Thoughts on an afternoon and evening in Times Square.

First, the NY Times has moved over to luxe eminent-domain obtained digs on 8th Ave, so maybe it's time for a new corporate sponsor?

I saw a preview of Cry Baby, another B-way musical based on a John Waters movie, Wednesday, courtesy of the seat-filler membership. I wasn't optimistic, but like the show that preceded it in the Marquis Theater, The Drowsy Chaperone, it's a surprisingly good time, and better in my opinion, than Hairspray. The opening number, "The Anti-Polio Picnic" sets the bar kind of high, but it was very clever. Allison's grandmother is played by Harriet Harris, always a hoot as Frazier Crane's agent, Bebe Glazer.

Then I went to the box office of the Imperial to see if I could get a ticket to August: Osage County for the time I missed because of the bronchitis in January. Remembering how I got to see the show I was on my way to when I got run over by the bus, I talked to the house manager, and they do have a means of seeing the show, despite numerous "no refunds/exchanges" warnings all over the place, and I enjoyed it as much this time as I did last week. My favorite line is the mother's response to her daughter Ivy, who claims to have natural beauty not to need make-up. "All women need make-up. The only woman pretty enough not to need it was Elizabeth Taylor, and she wore a ton."

I don't get the appeal of the M&M and Hershey stores on [insert new corporate sponsor] Square. I've been to Hershey Park and they have a store with all kinds of stuff you don't see in stores, as well as unusual packaging and sizes, but not in these shops. Are there parts of the country where candy is hard to come by? I'm not kidding, you see all kinds of people with shopping bags from there, and I hear people talk about it all the time, "Where's the M&M store from here?" I mean, since you're right there, go to Dale & Thomas and get some pepper and white cheddar popcorn. They don't sell that in the vending machine at work.

Tonight I'm seeing another show here in Brooklyn, just down the road from last week's Kafka, Lysistrata. I've never seen it before, but I know the basic story from "Gilligan's Island". The girls quit doing housework and baking coconut cream pies until the men did what they wanted. Only it's not housework in the real one.

And can I tell you that between seeing the Harold Hecuba musical production of Hamlet on "G's I", I never saw any other version until Mel Gibson's movie came out in 1990? When you've seen the best, why mess with the rest?