Ripley Sobo at the Broadway Stands Up for Freedom benefit concert. (Andy Kropa/Getty Images)

“And then we were entertained by that little pipsqueak,” concluded a woman as she sipped white wine from a plastic cup amidst a throng of acclaimed Broadway performers.

The Observer was at NYU’s Skirball Center for the 10th Annual New York Civil Liberties Union benefit concert entitled “Broadway Stands Up for Freedom,” and the nearby woman was referring to eight-year-old Ripley Sobo, child star from the Tony award-winning show Once and the talk of the evening.  (Later, when asked whose dress Ms. Sobo was wearing, she answered, "Mine.")

The crowd, a mixture of Broadway performers, NYCLU activists, and those simply in favor of freedom, donned casual wear including TOMS, summer dresses and, if you were a certain eight-year-old, bedazzled high-top converse.

We asked host and musical director for the evening Seth Rudetsky if he had stood up for freedom, a question that he pondered carefully before answering.

“When I was in high school, the yearbook printed my nickname as ‘queer boy’ instead of my actual nickname,” Mr. Rudetsky replied, recalling how a classmate had altered his submission to the yearbook. “And it was like, really? Why would I write that about myself.” The episode resulted in a lawsuit.

Mr. Rudetsky went on to use his experience being bullied to write the play that put him on the map, Rhapsody in Seth, a production that sticks it to those kids from back in the day.

These experiences point to his interest in the participating in the program, as proceeds from the concert benefit the NYCLU's youth programs, including its work with LGBT teenagers, its Teen Activist Project, and its work to stop overly aggressive policing and zero-tolerance discipline in the city's public schools.

Nikki Renée Daniels, star of the hit Porgy and Bess, was excited to share with us news of the release of her first solo album Home before giving her insight into how civil liberties and Broadway compliment each other (though we still have our doubts).

“I think all artists are different in some way--outcasts in one way or another,” Ms. Daniels said with a hint of pageantry. “It’s a great day when artists are fighting for civil liberties for young people, who feel like they are on the fringe or the outside of the norm.”

We slithered across the room to Katherine Chen, one of the winners of the NYCLU Freedom of Expression Contest, which challenged students to write about the issue that mattered most to them.

Ms. Chen’s honorable mention essay, entitled “Feminazi,” was read aloud in animated fashion by Godspell’s Uzo Aduba mid-way through the evening.

“I try to be bold. I get really angry with people when I talk about this kind of stuff because there’s a lot of [negativity], especially toward feminists, women and gay rights activists,” Ms. Chen passionately preached before the concert. “I mean, you call someone a feminist and they’re like, ‘Yeah, the girl’s a lesbian, obviously, she stands up for this only because she wants to be better than men.’”

Before we were summoned to our seats, The Observer caught up with Liana Stampur, a performer herself, who founded the event 10 years ago after feeling “lazy toward freedom movements.” She candidly told us of the silent (very unusual for this city) Father’s Day protest she was a part of and her thoughts on Mayor Bloomberg adamantly calling the NYCLU “dangerously wrong” and “no better than the NRA.”

“The NYCLU very clearly doesn't hang out with the NRA,” Ms. Stampur said in disagreement.

She went on to add that she strongly disagreed with Mayor Bloomberg’s stances, particularly in regards to his support of the stop-and-frisk policy.

“It’s the NYCLU’s job to make it hard for him and question his decisions. That’s a really important part of a democracy,” she added emphatically.

Beyond Mr. Rudetsky’s comedic anecdotes on stage, performances by Darius de Haas, Leslie Odom, Jr., Celia Keenan-Bolger and Andrew Keenan-Bolger (who were supporting the cause via a video submission), and Julia Murney were just a few of the many highlights. Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner, Tony Kushner, served as the honorary co-chair.

After some memorable numbers, namely the adorable Ms. Sobo shocking the crowd with her ability to command the stage, the show concluded with a folk rendition of “This Land Is Your Land” by everyone in attendance, including the audience, who were given the lyrics before the benefit.

Patricia Ward Kelly and Gene Kelly in 1994. (Photo by Albane Navizet)

Patricia Ward Kelly, the widow of legendary performer Gene Kelly, wrote down everything her husband said—and we mean everything.

Mrs. Kelly recalled this prodigious note-taking yesterday in an interview with The Observer. “It was constant: what we were doing, what we were eating, the people we were meeting, what Gene was saying,” she said. “In fact, we were sitting at dinner once and he said, ‘You’re not writing anything down.’ And I told him, ‘I’m eating!’”

Over two nights this week, Friday and Saturday, Mrs. Kelly will give two special multimedia presentations at Lincoln Center about the life and work of her husband, who she calls “more of a creator than a performer,” culled from this rich archival material. Her program is part of the Film Society's 23-film retrospective entitled "The Invitation to the Dance: Gene Kelly @ 100," which honors the centenary of Mr. Kelly's birth and runs through July 26.

For her presentations Mrs. Kelly strived to create a theatrical experience rather than a lecture.

“[These presentations will] enable people to grasp what before they didn’t really have any access to,” Mrs. Kelly said. “They just saw him up on the screen, but they had no idea that he used to sit in a chair with a little screen that constantly ran in his brain. That’s how he choreographed.”

Friday's performance will contain special pieces of memorabilia, personal stories about his life and untimely death, and some never-before-heard audio recordings.

On Saturday, Mrs. Kelly will delve into extensive detail of her husband’s filmic innovations such as his use of panning and double exposure, how he staged the parade in Hello Dolly to give the audience the sensation as if as they were truly “behind the scenes.”

Mrs. Kelly, a film historian, also noted that the two of them would pore over his films together, as research.

“It was like a class for me, ‘Movies 101,’” Mrs. Kelly recalled candidly. “He wasn’t crazy about watching his own movies, but he did it with me for homework.”

She and Mr. Kelly met in 1985 at the Smithsonian, when he was the host for a television special for which she was a writer. Soon after, he invited the woman living under a rock (she insists to this day she had no idea that he was famous) to California to write his memoir, a job she assumed would be a two-week gig. Instead, it evolved into her recording his words nearly every day for over ten years, and led to a happy marriage (Mr. Kelly's third) until his death in 1996.

This interviewing process never left the couple’s relationship even after marriage, creating an unusual dynamic that Mrs. Kelly compared to that of Picasso and Françoise Gilot.

“We sat in this room together and just quoted poetry back and forth and played word games, and then I began to hear the number of languages he spoke: French, Latin and Yiddish,” she recalled.

Mrs. Kelly hopes her husband will be remembered as she remembers him: for changing the look of dance on film, not just for his dancing.

“People don’t think of him the same way I do, they don’t think of him as this very, very cerebral guy,” Mrs. Kelly said earnestly. “They think of him as this kind of happy-go-lucky guy that would just go around dancing in the street, when in fact he was a guy who preferred to stay at home and read a book and do the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink. He was a real brainiac, and I absolutely loved that.”

Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson. (Patrick McMullan/PatrickMcMullan.com)

At the North American premiere of uniFrance Films’s Farewell, My Queen, aptly held at the Museum of Modern Art, and presented by Peggy Siegal Company on Monday night, Joshua Jackson did his very best to let Diane Kruger, the star of the film and his girlfriend since 2006, have the spotlight. But we couldn’t help but wonder what was next for the Fringe actor. Perhaps a Dawson’s Creek reunion?

“We killed Michelle, so I don’t think that’s ever going to happen,” Mr. Jackson said candidly, referring to the death of cast mate Michelle Williams's character on the show. Onlookers were crestfallen.

“But I would never say never. If I’m out of work for enough years, absolutely! I would be old, gray, and nasty by the time that would get done though,” he said.

With that important business out of the way, we asked the German-born actress what it was like to play infamous French queen, Marie Antoinette.

“I did things in this film I didn’t think I was capable of doing because it’s so far from who I am,” Ms. Kruger told us. “I have such a calm and controlled personal life, I never really lose it to the extent that she did. I felt proud to have allowed myself to go there.”

Ms. Kruger wore a floor-length silver gown and minimal accessories (we guess she left the French crown jewels at home).

The period film, based on Chantal Thomas's best-selling novel of the same name, tells the story of four days in the life of the ill-fated queen through the eyes of her servant and reader Léa Seydoux, played by Sidonie Laborde.

Despite the film's 18th century French dialogue, it was English that was difficult to understand throughout the evening, as evidenced by our conversation with the director of the film, Benoit Jacquot.

When we asked how he anticipated Americans would receive his film (the royal drama was released in France earlier this year), Mr. Jacquot’s translator made quick work of the question.

“It’s very interesting to think about because I really have no idea,” said Mr. Jacquot replied with a genuine look of uncertainty in his eyes. “I would like very much for them to love it.”

Mr. Jacquot showered Ms. Kruger with compliments in his heavy French accent and discussed the “expensive” opportunity to film in Versailles.

Indeed. The palace that the royal family called home looked just as picturesque in the film as the attendees made it out to be, and in moments when the subtitles were alas, too subtle, we still felt lucky to have a nice view.

Recent Tony Award recipient Nina Arianda was one of many to note the lush interiors and green grounds.

“The chambers where the maids lived is such a beautiful place,” said a laughing Ms. Arianda. “It’s much nicer than my apartment.”

What happens if he loses?” asked a father with two hot dogs in his left hand and his son gripping his right. The crowd (or at least those that could hear over the incessant chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!") turned to face the apparent newbie to the sport with a look of disdain. The male contestants in yesterday's 97th Annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Competition on Coney Island had four and a half minutes left in their ten-minute bout, and this was not the time for ignorant (although seemingly rhetorical) questions from a Fourth of July tourist.

We stood amid a throng of patriotic spectators, food enthusiasts and right next to Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas, a tiny woman of 105 pounds who only minutes earlier had won the women’s championship after consuming 45 hot dogs and buns, setting a new women’s world record. Afterward, she told us and everyone else within earshot that she was still hungry. We couldn’t help but remain skeptical.

“Wow, just wow,” the only words Ms. Thomas could utter to The Observer over the cheers for the favored Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, a man ranked first by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.

Now there was less than three minutes for the men to eat, and the crowd strained just to get even the slightest glimpse of the action. We couldn’t see Mr. Chestnut’s face, or any of the competitors for that matter (blame the people dressed in hot dog suits, others on stilts and poor staging generally).

“Do you think he’ll sign my hot dog?” we heard someone ask. It was a sarcastic question, but the fan behind The Observer clearly understood the significance of this near-century-old fierce competition.

The competitors, who were more than 10 hot dogs behind Mr. Chestnut, continued to chomp quickly as the seconds ticked away. Despite stuffing their faces to the point of disgust, they were significantly less efficient than the champ.

One participant, Matt “Megatoad” Stonie, told The Observer before the competition that he didn’t even like hot dogs and found them difficult to eat. This may have accounted for his inability to match the skill and technique of Mr. Chestnut, and was the reason he had to put in some extra conditioning over the last year in order to consume 42 hot dogs (still less than Ms. Thomas’s record this year, we would like to add).

Meanwhile, Yasir “The Doggy Bag” Salem, another male competitor who appeared to be dressed for a triathlon, told us just qualifying for the contest was good enough for him. He went on to argue competitive eating is on equal grounds with triathlons (an assertion we will leave to reader discretion) and that practice makes all the difference.

“I’ve only had 31 in practice, but it’s so different in competition,” Mr. Salem said.

Our conversation was briefly interrupted when a fan high-fived Mr. Salem and said enthusiastically, “Hey, you’re The Doggy Bag!”

We mused that the celebrity status apparent of these fast eaters, their nicknames, their uncanny ability to expand their stomachs and their ability to stomach mass quantities of foods they don’t even care for brings them almost up to par with superheroes like Spider-Man--almost.

Meanwhile, the games were really heating up back on the stage that no one except for Ms. Thomas could see. She gave the play-by-play to anyone willing to listen. At the same time, fans continued to comment to the best of their ability.

“How do they not choke?” asked an enthused attendee that held an ESPN foam finger reading "It’s not crazy, it’s sports."

"Like, that’s so much food.”

While some surrounding spectators expressed doubt mid-competition, The Observer never questioned whether Mr. Chestnut would defend his title for the sixth consecutive year. After all, he did consume 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes in 2009, a sickening feat and the current world record for both sexes. We did, however, begin to have some apprehensions about his health when, with less than a minute and a half to go, Mr. Chestnut needed to consume 11 hot dogs to break his record; Ms. Thomas did not.

“He can still make it!” Ms. Thomas exclaimed jumping up and down. “He has time.”

There was 30 seconds left. Mr. Chestnut’s bun counter hovering behind him showed a tally of 63. It was beginning to look like he would be just shy of his record. Soon, the crowd's chants of "Joey! Joey!" began to die down. And although it sounds almost too good to be true, just as the clock hit zero, Mr. Chestnut's hot dog count hit 68, tying his personal best.

“I was trying to break the record,” Mr. Chestnut confessed to us post-competition, sweat beads accumulating after his hard-fought battle against the dogs. “I was pushing my body to the absolute limit. I’m gonna go take a nap now.”

He went on to assure us he would recover by mid-afternoon, just in time for fireworks and, of course, another hot dog.

Ukuleles in McCarren Park
Name: Rick Bruner
Age: 47
Occupation: Market research
What are New York ukulele players like?
"A lot of us know each other here. It's a small community. We're an unpretentious group as far as musicians go."
How do you choose what songs to play?
"The mark of a great song is if it can be covered on a ukulele."

Percussion in Soho Square
Name: Mika Godbole
Age: 32
Occupation: Musician (percussionist)
Is it hard to keep time in the experimental piece you’re playing today, Frederic Rzewski's “Les Moutons de Panurge”?
“It looks easy, but it’s harder than you think. You really have to concentrate, and when you’re in the moment, you’re like, ‘Oh my god. Oh my god.’ The instructions are that if you get lost to stay lost. So you hear people zooming by you, and you’re like, ‘Wait I’m not with them, but I’m with them. But wait. Wait. No!’ You’re trying to catch up, but you can’t. So it’s this really cool experience. It’s my first time. So I guess I’m like a ‘Mouton’ virgin.”

Guitars in Union Square
Name: Damon Shelton
Age: 31
Occupation: Audio engineer; has been playing guitar for almost three years
How do you feel when you play guitar?
"Playing guitar is relaxing. I mean, it's time consuming, but in a good way. It's mainly relaxing. As you can see, music is the universal language. Look at all of the different people here. You don't even have to speak English to enjoy it."

Guitars in Union Square
Name: Irina Hernandez
Age: 16
Occupation: Student; guitar player in a band called Silentium (as of four days ago!)
Why did you choose to pick up the guitar?
"I love everything about guitar, especially the creativity you can exude. I wanna be the next Jason Becker [a metal guitarist], but more than that I just want everyone to play music. It brings a feeling in you that you can't feel anywhere else."

Bagpipes in Herald Square
Name: Don Ross
Affiliation: Performs with his group, the New York Scottish, and has been playing the bagpipes for 20 years
What’s it like to be in a bagpipe band?
“It’s fun. We have a variety of Scottish and Irish tunes and a few other kinds of tunes."
How are you coping with this weather?
“I’m just letting the breeze blow up my kilt.”