Forbidden Broadway: Behind the Mylar Curtain (132 page)

RED RIDING HOOD

SWEENEYTODD

BERNADETTE

[All start asking him to write a show for them, their
voices overlapping and rising. ]

SONDHEIM

Order!

ALL

SONDHEIM

Broadway. A blank stage or season. My favorite. So
many possibilities!

[Fadeout. The End. ]

"Ta-Ta"

FULL COMPANY

I was lucky enough to appear in Forbidden Broadway twice in my career: at the very
beginning, when I'd only had my Equity card for a few months, and again years later
after I'd had a few successes. (I won't say at the end of my career ...)

In 1986, I was the definition of a struggling actor. I went to auditions during the day
and drove a carriage in Central Park at night to pay the bills. My agent called one day
with an audition for FB, and they sent over the George Hearn parody "I Ham What I
Ham" for me to learn. I thought I was far too young for the show, which I had never
seen, and I didn't think I was particularly funny. Luckily, Gerard is funny enough for
all of us, and I was just so damned committed to the audition that he took pity on me
and hired me.

I became a member of the fifth-anniversary cast, 1986-87, with Barbara Walsh,
Craig Wells, and Roxie Lucas. At the piano was Mark Mitchell, or sometimes Phil
Fortenberry. I was green as the
day is long, but over the passing months, my awesome castmates taught me a lot about
funny.

Ron Bohmer and friends.

I was shocked at how little
money we made, but I soon
learned that there are many
forms of coin in showbiz. Aside
from the sheer joy of doing this
hysterical show each night, the
big coin here was that everybody
in the industry came to see us.
Casting directors, producers,
you name it. The big deal that year was the arrival of Les Miz on Broadway. The entire creative staff of that show was
in love with FB and came repeatedly: Trevor Nunn, John Caird, the works. We all ended
up with auditions for Les Miz, a job I did not get (then).

My favorite brush with greatness was having Sondheim in the audience while I
performed the role of, well, Sondheim. Sunday in the Park with George was running-I
saw it from standing room at least twelve times-so Barbara Walsh and I came on as
George and Dot and sang "Sondheim Tonight!" At the end, I would take off my painter's
smock and remove my Seurat beard to reveal another beard-and I was Sondheim.
Then I would sing "Send in the Crowds," the great man's lament that his shows played
to half houses even though they were loved by the critics. He was delighted. What a
thrill!

I got to rejoin the show years later for Forbidden Broadway: SVU, and I'm most
grateful to Gerard for writing a Robert Goulet number especially for me. I pestered
him incessantly about it after Goulet joined the cast of La Cage aux Folles, and when
we moved the show from the Fairbanks on 42nd Street to our new home on 47th,
we added Goulet. I'll never do anything onstage more satisfying than walk on with a
mustache and slicked hair, martini and cigarette in hand, and belt out, "TRRRYYYTO
REE-MEM-BER ... uuhh..."

By the summer of 1989, Forbidden Broadway had been running in New York for seven
years. Other productions had been limited to a few large cities with sophisticated
theatre audiences: Philadelphia, Chicago, D.C., L.A., and Boston. The general perception was that the show wouldn't work elsewhere, because who would get all the
inside jokes? Such was the (supposed) curse of Forbidden Broadway.