The funniest show in town just closed: PHANTOM OF THE OPRAH put on by Ryan Landry’s wildly inventive, screamingly hilarious GOLD DUST ORPHANS. Once again I took my seat at the Ramrod Center for the Performing Arts (more commonly known as Machine) sipped my chardonnay, and watched open-mouthed as a divinely diva-ed troop of men in drag skewered TV’s first lady.

All manner of high and low-jinks ensued: swinging chandeliers, puppets, crotch shots, Pickles the ballerina, Ryan’s dog, choreography snatched from BYE BYE BIRDIE and SWAN LAKE, and a plot erupting from THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and Oprah’s most infamous interview with the veiled woman whose face was ripped off by a chimp; here she’s delicately referred to as “the monkey lady.” The mongrel plot then morphs into the goings on at a frisky girl’s school with Landry as the evil headmistress Madame Cunte’ (accent very carefully on the second syllable), and one hot piece of jailbait played by the gorgeous internationally renowned drag queen Varla Jean Merman! This tour de fucking force is directed at breakneck speed with flamboyant finesse by Larry Coen.

I have NEVER laughed so hard. I am telling you all this because as Ryan says at every show, the Orphans- Afrodite, Penny Champayne & Co. are Boston’s best-kept secret. But they need to be outed once and for all!! Their next show: THE GULLS-based on Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS (Could REAR WINDOW be far behind?!)

Sounds like a scream.