By Laura Schiller, Program Editor and Copywriter at Caramoor
In marketing, we’re often advised not to call a concert “unforgettable” ahead of time. It’s considered hyperbole — how can we promise something so lasting before it’s even happened? But after the Pride Celebration at Caramoor on Thursday evening, no one could fault me for using the word. It was, without question, unforgettable.
Under a surprisingly chilly sky following the week’s heatwave, Seth Rudetsky, Broadway’s go-to music director and storyteller, took the stage on Friends Field with three incredible performers: Zachary Noah Piser, Lauren Patten, and Gay Willis. With Seth on piano, the group offered a dynamic mix of Broadway songs and heartfelt conversation, celebrating Pride with humor, insight, and profound honesty.
The vocals alone were enough to remember forever. Piser stunned with “Corner of the Sky” from Pippin and “My Days” from The Notebook. Patten brought fresh gender-bending energy to “Glory” from Rent, and she tore into selections from Jagged Little Pill and Fun Home. And Willis opened with the sweetness of “Goodnight My Someone” from The Music Man and “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady. But what lingered for me long after the final note was a story Gay Willis told near the end of the show.
She recalled how, while she was pregnant several decades ago, she just knew without a doubt that she was carrying a girl. But the ultrasound said “boy.” When Gabe was a baby, beautiful and wide-eyed, strangers in the mall would peer into Gay’s Baby Bjorn pouch, see his long eyelashes and cute overalls, and say, “Oh, she’s so cute.” “He!” Gay would gently correct. Looking back, she said, maybe they saw something she hadn’t seen yet.
As Gabe grew, he struggled deeply to belong — on soccer fields, in school hallways, among friends. Other children tormented him, saying “I don’t know how you live,” and other things far crueler. In a fourth-grade class photo, his eyes were dark and sad. With all the bullying, his parents pulled him out of school during lunch just so he could come home and feel safe, if only for a moment.
Gay described her feelings of helplessness watching her child drag himself so wearily throughout his entire adolescence. “And for prom,” Gay recalled, “we got the tux fitted for him and everything, and he just didn’t look right. I kept trying to find clothes that fit him, but he was always just so uncomfortable in his skin.”
Then, during the pandemic, Gabe came out as trans. At first, he didn’t want a name change; he just wanted to start taking estrogen. But sometime later, while Willis was backstage preparing for Concert for America, she received a long, vulnerable text from Gabe that read: “My friends have been calling me Astra. And using she/her.” Relieved that her child was now finding some kind of peace and opening up to her, Gay texted back instantly: “That’s great!” Even as she worked to adjust over time (“I knew I had to wrap my head around this and honor who she is,” she shared), Gay made one thing crystal clear to her child: “Nothing you say or do will ever make me stop loving you. I may be upset by things from time to time, but I will love you unconditionally.”
After delivering this story on Friends Field Thursday night, Gay segued straight into True Colors by Cyndi Lauper. And the audience sat still, holding their breath.
As a mother of both a young boy and girl – and as someone who works in marketing – I can tell you, it’s not hyperbole: this was unforgettable.
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