Television and film star Leslie Jordan inaugurated the three-week holiday celebration. The gala featured Jordan’s one-man comedy routine and a catered afterglow reception where fans could chat with Jordan and the Thomasons.

About Leslie Jordan:

In 1982, Leslie Jordan stepped off a Greyhound bus from the hills of Tennessee, said hello to Hollywood and has never looked back. With hundreds of television shows, films and commercials to his credit, he has become a familiar face on the entertainment scene. Leslie is the 2006 Emmy Award Winner for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his delicious portrayal of “Beverley Leslie” on “Will and Grace.” Audiences will recognize him from his performance as Brother Boy in the feature film version of Del Shores adaptation of his play Sordid Lives with Olivia Newton-John, Delta Burke and Beau Bridges. He has had recurring roles on “Boston Legal,” and “Reba.” He is starring in the soon-to-be-released feature film “Wanted: Undead or Alive” with Chris Kattan. He will be recurring in the upcoming CW series “Hidden Palms” and will be starring with Lily Tomlin and Mary Kay Place in “12 Miles of Bad Road,” a pilot for HBO written and produced by Linda Bloodworth Thomason and Harry Thomason.

On stage, Mr. Jordan won the Ovation Award, The Garland Award and The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for his portrayal of Preston Leroy, the aging, sodden barfly in Del Shores hit play “Southern Baptist Sissies.” He will be performing that role in repertory with “Brother Boy” in “Sordid Lives” on tour through the fall of 2006 to Palm Springs, San Diego, Dallas, St. Louis, Nashville and Ft. Lauderdale. His autobiographical one-man show “Like a Dog on Linoleum” performed to sold-out audiences at the Elephant Asylum in Los Angeles, the Annenberg Theater in Palm Springs, the Bailiwick Theater in Chicago, the 14th Street Playhouse in Atlanta and the Lorraine Hansberry Theater in San Francisco.

Mr. Jordan has also enjoyed considerable success as a writer. His play “Hysterical Blindness and Other Southern Tragedies That Have Plagued My Life.” Thus far ran to sold-out houses in Los Angeles and had a successful seven month run Off-Broadway at the Playhouse on Van Dam in New York. His screenplay Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel won the Los Angeles Independent Film Festivalís Production Grant Award, winning the competition from over 600 other scripts. Subsequently, it was made into an independent film that is currently being distributed by Northern Arts Entertainment.