Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 2 (22 page)

The devastating news is
[title of show]
just announced their closing date for Oct. 12. Wah! But just as I heard that announcement, I checked my mail at Sirius radio and saw this in my inbox:

Dear Seth, After hearing you obsess over [title of show], I finally stuck it in my Amazon shopping cart when I ordered my last haul. OMG — that album is so hilarious. I always enjoyed what you played on Sirius of it — love, love the straightforward 4 part harmonies and the clever lyrics. But to hear 'Die Vampire Die' and 'Filling Out the Form' for the first time was a snort-laugh out loud experience. I think 'Die Vampire Die' is just as uplifting as the Rice Krispies treats sentiment in that other song, albeit with some hysterical lyrics. (Je suis whore!). Sorry to babble - but wanted to say thanks for obsessing over good stuff like this, it makes us all better listeners and more appreciative as an audience.-Tasha in Washington State

So,
[title of show]
may be ending its Broadway run, but it will always live on! But while it's still on Broadway, see it! Don't be like me who kept waiting to see Lily Tomlin's show, never did, and was then devastated for 20 years whenever people would talk about it ('til I finally saw the revival).

I was standing online at Starbucks around a year ago and made some sassy comment, which I usually do in public to random people around me. Half the time I get an "I don't know you, crazy person" look, and the other half I get a friendly nod. Well, this time I got a friendly nod from the lady in back of me. We started talking and soon I found out she was in
Mamma Mia!
. That was how I first met Carey Anderson. Now she's starring in
Avenue Q
as Kate Monster and Lucy T. Slut, and I interviewed her and her co-star Howie Michael Smith on Tuesday at noon. Carey grew up in the Midwest and did lots of sports, totally like my childhood, just without the Midwest and sports part. She got the
Mamma Mia!
tour as the understudy for Sophie (the daughter who's getting married). After she did the tour for a while, they asked her to come audition for the Broadway show… along with the girl she was understudying! The "fun" part was they both flew to New York together on the same plane… side-by-side. They auditioned at the same time and then flew back to the tour together.

PLANE FLIGHT CONVERSATION:


POSSIBLE SOPHIE 1: How'd it go?


POSSIBLE SOPHIE 2: Really well. What about you?


POSSIBLE SOPHIE 1: Really well, too.


POSSIBLE SOPHIE 2: That's great.


POSSIBLE SOPHIE 1: Good for you!


POSSIBLE SOPHIE 1 and 2: So… yeah…


Total silence for rest of plane ride.

Cut to: Carey's agent got the news that Carey got the gig… but decided
not
to tell her before the show that night. I guess she didn't want her to be in a good mood for that performance??? Finally, at midnight, her agent called and told her she got it. Carey was thrilled… and half-awake. The crazy part is, she had her wedding planned for a Saturday, and they wanted her to begin in the show that same week! So, she literally made her Broadway debut on a Wednesday and got married that Saturday! She said she's glad she has pictures because she remembers nothing.

Carey's devastating audition story was when she tried out for a non-Equity
Grease
tour and was told her eyes were too small. Then the auditioner took out Carey's 8x10, pointed to the eyes in the photo and circled them to prove the point. Knowing how expensive 8x10s are, they kindly handed her picture back on her way out of the audition… with the eyes circled in pen. I
guess
she could use that at another audition. "Hi! Um, before I sing, I just quickly want to point out that my eyes are small. I had them both circled on the 8x10 I gave you just to give ya a heads up."

Howie Michael Smith was working as a singing waiter in New York and
hating
his job. One night, he couldn't take it and left his shift, crying. When he got home, he had a message on his machine telling him that he got
Avenue Q
on Broadway! He went in the next day and sat through the wait-staff meeting, where they were all degraded by the management, and then he got to drop the delicious bomb that this was his last shift because he was going to Broadway! I asked him for a mortifying moment, and he said the most embarrassing thing to happen onstage was right after the song "You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want (When You're Makin' Love)." He, as Princeton, said a line to Kate Monster, and Princeton's eye fell off. Ouch. I don't know which is more devastating; having your eye fall off, or having both of them circled.

If it's Wednesday, it must be Cheyenne Jackson. He stopped by at noon, gabbed and then sang two songs! He talked about playing Matthew in
Altar Boyz
from very early on in its inception. He did the really successful run of it at NYMF and was all set to open Off-Broadway when he got offered a Broadway gig understudying Jarrod Emick. He quit
Altar Boyz
to go to Broadway as an understudy, but then Jarrod left the show, and Cheyenne got the lead! The show was
All Shook Up
, and I'm still devastated over his lack of a Tony nomination
.
And his upcoming lack of a Tony nomination for XANADU. Who do you have scr*w to get a Tony nom in this town? I’m tempted to tell Cheyenne it’s me.

Thursday was the big press conference and we had Bebe Neuwirth and Brenda Braxton. I asked Bebe about her childhood and, turns out, she started out as a ballerina. But when she was 13, she saw Ben Vereen in
Pippin
on Broadway and suddenly knew she was going to grow up and do that style of choreography… AKA Fosse. What's amazing is that her first Tony Award was for the Fosse directed/choreographed
Sweet Charity
…
and
it was presented to her by Ben Vereen! Is she a modern Cassandra with great turnout? Bebe talked about doing the national tour of
A Chorus Line
very soon after the show opened on Broadway. She understudied and then took over the role of Sheila. Sheila is the one who is "gonna be 30 real soon" and she’s "real glad." And after the "kids" get a break, she asks if the adults can smoke. When Bebe played the role, she was 19! She's like Jonathan Freeman, who said, "When I was 10, I was 40." Bebe said that she had the attitude of Sheila down, but she was so young that she still had baby fat. When Michael Bennett came to see the show, he wanted her to start wearing a belt as Sheila because he couldn't see her waist!
Then
, she took over the role of Cassie! You know, the one who's been in the business forever? The one Zack doesn't want to go back to the chorus? I'm sure the audience was like,
Go back to chorus? Does he mean high school chorus
?

Brenda Braxton, the current Velma in
Chicago,
joined me after Bebe. I asked her about doing
Smokey Joe's Café
. Turns out, she didn't have an audition for it originally, but heard they were looking for a "Brenda Braxton type." What the-? Isn't she a "Brenda Braxton type?" She happened to be in the rehearsal building where they were having auditions and her friend who was working on the show got her in. She got the role and did the entire five-year-run of the show. You may ponder how someone does that without getting bored. If you're Brenda Braxton, you'd answer that query in the beautiful brownstone you own. Next question. I asked her about the morning of the Tony nominations. She said that she was sleeping but kept hearing her answering machine clicking, so she knew something was up. She decided to call her mother to find out if she was nominated, but her mom wasn't home. However, the outgoing message was "You have reached the mother of Tony-nominated Brenda Braxton." Her mom works fast!

Friday, I had Ashley Spencer and Derek Keeling, who play Sandy and Danny in
Grease
, and that night I went to go see it. That theatre was
packed
! They both sounded and looked great. Ashley began as a ballet dancer, and during the finale, she did a crazy high battement and then went right into a split! Brava!

This week, I'm doing Project Shaw for my second time. The show is
Caesar and Cleopatra
(by George Bernard Shaw), and there are some amazing actors in it, including Madeleine Martin, Brian Murray and Daphne Rubin-Vega. I'm going to try not to be intimidated by everyone around and hope that Shaw requires my signatures: bad diction and extensive mugging.

Michele Lee, Jason Danieley, Farah Alvin — and Shaw

September 30, 2008

Happy fall, everybody! I'm writing this while looking at the beautiful fall flower bouquet that AMFAR sent me after I did last week's benefit with Cheyenne Jackson in Bucks County. I forgot to mention that, in the middle of Cheyenne's show, we did an auction. Cheyenne was too shy to hawk, so I opened up my big trap. We were auctioning off four house seats to
Xanadu
, plus dinner for four at Sardi's, plus signed posters and CDs. Well, turns out, it was supposed to be one package, but I was a moron and thought they were all separate! I auctioned off the four tickets for $2,000, then the dinner for $1,000, the signed stuff for $500 and then four more tickets were offered and we got another $2,000! Turns out my idiocy paid off.

Monday, I spent all afternoon at The Players Club rehearsing for my New York debut with a British accent. David Staller, who runs Project Shaw, cast me as Theodotus, the King's tutor, in
Caesar and Cleopatra
. Project Shaw's goal is to present a reading of every single play that George Bernard Shaw ever wrote and, while I'd much prefer Project Lloyd Webber, I was still very honored to be asked to be a part of it.
And
the show was sold out! If I'd have known that George Bernard Shaw was such a draw, I would have booked him at my one of my
Chatterbox
es. I don't know how David does it, but the cast was star-studded and
amazing
. Daphne Rubin-Vega was a brava as Cleopatra's arrogant maid with the impossible to say name: Ftatateeta. And Daniel Reichard from
Jersey Boys
was hilarious as the dapper Venetian rug salesman. Then there was the great Brian Murray playing Caesar, and young Broadway star Madeleine Martin as Cleopatra. Madeleine is 15 (!) and plays the girl in
August: Osage County
. She was really quirky and funny as Cleopatra and totally nice offstage. I got a photo of the group warm-up right before the show. Daphne made everybody hold hands and throw their arms up while saying "P’shaw." It made no sense but we loved it!

Tuesday night, I saw
Equus
. During the whole show, I was obsessing about what would happen if I had been cast as one of the horses because they all wear skin tight shirts tucked into their pants. How could I keep my stomach sucked in for two acts? Can a horse wear a mumu? As soon as I walked in and saw the rows of seats on the stage, I glared and said something to James about everybody jumping on the "
Spring Awakening
sitting on stage" bandwagon. I then shook my head and muttered "how unoriginal." That night I spoke with sister Nancy on the phone, and she remembered that she saw
Equus
in the '70s while wearing a corduroy jacket and denim skirt. She said that she was lucky because she got to sit in one of the seats onstage. That's right. They had the onstage seating 30 years ago. Shockingly, I judged something without knowing all the information, something I never do. And by "never" I mean "every hour on the hour."

Wednesday, I did another Sirius
Live on Broadway
interview at the Times Square Information Center. This time it was with two of the stars of
Spring Awakening
. But first, I had a special appearance by Jason Danieley, who has a new CD called
Jason Danieley and The Frontier Heroes
. The CD is basically him recreating what he did as a child, AKA his whole family would sit around, grab an instrument and sing. Conversely,
my
whole family would sit around, grab a resentment and fight. All right, that last comment was more for comedy's sake. Actually, we also did a lot of music-making. Some of it was great (driving in the car singing Pete Seeger and The Weavers) and some of it was a terrible, terrible mistake (the duet version of "What I Did For Love" my sister and I performed at my Bar Mitzvah reception).

After we chatted, Jason sang a beautiful song from the album and made way for Emma Hunton, who plays Ilse in
Spring Awakening
, and Gerard Canonico, who plays Moritz. They were both in
Les Miz
(she was Young Cosette on tour, and he was Gavroche on Broadway). I asked him about doing Gavroche's death in Act Two, and he said that once as he got shot, a woman in the audience called out, "No! Not the boy!" Emma said that after she did
Les Miz
, she auditioned for a local show singing "On My Own." After she sang, the casting person said she sounded like Britney Spears (lip-synchy?) and that if Emma kept using that pop sound, she'd never get anywhere in the business. And by "never get anywhere in the business," she must have meant "go straight to Broadway in a show that uses a pop sound."