NSFW

What happens when you cross a charity gala with a gay circuit party? You get ClimACTS!—the outrageous annual fundraiser for The Theater Offensive, which paid tribute to the late, great Cambridge philanthropist Joan Parker.

The Wilbur Theatre was transformed into a decadent nightclub with go-go boys and scantily clad acrobats, women in fetish gear brandishing whips, a silent auction of an At-Home Orgy Kit and a live auction that included the opportunity to be a fluffer on a porn film.

The evening’s main attraction, however, was Broadway sensation Billy Porter, who mixed and mingled with a crowd that included all the usual suspects and a few wild cards, among them: Joan’s son, contemporary dance deity David Parker, Maverick Men Cole and Hunter, sneaker pimp Jay Gordon and his delectable designer wife, Alina Wolhardt, exhibitionist extraordinaire Ricardo Rodriguez with his button-cute husband, Michael Kelley, the latter’s beefcake brothers, Bobby and Brian, stunning blond academic Barbara Grossman, fitness guru Chad Flahive with the tall, dark and handsome Patrick Weiss, Boston Ballet star John Lam and his handsome husband, John Ruggieri, scorchingly hot Brazilian painter Fernando DeOliveira, absurdly sexy videographer Ernesto Galan, smoldering bee expert Noah Wilson-Rich, DJ to the stars Nathanael Bluhm, a few guys in assless underwear or jock-straps, and one man who looked flustered when a topless woman offered him a tray of sushi.

The entertainment, meanwhile, began with a Cirque du Soleil contortionist and continued with operatic N.Y. drag queen Shequida and a hilariously raunchy burlesque act by La Chica Boom. Then Porter performed, and the crowd went wild.

The night’s best remark: “What pediatric oncologist doesn’t need a leather collar and nipple clamps?”

Only His Stylist Knows for Sure

It looked like a flock of flamingos had invaded the InterContinental Boston when the Breast
Cancer Research Fund held its annual Hot Pink Party—Bright Lights, Pink City.

Molly Ringwald was about the only one missing from a fashionable crowd that included Palm Beach doyenne Sandy Krakoff, party pair Linda and Dan Waintrup, blond bombshells Jaclyn Cashman and Regina Winslow, cosmetics magnate Leonard Lauder, the flawless Penny Fireman, investment guru Peter Lynch and the lovely Carolyn, the first ladies of Red Sox Nation, Linda Henry and Stacey
Lucchino, Patriots patriarch Bob Kraft and his toothsome lady friend, Ricki Noel Lander, the incomparable Jane Moss, the swanlike Jennifer Herman, emcee extraordinaire Kelley Tuthill, the bejeweled Evelyn Treacy and her other half, Michael, adorable do-gooder Erin Duggan Lynch, one-woman Mardi Gras Ashley Bernon and her gorgeous mother-in-law, Kay, and pretty much everyone who’s anyone on the city’s charitable scene.

It was a crowd that doesn’t impress easily, but there was still some squealing and a bit of hysteria when Jon Bon Jovi entered the ballroom after dinner to do an acoustic set.

“I have wanted to sleep with that man since I was 13,” said one woman, whose male companion responded, “Me, too.”

However, the evening’s funniest remark came from the woman who said, “His hair can’t be real. He’d have to be part Shetland pony.”

I See London, I See France

It was an evening worthy of “Mrs. Jack” herself when the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum hosted its summer soiree, The Gardner Remixed.

The evening began with cocktails and light bites in the courtyard, followed by what was possibly the coolest performance that’s taken place in Calderwood Hall: a concert by the astonishingly talented and beautiful Shea Rose.

She played three sets, each with a distinct format: a poem by Maya Angelou (who had died the week before), a modern arrangement of a piece of classical music, and a few original songs and covers in Rose’s genre-bashing soul/rock/hip-hop style. Between sets, guests played musical chairs, moving up or down a floor in the concert hall, and there was much air-kissing in the stairwells among an eclectic crowd that included literary agent and noted eccentric Esmond Harmsworth, Sufi mystic Thalassa Scholl, blond beauty Johanna Hynes, the absurdly sexy duo of Frank Amelia and Stephen Labuda, power chick Malia Lazu, handsome hipster Seven Cohen and so on and so forth.

The evening’s funniest remark: Looking up from the first floor at the transparent balustrades on the balconies, one man said, “Renzo Piano must really enjoy looking up women’s skirts.”