintings for sale…
…as well as our Meryl Scream Meme Pins:
And our silent auction items like the Silkwood Pressure Cooker, The “Shall I Be Mother” Iron Lady Le Creuset Tea Kettle, and The “No Such Thing As Too Much Butter” Le Creuset Butter Crock.
Appliances were all donated by Cliff’s Variety (Thanks, Terry!)
I’d also let them know that the Queer LifeSpace store had other Merylchandise like these amazing tote bags (painting by Silky Shoemaker.)
Then, I would lead them down the wall to a garment framed perfectly in a box of New Zealand Pinewood: The MERYLTHONG.
The Merylthong is my constant misspelling manifested as an undergarment. It was created by my friend Stefan at Ruuts Studio and came with this description:
“Hand sewn from 100% silk with delicate silk thread and painted with colorants extracted from botanical sources such as black walnut, logwood and homegrown Marigolds which have been carefully crafted into silk paints. The forest scene with a horned deer painted on the front of the Merylthong is an homage to Meryl’s first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in the “The Deer Hunter.”
Moving along… just next to the Merylthong was a pop-up museum, The Meryl:
This one-of-kind exhibit is only available at the Merylthon.
We were so lucky to have been allowed to showcase props such as:
12.5lbs of onion scraps from the set of Julie & Julia
Violet Weston’s prescription bottle with assortment of blue downer pills from the set of August: Osage County
The glass tumbler of “breakfast” whiskey used to drug Earnest and bring him back to Lisle’s mansion so he could take the potion in Death Becomes Her
One long piece of buttered linguini preserved from the set of Defending Your Life
Yes, I diced 12.49 pounds of onions.
Continuing down along the wall was a table with two chairs where Merylthoners could compete against each other and showcase their knowledge of the Meryl cinematic universe with a customized Guess Who? game called Meryl Who?
Players guessed which Meryl character their opponent had drawn from the pile and by process of elimination, were hopefully left with the correct Meryl Character tile standing.
Scenes from production:
Lastly, the queen herself Cardboard Meryl awaited your selfie with her at the farthest wall, surrounded by crushed red velvet curtains and a sign with balloons that exclaimed “Grand Opening!”
OPENING NIGHT
Sister Maddie from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence blessed the 4 Star Theater and all those in it with a prayer. Here’s an excerpt:
“May your stride be as confident as Andy Sachs in stilettos, and your endurance be as unyielding as Miranda Priestley's expectations. And remember, details of your competence do not interest me.”
We were graced with local drag legend Juanita More! who helped Sister Maddie cut the ceremonial ribbon with the largest pair of red scissors I could find.
And the Merylthon began…
Most of the weekend was a blur, but here are a few memories that stick:
PRE-SHOW ENTERTAINMENT
During a welcome speech before the first film, I was so excited to acknowledge and applaud all the Meryl’s in the building:
Each film had pre-show entertainment that was a combination of our official trailer, a few 15 second trailers for other Double Feature that weekend, and the Meryl videos.
This Meryl Impressions video was one of them:
Overall the Meryl videos were a hit, and this audience loved the “Thank God I’m not named Karen” line towards the end.
DOUBT BECOMES HER
I heard some people thought that Doubt might be too intense to start off our opening night. But I’m here to remind you that it has some delicious comic moments, and Meryl really eats it up.
Death Becomes Her is better with a crowd! A complete camp classic and perfect in every way.
INTERMISSIONS
During intermission, I had a slides with Meryl trivia and a ‘Guess the movie’ game.
Intermission slides also suggested prompts to use while playing Meryl Who?
Do you know all the Meryl characters the above prompts refer to? Movie title answers at the bottom of this post.
During the Doubt Becomes Her intermission, Fauxnique performed a version of Tori Amos’s “God” as Sister Aloysious from Doubt which ended with a reveal into Madeline Ashton from Death Becomes Her - right as the song shifted into Brandi Carlisle’s live version of “Forever Young.”
There was one moment that will forever be etched in my memory. I was working the spotlight and in the middle of Fauxnique’s performance, my chin pressed a button that turned the spotlight off. It took me 30 long seconds to figure out what button I had pressed - and in the meantime, members of the audience rushed up to the stage with their iPhone Flashlights on bright. Fauxnique got down on her knees so she could lipsync and do her business - she had props!
Thankfully, the spotlight came back on right before she transitions from Sister Aloysius to Madeline Ashton.
At first I thought I had fucked up so much and runined the whole night. But later I thought that there was something magical to that moment. Or maybe it was just all the adrenaline I was flooded with in the moment!
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 30
INTO THE RIVER WILD
The River Wild is a solid action movie, and Gail Hartman is an under-rated action hero. Meryl did a lot of her own stunts in this film, and nearly drowned filming one sequence. She’s a total bad ass in this film.
Saturday afternoon, during the Into the River Wild intermission, Jubilee brought us down the river and into the witches emotional state with a mash up of Springstein’s “The River” and Meryl’s own rendition of ‘Last Midnight” from Into the Woods.
This song always makes me teary.
SHE-DEVIL WEARS PRADA
She-Devil is best seen with a crowd of queers. There’s something that Meryl is doing with her voice here - the breathiness - that feels to me like a proto-Moira Rose.
During the She-Devil Wears Prada intermission, Mary Vice brought us a Kylie “Better the Devil you Know” fantasy and a wig and costume reveal from Mary Fisher into Miranda Priestly.
Here she is in the green room’s broken mirror:
This scene might be the only reason why 90% of society has heard of the color cerulean:
Later that night, we celebrated the She-Devil Wears Prada sold out screening with 30+ Merylthoners down the street at Violet’s with Yola Mezcal Merylita’s and She-Devil’s Food Cake from Tartine.
MAMMA JULIA!
On Sunday, we recorded our “Meryl Streep: Queer Icon?” panel discussion with Joshua Grannell, Micheal Foulk, Inkoo Kang and Sanjay Hukku.
An excerpt:
JOSHUA: …Meryl Streep, I mean, I can't think of an actor who's maybe more iconic, you know, than her. As far as who's a great, iconic living Hollywood actor??
INKOO: Cate Blanchett weeps.
And then during the Mamma Julia! intermission, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy sang soprano to Abba and Taylor Swift - and amused us with tales of working as Meryl’s height coordinator on Julie & Julia.
Here she is playing our Meryl Who? game in the lobby…
Lastly, in total we had three real Meryl's from the Meryl videos show up to the festival! And somehow I forgot to take a photo with each one.
Meryl C. from Las Vegas
Meryl K. from LA
Meryl B. from San Francisco
Hot tip: If your name is Meryl, you get into the Merylthon for free!
The Bottomline
The 4 Star Theater seats 120 people.
We sold out Friday and Saturday nights.
A portion of seats were reserved for Weekend Pass holders - but not every Weekend Pass holder showed up for every screening so we opened up additional seats each night and packed the house.
Overall - we made about 15k against our budget of 11k.
An additional 1k came from the silent auction which brought our total to 5k.
This was the number I was quietly aiming for all along.
Queer LifeSpace was happy, and they might want to tackle another Merylton in the future … perhaps next in LA!?
We will build on what we learned in San Francisco and try to make it a little bigger and a little better.
I intend to stay true to the vibe we established: whimsical and absurd - with a touch of earnest sincerity.
I’m so proud of what we were able to do and how much we raised - with the resources and time we had available.
I hope we can continue to create fun niche experiences that raise funds for good community causes!
Coming soon:
A compilation of videos from at the Merylthon, as well as a podcast episode of our Sunday afternoon panel, "Meryl Streep: Queer Icon?"
So long onions. See you next year!
ANSWERS TO TRIVIA:
Meryl Who? Movie Titles:
Angels in America / Doubt / Big Little Lies / Cry in the Dark / Little Women / Iron Lady / The Post
Such a cool project, wish I had been there. Congratulations! Looking forward to the next one