Go to a Tony party, I was told. The after-parties are really where it's at.

But how?

To wangle an invitation?

(For Gwen Orel's backstage coverage of the Tonys, click here.)

You can sidle up to a winner you know in the Press Room, and ask them, I was told. This sounded good when I was hearing it, but as the day grew closer, I knew that no matter how cute I might be looking, sidling up to an acquaintance and saying hey! Take me to your party! (like, take me to your leader, earthling from the planet glamour) was not in my skillset. Maybe on my second, third or fourth visits to the Press Room. Maybe if I were a foot taller.

Maybe if I were just somebody else.

As for the big Tony Gala itself, I had heard reports that this was a lame party--although the reports filtering back to me since Sunday suggest that lame or not, it's kind of a place to be.

Anyway.

Getting into a Tony party is a little complicated. A friend of a friend was photographing the "In the Heights" party, and wanted to help, but I got an email the day before that she couldn't. It isn't a sort of casual, hey, can I bring my peeps, affair.

Next I emailed the one commercial producer I knew. He emailed back that he had a lead for me--and it wasn't to one of his shows ... Don't even producers get to add names to a guest list? Then I realized his shows had closed, and probably, nobody throws parties for shows that have already closed. When he mentioned that he had gone through a press agent, suddenly I thought, eureka!

This Eureka moment didn't come until Sunday afternoon, but nearly too late is on time in my book.

I had a friendly relationship with Sam Rudy, the press agent for "Passing Strange," a show I had favorably reviewed for The L Magazine. I had also worked with Sam on other articles and shows. I emailed him, and he left a voicemail and then an email right away and so, I was on the list, to one of the hippest shows in town, the one I personally had picked for Best Musical and which according to buzz (and the New York Post) had been gaining momentum in the race.

Turns out the press agent my producer friend had emailed was this press agent's assistant. The lesson? DIY. Go to the top. Don't send messages through friends if you can do it yourself. My producer colleague was going to the gala and then party-hopping (though not hopping to "Passing Strange"). This to me just seems impossibly glamorous. Maybe next year, or the year after... Also, I learned that while producers might be throwing the party, press agents work the lists. This is a good thing to know, if you're press.

I might have gotten into "Boeing-Boeing" too, had I thought to contact their press agents before 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Since I wasn't going to the Gala, I thought I might have time to kill, but by the time we got out of the Press Room, it was well after midnight, so I walked down to Touch, the club on 52nd Street. Once again, on a balmy New York night, elegant, tuxedoed men and gowned women walked the streets as they found their parties. There were barriers at Touch, but no line. I could hear music coming from inside, and saw some people going in. My nightmare vision of standing alone in a party dress while bartenders hovered and privately felt sorry for me evaporated. In fact, my arrival was pretty well timed.

The doorman couldn't find my name and asked if I were somebody's guest--I probably could have said "yes" and gotten in that way, too. Many Tony parties are crashable, so long as you know where they are (but not, apparently, all!). I explained who'd sent my name over, they found me, and in I went.

I was thrilled to see there was a cloak room so I could check the laptop. I hadn't pictured how I was going to swan around with seven pounds of electronic lifeline on my shoulder.

The bar at Touch lights up when you touch it, which makes the counter seem like a demented macbook. Drinks, of course, were free, so I had champagne, and left a dollar on the bar (which lit up in excitement). The main room of the club is smallish, with couches around the perimeter, an abbreviated buffet in the center, and an upstairs gallery. When I used to do the club scene in the Bay Area, back in my pink hair days, I loved to sit on couches upstairs and watch the arrivals, but after five hours of sitting in the press room, it was good to stand. Waiters came around offering little pick-up foods.

I was hungry but didn't want to encumber myself with a plate, so I ate a cheese-garlic thing that tasted not of cheese nor garlic but of dough, and asked "what is it?" about something fried. "Coconut shrimp," she said, so I took one.

The interesting thing about this is that I do not eat shrimp. It gives me a headache, it's not kosher, and I never know what to do with the tail. But I took a shrimp and ate it, which showed me, yeah, I was a little nervous.

Into my second glass of champagne, I felt more relaxed. And people came in that I recognized--Oskar Eustis, from the Public Theatre, which had produced the play before its Broadway transfer, and who I know from the Bay Area, too (though not from the club scene--he taught dramaturgy at Eureka Theatre, and I quote him pretty regularly).

As I stood and watched the crowd I realized a few things.

1. Going to a party by yourself is a lot less fun than it is with another person

2. Most of the people at the party knew just one other person. Unlike a usual cast party, a Tony after-party includes all the producers and wives, press, people from other shows, friends. It is less insular but in some ways less festive than an ordinary cast party. And:

3. A Tony party of a show that hasn't won big has a different vibe than the radiance and hysterical happiness shimmering off the winners in the Press Room.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't say the mood at the "Passing Strange" party was depressed. It just wasn't exuberant. By 1 a.m., a few people were dancing to the 80s music spun by the D.J. (Dancing badly, the savage inner club chick in me observed.) But it didn't feel as though joyous deals were being tossed around in the air, and greetings were happy but not ecstatic.

Actually, for people-watching, going to a party alone is not a bad strategy. Especially once you're on your third glass of champagne.

Oskar left before I went over to him--he was always talking to people and I didn't want to interrupt him. Then as someone I thought I knew walked by me, I said "Tony?"

I was right; it was Tony Taccone, Artistic Director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Berkeley Rep also produced "Passing Strange" before it got to Broadway--in fact, its 2006 production was a world premiere, in association with the Public. I was once a literary intern at BRT, and had sat in on the rehearsal process of a new play Taccone directed. He's a great director, funny, frank, collaborative, creative, and he looks just the same--wiry, dark-haired, glasses, grinning. Even if you didn't know he was from New York originally, you'd know it. Taccone also directed Sarah Jones' "Bridge and Tunnel," on Broadway in 2006. His projects are always original, usually edgy, and full of warmth.

I was happy to see him and though I didn't expect him to remember me (by the time I got to BRT, my hair was no longer pink but waist length and blue-black; it's now shoulder length and red), he said he did.

Taccone was a great wise-cracking Virgil in this netherworld of the after-party. He explained to me that it was a cheap party--"no meat." (Actually, I think there had been some, but it had been eaten.) Joanna Settle, who directed "9 Parts of Desire" at Manhattan Theatre Club and at BRT, and is working on a new project with Stew, came over as well. The two shared loud, obscure jokes and references as they bitched about this and that. Taccone told me that the show had really needed the Tony award, that it would probably post closing notices soon.

I hope this is not the case, and that it will get a boost from the dynamic production number that had been televised. "Passing Strange" is an electrifying, wholly original show, with terrific performances and irresistible music. Audiences don't just view it, they experience it.

Heidi Rodewald, the co-orchestrator and composer of "Passing Strange," came over too. Her big brown eyes looked perplexed as she talked about the evening. I liked her for showing her disappointment--it takes guts. A lot of people had been pulling for the show, I said. Seven nominations was a lot, and it could get a bump from the broadcast. Rodewald was wearing an elegant pantsuit, I think in satin, and she looks like a rock chick even without trying. She also plays bass and sings in the show.

Taccone told me that even the producers have to pay for their tickets to the award shows. And that you don't get to sit next to artists, really, it's all money people. Taccone is, of course, a producer himself, but he's a producer in the not-for-profit world--which is a different animal. I said I had been thinking that maybe being a producer would be my next career, and they both told me I should, that it would be great if there were people like me doing it.

The appeal of producing, I realized this year for the first time, is the ability to say "yes." The ability to pick one show and not have to plan a whole season, as you do in the not-for-profit world. Of course, it helps to have money and pockets with deep connections (these I don't really have). I didn't like the thought of turning into "the money" and having people like Taccone and Rodewald not want to sit next to me, though.

By the time we left the party, the gala at Rockefeller Center had ended, too. Midtown was empty and calm. It's soothing to sit by an empty skating rink, somehow.

Taccone admitted it was nice to get that weekly check when the show was running.

And that he'd probably be taking a different view of things had the show won.