Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 2 (8 page)

My new favorite person is Jenna Russell, who is starring as Dot/Marie in
Sunday in the Park With George
. I interviewed her at the
Chatterbox
and she is so much fun! First of all, if you don't know, she's British. She did her first big London show when she was still a teenager and it had music by ABBA but with different lyrics. Instead of "Fernando," she sang "Back Home Now." Suffice it to say, it did not have the success of
Mamma Mia!
However, she said that because of that show, Tim Rice and Benny and Bjorn (from ABBA) decided to write
Chess
, so something good came from it. For the opening, everybody got champagne from the ABBA men, but because she was 16, she instead got an autographed album. She said there are pictures of her holding the album (
Arrival
) and glaring because she was infuriated she wasn't allowed to get drunk, but now she's so happy to have an autographed record! Also, in that show she got to work with West End theatre legend Elaine Paige. Jenna was young and didn't quite have all of her social graces. On the first day, she trotted up to Elaine and said with a big smile, "You know, I really like you." She then kept going. "I mean, everyone told me that you were a (C word), but I don't think you are!" Wow. Instead of getting her fired, Elaine told her why people were annoyed with her. Elaine started out as a chorus girl, and then she got to originate the role of Evita. When she was still in the chorus, she'd go out after the show and hang out ‘til all hours, but after she got the vocally demanding role of Evita, she had to curtail all social activity. People thought she was being a snob by not going out partying when, in actuality, she was just trying to preserve her voice so she could belt "A New Argentina" and not have her next gig be replacing Lauren Bacall in
Woman of the Year
.
Listen to "Hurry Back" on the APPLAUSE album. Lauren hits a low A!

Jenna also did
Les Misérables
as one of the ensemble women, and then spent 13 weeks understudying Eponine. I asked her if she ever went on, and she said only once… which is 100 percent more times than I ever went on for Brooks Ashmanskas in
The Ritz
. She left the show, three years passed, and she suddenly got a call from the
Les Miz
people.

"Hey, Jenna. What are you doing tonight?"


"Um… going out to dinner."


"Oh, good. Because we
might
need you to go on for Eponine." 


"Why!?!?!"


"You see, the girl playing Eponine is out, and her understudy has an abscess, and her second cover isn't prepared. Do you mind calling in at six to see if we'll need you?"

Well, Jenna had met the understudy and knew that she was the type who'd go on, abscess or not… Jenna said "sure" and called in at six, just because she promised. Turns out, she had to go on! She had only gone on once for the role… three years before… but she remembered it! She said the guy playing Marius had a great sense of humor, and when she sang her final verse of "A Little Fall of Rain" and died in his arms, she heard him say, "Take this b**** away from me, she bores me." So British!

Later on, she wound up playing Fantine. Now, a lot of you may not know this, but after Fantine dies in Act One, she then appears as a boy on the barricade in Act Two. Jenna told the people running the show that she was bored sitting backstage for so long, so they added her to the Paris scene at the end of Act One. I asked if any of the following Fantines were mad about that, and she said no but… at one point, she was talking about her dressing room being so big, and some of the ensemble women asked if she minded sharing it. She said she'd love to. And now when she meets women playing Fantine they glare and say, "Thanks for the dressing roommates."

Jenna was starring as Sarah Brown in the West End production of
Guys and Dolls
when she heard that
Sunday in the Park With George
was playing at The Chocolate Factory (which is like a small Off-Broadway house). She told Jane Krakowski (who was playing Adelaide) that they better get their a**es over there, and they went to the following Sunday matinee. They loved it. Then, the show was about to transfer to the West End, the woman playing Dot got pregnant. I asked Jenna if she hid her supply of the pill and she denied it. Not very convincingly, I might add. Regardless, Jenna was suddenly up for the role of Dot and listened to the CD in her car on the way to the audition. She said that every time she tried to sing along, she started crying because the words are so moving. I guess her puffy eyes didn't affect her audition, because she got the gig and then found out it was going to go to Broadway. But not for another year! So she took the whole year off. Delicious! I know how that feels. I've taken the last five months off from doing a Broadway show — although, not on purpose. So I don't really know how that feels. But I do need a job.

When Tony time came, she woke up early to watch the announcements, but right before they came on, Todd Haimes (who runs The Roundabout) called and congratulated her because the nominations were put online early. Unfortunately, by the time she finished gabbing with him, she missed hearing her name announced. She's not expecting to wi
n
Patti LuPone did
!
, but she's happy her show was extended. At first, it was going to close at Tony time, so she said it would have been, "Close the show, don't win any Tonys and fly home." Depressing. But now she gets to do the show til the end of June!

Sunday night, I went to Feinstein's on the East Side and saw Emily Skinner perform. She was
amazing
. First of all, she can sing anything. High soprano, belt, blues, riff (meaning many notes sung fast, not the role "Riff," although she could sing that, too). I have to also say she is absolutely one of the best actresses I've ever seen. She is so connected and real with each song. Also, her patter was so interesting… and so was the audience's. At one point she said, "I love my boyfriend, but he's not a big fan of musical theatre," and the man in front of me said, "Mine is."

I first met Emily through my friend Jack Plotnick, who went to Carnegie Mellon with her, and he told me that she's the most talented person he knows, and when I started coaching her, I soon realized why he said that! She is way too young now, but I cannot wait for the next
Gypsy
revival with her as Mama Rose. She would tear it up!

OK, everybody. I have to get ready because I'm playing an Alzheimer's benefit tonight with Jonathan Groff, and he's about to come over. Hmm... is it possible to lose 20 pounds and 15 years
and
convince my boyfriend to have an open relationship in the next ten minutes? We shall see!

Aziza, Breaker, Russell and Strouse

June 9, 2008

One week ago tonight was the premiere of the reality show
Legally Blonde the Musical
:
The Search for Elle Woods
.
Or, as internet message boards probably refer to it, according to the new, annoying trend: LBTMTSFEW. Please stop making up show-title codes that are more complicated
and
annoying than Sudoku.

There was a little premiere party thrown for the producer, Amanda Brown Lipitz, at the W Hotel. It was great to see Amanda finally get to see her show on TV. Yes, reality shows are headaches, but I still say brava to Amanda for bringing Broadway to MTV. And unlike other musical theatre reality shows (here and in Britain), the contestants don't spend each week singing pop songs. You'll only see the Elle candidates auditioning with material from the show — plus, of course, a healthy smattering of the requisite reality-show backstage bitchery. It's hilarious how the editors take something that's not a big deal (this week one of the girls says "too many cooks in the kitchen") and make it scandalous by putting in a close-up of someone looking mildly shocked and then adding the sound of timpani. Something bland becomes an immediate nail-biter.

During the premiere, within ten minutes of the show being on, my cell phone started ringing. It was Jen Cody. I picked up. "Oh My God. I have to watch every week now. I have so much material." I guess she meant material to bust me on... and I say brava! Bring it! As a matter of fact, I did a whole deconstruction on the first episode, ending with the mortifying close up of me talking to the girls while I was standing in a pageant girl bevel
.
You can watch them all on SethTV.com.

On Wednesday, I went to a matinee with my mom. I informed her that it was the same theatre where she first took me to see
Hair
when I was a toddler. I pointed out the seats I remembered sitting in (house left) and felt so moved being in the same theatre where I saw my first show. My mom was mind-boggled that I remembered so much, but I reminded her that I've always had a flawless memory… especially for something that meant so much to me. It wasn't until around five minutes later that I realized we were sitting in the Belasco, and
Hair
played at the Biltmore. I decided to not tell my mother who was sitting with a wistful smile, tinged with yesteryear. Anyhoo, the thing I loved the most about
Passing Strange
is that my mother loved it. She's 76! Brava on reaching across the generations. As I was leaving the theatre, I heard the tail end of a conversation between the woman in back of me and her friend:

"I loved what the guy on stage said."


"Which one?"

"The black one."


(Knowingly) "O-o-o-o-oh."

Huh? All the guys in the show are black. At this point, I still can't figure out which woman is the bigger idiot.

On Thursday, I interviewed two of the
Passing Strange
stars, who I thought were fantastic: de'Adre Aziza and Daniel Breaker. Just for symmetry, he told me to call him de'Aniel Breaker
.
Later on she did WOMEN ON THE VERGE and he played the donkey in SHREK
.
They are both super nice, talented and funny. De'Adre told me that after college, she was working as an intern at The Public and wanted to start auditioning for shows there, but they said she couldn't do both, so she quit.
Years later
, they finally called her in for the reading of
Passing Strange
. She told me that it was her first reading, first workshop, first out-of-town show and first Broadway show! And, I added, her first Tony nomination! Brava! They were so cute talking about their Tony nominations. Daniel said his parents didn't really know when the Tony nominations happened, so it was a lot of phone calls for days before, "Hey, it's us. Were you nominated?" Then the night before the nominations, he couldn't get to sleep 'til 5 AM… and then woke up at 7! Because the Tony nominations were released online first, he read it there… but thought it was a mistake. I thought that was very sweet. De'Adre took her son to school around 7:30 and was too tired to stay up. She got up at 11 and read on
Playbill.com
that the show got a ton of nominations. She didn't think of herself, though. Then she saw her name and, à la Daniel, kept thinking it was a mistake. She finally called her mother who broke down crying on the phone while at work. Unfortunately, her mom is a teacher, so her students were probably a little traumatized seeing their teacher sobbing on the phone… but that's what school psychiatrists are for.

Friday night, James and I saw
Sunday in the Park With George
or as cockney Dot pronounces it,
Soonday in the Park With George
. I am so obsessed with Jenna Russell. She has so many great comic moments, but they totally seem in the moment and not pre-planned. And it was so great to see my old
Ritz
friend David Turner in the role of the German servant and my buddy Anne L. Nathan as the Nurse. They still got it! Backstage, I asked Jenna to regale me and James with another
Les Miz
story, and she said that in London, the Eponine dressing room had a window that was on the exact same level as the top of a double-decker bus. Jenna said that the girl playing Eponine would put on her end-of-show death makeup early and have nothing to do. So, she'd stand at the window with her death mask on and, when a bus would go by, she'd stare blank-faced, hold out her index finger and slowly do the "come with me" motion. Can you imagine how terrifying it was to be on a fun sightseeing tour and suddenly see a specter beckoning you to the netherworld? Wearing a head mic?

This week on Sirius radio I interviewed Broadway composer Charles Strouse. As he described his childhood, I kept piping up and saying it was exactly like mine, but upon further reflection, realized they were polar opposites. He's from the cool Upper West Side, I'm from a town on Long Island I couldn't wait to get the hell out of. As a child, he went to PS 87 with Mike Nichols (although they didn't know each other… but ironically, Mike wound up being the big producer of
Annie
years later). I went to Hewlett High School with a theatre teacher who banned me from doing plays my senior year and said to my face that I'd never make it in theatre. Charles graduated high school early and went to the Eastman School of Music when he was just 15. I also graduated early, but only by one year (not impressive), and yes, I also went to a prestigious music conservatory (Oberlin) but while he was spending his time composing serious music (à la Hindemith, Bartok), I was having unrequited crushes and failing my music history midterm. Hence, his many Tony Awards, and hence my many nights watching the Tonys from home.