Talk about slippery characters.
“Gwyneth Goes Skiing,” a musical comedy about Gwyneth Paltrow’s infamous Park City ski accident and the attendant courtroom drama, is making its New York debut this week.
“Glee’s” Darren Criss and famed drag queen Trixie Mattel will be straddling a T-bar and coming along for the ride for the Off-Broadway run, which stars its writers Linus Karp and Joseph Martin as Goop herself and her adversary, optometrist Terry Sanderson.
The show has already had black-diamond runs in London and the scene of the tort, Park City, Utah. And from January 20 to January 26 it’ll be at the Soho Playhouse — all of which means that the hearing at the center of the show is now nearly two years ago.
But the show’s creators and real-life couple Karp and Martin told Page Six, “The trial brought such hilarity and joy to people online, and luckily for us people online do not forget, as the audiences at our shows still very much remember the most memorable moments and quotes.”
They said by email, “It’s rare to see a high-profile court case where the stakes are as low as they were here. When asked what the impact of the collision was on her, Gwyneth uttered the iconic line ‘well I lost half a day of skiing.’”
When we asked why the incident seems to how such a special fascination for the queer community, they told us, “When a blonde Hollywood star enters a small-town district court in the Utah mountains, with the glamour, grace and goopiness that she did, the queers have no choice but to stan; and will rightfully appreciate the moment better than any straight person ever could, no offence.”
And they said the tale has some societal undertones. “The girls, gays and theys love a strong, independent woman fighting for justice (and her half a day of skiing) against an old, white, straight man,” they said.
The songs were written by drag star Leland while Criss and Cat Cohen provide the singing voices for Paltrow and Sanderson (remotely), and Trixie cameos as Paltrow’s mom, Blythe Danner.
We’d heard Off-Broadway was going downhill, but this is ridiculous!
Tickets are $40.
In 2019, Sanderson sued the “Shakespeare in Love” star for $300,000, claiming that she’d left him with a brain injury after crashing into him in 2016 in the Deer Valley ski resort. Paltrow countersued for $1 dollar in damages, plus legal fees, claiming Sanderson had, in fact, crashed into her. Paltrow prevailed.
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