Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 2 (12 page)

I asked her what was up with her missed performances during
Into the Woods
. Turns out, they made her do a pratfall as Cinderella where she would leap onto a moving staircase and land in a pushup position. The show tried out in L.A. and as soon as she did the pratfall, the crew guys all said it was too dangerous. But "the powers that be" told her to keep doing it… and, of course, because she was only 20 and didn't question authority,
and
she was getting a laugh, she continued. One night, she did it and actually heard her neck snap, and by the end of the show, she couldn't move her neck at all. She went to a doctor the show set her up with, and he said that she had three herniated discs…
but
she could keep doing the pratfall. What?? Things started getting worse (her whole arm went numb for a while, and soon she'd walk around in a neck brace during her off hours). Finally, the doctor told her she couldn't do the show anymore.

She left the show and wound up getting cast in
Nine
. She started rehearsals, and one horrifying day she was lying on the floor at her mom's house and suddenly couldn't move her lower body to get herself up. Mary Stuart Masterson sent her to a different doctor, who said she had to get surgery the
next day
. Laura hemmed and hawed 'til he said that her back was in such bad shape that if she left and someone accidentally pushed her, she could be completely paralyzed! To get to the discs, the surgeon had to go through her throat first and push her vocal chords aside. Laura had to sign something saying that if it ruined her voice, she couldn't sue him. Devastating. The good news is the surgery worked and her voice is still a brava! But for those people who dish actors for missing shows, just know that most actors I've interviewed want to do all eight shows a week and are devastated whenever they have to miss. I don't know any principal people who miss performances because they don't feel like showing up. However, I do know some young ensemble people who are in their first Broadway show and are like, "I was totally out last night partying, and I'm
really
tired so I can't show up today. But we're all watching
Project Runway
later, so come over!"

Laura said that Patti LuPone broke her toe recently, but is still doing the show… however, she has to wear ugly-a** Isotoners. Boyd Gaines got everyone to make Patti a statue made out of Isotoners and then presented it to Patti… as the IsoTony. I wonder if Patti made a speech saying, "I've had to wait 29 years since my last IsoTony…"

I asked Laura about my two favorite parts of
Gypsy
: the cow and "Little Lamb." In "Dainty June and Her Farmboys," Laura's "moo moo moo moo" is so without any personality, it's hilarious. Turns out, during rehearsals, she didn't know she had to do it, so she'd watch the number and do the moos "to be nice"… as in "Okay, at this point someone will go, 'Moo moo moo moo.'" When she found out that she had to do it, she decided to keep that same lack of affect, and I can't
wait
for the CD so I can hear it every day for a laugh. I'm not the only one obsessed… Laura said she's investigating how to make the moos a ringtone because all of her relatives from Jersey are obsessed with it as well. As for "Little Lamb," the song I always avoided more than Phase One of the South Beach Diet, but I now love — she said that Sondheim told her that the words are just there to talk herself out of being sad. Even though it's not how most actors approach songs, she ignores most of the words and just focuses on the feeling. The only words she really means are "Little Cat, oh why do you look so blue? Did somebody paint you like that? Or is it your birthday, too?" The rest of the song for her is just about a girl who's been ignored her whole life, has some attention for a fleeting moment and is back to being alone again, trying to comfort herself. I, of course, brought the score with me and made her sing it for everyone, and she was
fantastic
!

Finally, I must discuss
[title of show]
. I've known Hunter Bell for years because he used to come to the comedy shows I'd do with Jack Plotnick. Then I got cast in a Rite Aid industrial and found out that he was cast as well. I thought, "Hunter Bell? That guy who's always in my audience? I didn't even know he was really in the business. Hmm… I
guess
he'll be okay." Well, we got to rehearsal and after five minutes, I was like, "
Oh my God!
He's a comic genius, and I don't deserve to be onstage with him." I couldn't believe how talented he was. Then I went to go see the first incarnation of
[title of show]
at NYMF and became completely obsessed. I saw it at Ars Nova, I saw the backers’ audition at Chelsea Studios, and I saw it numerous times Off-Broadway at the Vineyard. Every time I see it, I laugh so hard, yet I'm so moved by it. When the cast found out it was going to Broadway, they asked me to come to opening night. Imagine how devastated I was to find out it's during the week I'm on the Rosie cruise. I thought maybe I could get off the ship and then fly back by helicopter, Lucy style (anybody remember when she went to Europe?), but no go. Instead, I made sure I was flying to Texas on a Sunday, so I could see the first preview of the show on Broadway Saturday night. I'm so happy I did that because there was something so incredibly moving about seeing that first performance. First of all, the theatre was
packed
. As soon as the show began and Larry, the music director, walked out onstage, the crowd went wild. So many of us had waited so long for the show to get to Broadway, we were so excited it was happening in front of us. I was there with James, who had never seen it before. I was terrified because he's told me that he doesn't usually like shows that have any kind of self-referential material. Would he like it? If he didn't, how much notice would I have to give to break up with him? Suffice it to say, I turned to him near the end of the show and he had tears in his eyes. Yes! We
can
stay together. I have to say that I get annoyed when people call the show "inside." Yes, it's about the process of writing a musical… and
A Chorus Line
is about the process of auditioning for a musical. Is
that
too inside for people to understand?
[title of show]
is really about what holds us back from true self-expression and how one measures success. Of course, people who know nothing at all about Broadway won't get 100 percent of the jokes, but so what? They'll get all the other ones. I had never seen the movie
The Red Shoes
, which is mentioned in
A Chorus Line
, but I still loved the show when I first saw it.

The most amazing part about seeing that first preview was that, after the cast sang the song near the end of the show with the brilliant lyric "I'd rather be nine people's favorite thing than 100 people's ninth favorite thing," the whole audience stood up. We were saying that we agreed and that we were so happy for them and that we welcomed their show to Broadway. I don't think I'd ever seen an ovation before the end of a show last for so long. I spoke to Kevin McCollum, one of the producers, after the show, and he said what's unique about this show is that the audience provides what the cast wants. Their "I want" song is "we want to put our art out there and have it accepted," and then we accept it, which makes the audience the protagonist of the show. Unfortunately, I didn't fully pay attention in AP English, but I essentially got what he was saying.

After the show, we went backstage with a slew of celebrities (Donna Murphy, Stephanie J. Block, Brian d'Arcy James, etc.) and got to hang out with the cast. That was fun. Leaving was not so much fun. There were so many fans at the stage door, we literally couldn't exit. It was like those photos of Beatles concerts. We had to find another way out, which we eventually did, which led to us going to bed at 2 AM... and getting up at 5:30, which is how I began this column.

All right, everyone, I'm finishing up this column looking out at Betty's beautiful Texas ranch, and I have to run to rehearsal. When you get a chance, visit and watch some of the hilarious videos at
titleofshow.com
and then come visit me in Texas!

Brava, Betty Buckley

July 14, 2008

Hello from the flight from Dallas — where I worked with Betty Buckley on three hit concert dates at Lyric Stage — to New York. The "good" news is, I'm in a middle seat. James is across the aisle from me sitting with Juli. It's been very weird for me, being in Texas the week before the cruise. Usually, this week is filled with non-stop rehearsals getting ready for the cruise. The rehearsals are still happening, but I'm not there like I usually am, supervising/getting in everyone's way.

Let me start at the beginning of last week. One of the things I forgot to mention about seeing
[title of show]
last Saturday night is that I stopped by the merchandising table on the way out. They have so much fun stuff… mugs and t-shirts, etc. The woman running the booth told me that the maximum she's ever sold in one night had been $500, but on the first preview of
[title of show]
she sold $3,000! And then I spied that they were selling my first book,
The Q Guide to Broadway
. I smiled humbly, held up the stack of books and magnanimously asked her if I should autograph them. I then got the amazing ego-boosting response I got in that San Francisco bookstore: a shrug and an "If you want…" Wow and ouch.

Anyhoo (P.S. I got a hostile email from a reader asking me to stop writing "anyhoo." Hmm... how about
you
stop writing hostile emails?), James and I flew into Dallas last Sunday (after our amazing three and a half hours of sleep), and we spent his birthday afternoon with his daughter, mom and sister at the Aquarium. Then we drove to Betty's ranch in Ft. Worth. Betty's assistant, Cathy, let us use her house the whole time we were there
and
cooked all of our meals for us. In exchange, I broke her garbage disposal. How was I supposed to know you're not supposed to throw cherry pits and egg shells into a disposal? One night, Betty and Cathy went to see a concert in Ft. Worth, so James and I went out to dinner at a real small-town Texas Mesquite-grill restaurant. James is excited about me on the
Legally Blonde
show because it’s a national TV program and told me it was possible that someone in the restaurant would recognize me from watching. I bet him that no one would. Cut to, he asked the waitress if she watched the
Legally Blonde
reality show on MTV, and she enthusiastically said she did. He smiled triumphantly. So he
was
right! Then James pointed to me and said to the waitress, "Look, it's Seth!"
Silence
. Then
I
said, "Remember? I'm the vocal coach."
Staring
. "Um… I play the piano and teach the girls the music every week."
Blinking
. No recognition. So, I guess we were both right. Yay?

Betty and I had three days to put together her all-Broadway request show at Lyric Stage. For years, her fans and producers from concert venues have been asking for an all-Broadway show, but she's always included jazz as a large part of the show. She admitted that she sometimes has a contrary nature and attributed it to growing up with her mother wanting her to be Julie Andrews, yet she was wanting to be Janis Joplin. Regardless, she finally decided to give the people what they want and put together a show with songs and stories from her many years on Broadway. Betty and I spent hours each day in her music room going through songs and picking arrangements. Every time we'd get into an argument about how a song should go, Betty would laugh and say she wanted us to do that during the show. The biggest disagreement we had was which version of "Memory" to do. She wanted to do her re-arrangement of the song, which she calls "Space Memory" and begins with a few weird, mysterious chords. I wanted it Broadway-style and demanded we begin with the signature "Memory" vamp that we all know from the cast album. Finally, we agreed to compromise: I put some "Betty chords" in the middle, but got to begin it with the vamp I grew up on (Dum dum dum, dum dum). When Betty first heard me play it, she was in shock. It had been so long since she sang it with that intro.

We teched the show at the Lyric Stage on Wednesday afternoon and didn't really know how it was gonna go over. Well, first of all, we found out that all three shows were completely sold out with a long waitlist! Brava! I suggested that we seat people
Spring Awakening
-style, so the theatre brought extra chairs and put them on the stage! It was great having the audience so close — except when I started playing the intro to "As If We Never Said Goodbye," and someone's cell phone starting ringing.
Onstage
!
And
he didn't hear it! Betty finally had to gently ask him to turn it off. Oy. But even though we didn't quite know what the show was gonna be, it coalesced and was
fantastic
! Betty did a full two acts of singing for three nights and sounded
amazing
! Plus, her stories were fascinating and hilarious…
and
filled with non-stop busts on herself.