For those who haven't had an Audra McDonald fix in a while:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Singer Audra McDonald performs at Lincoln Center's 50th anniversary ceremony at Alice Tully Hall in New York on Monday, May 11.

(For those who aren't familiar with Fresno's most famous Broadway/TV star, check out her recording label Web site and her Facebook fan page.)

Whew. I'm still recovering:

Friday: I caught the next to the last performance of Theatre Ventoux's ambitious "Anastasia Trials" at the Severance Theatre. This fascinating and complex play about a radical feminist theater company was well cast by director Lisa Taber and featured some strong performances, including Jessica Rose Knotts, Cindy Freeland, Alissa Cummings and Suzanne Grazyna. There was a lot I liked about the evening, from the play's gentle parody of feminist orthodoxy to its rousing and emotional declaration of sisterhood. But there was clunkiness as well as this backstage drama segued into a sometimes rambling "play within a play" that never quite sharpened its dramatic focus or lived up to its comic potential. I don't think that the play's impact matched playwright Carolyn Gage's ambition, but then again, I'm a man, right? And my name, as local critic, was actually part of the show, as in joking that I wouldn't get it anyway. How's that for inviting the male gaze?

Saturday morning: I helped lead a tour of downtown murals -- based on a Fresno Bee 7 section cover story from last year -- as part of the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust "Parties for the Parkway" program. Beloved Beehive alum Felicia Matlosz joined me along with Creative Fresno rep Donovan Byrn and local muralist Ramiro Martinez. (See photo above.) Great fun! Check out a bunch more mural pics after the break. And check out the Parkway's list of upcoming parties. They can be a blast.

Saturday evening: Time for a big, walloping dose of Bruckner, as the Fresno Philharmonic for the first time unleashed the composer's Symphony No. 6 on a local audience. I loved the power of the music, and particularly enjoyed watching the brass strut their stuff. Pianist Orion Weiss was a highlight, too, with his Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor.

Sunday afternoon: I caught the matinee of Fresno State's "Laughing Stock," directed by Kathleen McKinley. The comedy continues 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday at the John Wright Theatre. I'll post my review tomorrow. (A preview: It's not favorable, alas.)

Anyone else have a notable weekend?

OK, fess up: How many of us were strung along for a marathon three hours last night waiting to see if Joan Rivers would be the new Celebrity Apprentice?

(Slowly and sheepishly, I raise my hand, all the while insisting that I had my laptop computer busy all night answering emails and organizing photos and reading the latest New York Times stories about the faltering Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. But, hey, let's face it, I'll never get that prime-time chunk of minutes back. I could have driven to San Francisco in the time that NBC took dribbling out the result.)

Rivers beat out poker player Annie Duke, who provided one of the show's moments of high drama when she wished death on her extravagantly preserved opponent. (Rivers' face these days reminds me of a completely renovated boutique hotel.) But the poker player couldn't compete with the tartness of Rivers, whose famous rant about Duke's Las Vegas roots ("I've met your people in Vegas for 40 years and none of them have last names") has already achieved insult immortality.

I'm one of those johnny-come-latelys to this "Celebrity Apprentice" feud -- exactly the kind of viewer that NBC was hoping to snag with its puffed-up, padded-out three-hour event -- so I can't really speak to which of these two women "deserved" to win. What do people think? Should Joan have gotten the prize?