Forbidden Broadway: Behind the Mylar Curtain (102 page)

I told them I had volunteered once at a Lincoln Center benefit, and Carol Charming
had asked me to help her with something. Just hearing that voice say my name had
blown me away. ("Chrishteeeeen, thaaaaank you so mew-uch!") I tried to re-create
Channing's sound at the audition, and it seemed to go well; they sent me home with
some Merman and a little Patti LuPone to work on. After the call-backs, during which
everyone was terrifically supportive, they offered me my first real, professional job
in the theatre.

That tour played more than forty states and sixty-seven cities in 103 days. We had
only five full days off during the whole three months, and two of those were in Akron
(don't ask). The tour bus had the back rows of seats removed, and our sets and costumes lived there, so we called it a "bus in truck" tour as opposed to the usual "bus
and truck."

Two years later, I made my New York debut in the Equity company of FB at The
Comedy Sewer, and I encountered the smell firsthand. (I still think Jimmy Hoffa was
in that vent.) Later, the show took me all over the country and the world: L.A., London,
Singapore, Australia. I even got to sing "Everything's Coming Up Merman" on the
QE2 while sailing through the muddy waters of Ho Chi Min City harbor in Vietnam.
Doing various editions of the show in all those places was a crash course in comedy
that could not be paralleled.

No one can ever know the amount of energy Gerard puts into writing Forbidden.
Over the course of several years, the process of working on the show with him evolved.
A shorthand developed, and it became easier to see the strong points in a piece and the
stuff that could be cut away. (Gerard overwrites-God bless him for that!) Sometimes,
there are major disagreements between Gerard and the actors as to whether or not a
particular bit of material is funny, and sometimes you have to take one for the team
and prove before a paying crowd why it just won't work. Of course, sometimes Gerard
is totally right; the people love it, and you will go to your grave never understanding
why. That's comedy, kids! At the end of the day, the audience is always right.

Everyone's input is welcome at Forbidden Broadway. Gerard often tailors the material around the actors' strengths. If you have an idea for a song or a character you'd
like to try, just tell him. There's nothing more exciting than to see the seed you planted
take root in his sick and fertile brain. More great numbers have been born that way.

In one edition, Bryan Batt and I were bemoaning the fact that there were no great
stars on Broadway to parody any more. The Mermans and Martins were long gone. I mentioned to Bryan that while watching Sunset Blvd.-in which he had covered
and gone on in the role of Joe Gillis-I could not believe how annoying those body
mikes were, perched practically between the eyes of the actors and, in the case of the
henchmen chasing Gillis, dangling off of their fedoras like hovering bees. Bryan told
me that the sound guys would shove those suckers down your throat if they could.
That's when I said, "Gee, we should do some kind of number about sound and have
Ethel Merman yell,'Sing out, Louise!' at all the over-amplified actors from the back of
the house." Bryan thought the opening number of Sunset would be the perfect song
for Ethel to interrupt because it's so low and brooding.

We both ran up to Gerard and told him our idea. He listened and nodded, with a
gleam in his eye that meant he was on the same page and couldn't wait to sharpen his
pencils and take a stab at it. Then we broke for lunch. An hour later, he came back with
one of my all-time favorite numbers, written to the tune of Irving Berlin's "You're Just
in Love" from Call Me Madam. It was a duet between the actor playing Joe Gillis and
Merman, who insisted that he learn how to project: "Ya don't need amplifyin', you'll
be loud as a lion." Not one word had to be changed or tweaked. It was simply perfect.
All Gerard needed was the visual we'd painted of Ethel storming the stage from the
back of the house, horrified by the canned microphone sound, and his naughty genius
took over and created a classic.

Doing the show is not the wacky frolic that it ultimately seems to be once it's been
meticulously nipped and tucked. It all looks easy-oh, but it ain't. Routining the numbers and sketches so that Girl #1 can get offstage and change costumes in time for her
next bit is like playing with a Rubik's cube. You've got to get it right, or the structure of
the show topples like a house of cards. The order of the numbers changes constantly
during previews, and even during the regular run. Whenever I was horribly late with
a quick change, my strategy was: "If your wig is on and your genitals are covered, just
get out there!"

Forbidden Broadway is rubber-chicken theatre that requires good musical comedy
chops and the ability to deliver a joke. When someone comes into the company with
that special "something"-the understanding that we're all in on a naughty secretthat's when it is elevated to a level of excellence. When the right material meets the right
performer, FB creates perfect comedy karma. But the show is not for wimps. Comedy is
hard work, and to some of us, it's sacred to be able to make people laugh at the world.
For decades, Gerard has been reminding us how important it is not to take everything
(and ourselves) so seriously.

As the show has touched the lives of so many, particularly young entertainers who
have grown up worshipping the FB cast recordings, I think a mystique about Gerard
has developed. I'm sure many fans expect him to be a combination of Oscar Wilde,
Noel Coward, and Neil Simon: quick with a snappy comeback, full of one-liners and
edgy insights. In a way, he is all of those things, but I also liken him to the Wizard of Oz. Everyone expects the great and humorous Alessandrini to always have witty theatre
parodies spewing out of him like those colored puffs of smoke the Wizard spouted at
Dorothy and friends. He's a force of theatrical nature. Yet, in another way, Gerard is
like the man behind the curtain. He can be shy at first meeting, a gentle fellow who
successfully conjured up a fantastic creation and has lovingly tended it.

There are many levers to flip and buttons to push in sustaining the slick, sassy,
satirical show that has mesmerized people for so long. If ever, oh ever a Wiz there
was, the wizard Gerard is one because he has the brains to create all that magic, the
courage to say what needs to be said, and most importantly, he does it all straight
from his heart.

Forbidden Broadway Cleans Up ItsAct. Clockwise from top left: Lori Hammel
in Ragtime, Bryan Batt as "Rafreaky," Ed Staudenmayer as Alan Cumming, and
Kristine Zbornik looking "More Miserable:'

Top: Forbidden Broadway
Cleans Up ItsAct. Bottom: Our
outlandishly irreverent spoof of
the musical Titanic.

Forbidden Broadway 200P A Spoof Odyssey. Clockwise from top left: Felicia Finley,
Danny Gurwin, Tony Nation, and Christine Pedi.

Christine Pedi as Barbra and Gerry McIntyre as Satchmo.

Top: Jennifer Simard, Ron Bohmer, Christine Pedi, and Jason Mills in our wicked parody of
Wicked. Below: The Forbidden Broadway version of Rent.

Alvin Colt's version of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car
as driven by Megan Lewis.

ALVIN COLT

In 1994, I was working as a shop assistant at Grace Costumes when the "big-a-boss"
of the establishment, Maria Brizzi, insisted I meet "This-a man who, you know, needs-a
some-a help."

A startling six feet seven inches of Alvin Colt came lumbering through the office
door. He unceremoniously dropped a huge portfolio on the desk and, in a booming
voice, he exclaimed: "I am designing costumes for this little meatball of a revue, and
let me tell you, they have no money. Do you know what a four-hundred-pound chicken
says?" I answered, "No," and he hollered, "CHEAP!!"

I was beginning to see where this was going. The producers of the revue probably
didn't have any money for an assistant, either. But Alvin Colt had designed the costumes for the original productions of Guys and Dolls, On the Town, Li'! Abner, Destry
Rides Again, Wildcat, Sugar, and so on. I had to see what it would be like to work with
him. And so my association with Alvin began.