Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 1 (39 page)

Gavin said that one of his favorite composers was Sondheim and he proceeded to sing "What Can You Lose," which is the song from
Dick Tracy
that Madonna sang. It was very interesting to actually hear it sung with vibrato. (Madonna made the bold choice of singing it straight tone and just slightly under pitch… brava, trailblazer!) Gavin also sang Jimmy's big Act One song from
Thoroughly Modern Millie
and I mentioned to everyone that he was nominated for a Tony for Best Actor in a Musical (at 26!). What a coup!

He said that Sutton performed "Forget About the Boy" on the Tonys, but he made a delicious $2,000 for singing the end of the title song and lifting each arm once. It worked like this: (Run onstage) "Beat the drums 'cause here comes Thoroughly Mo-dern Mil-lie (one arm lifts = $1,000) No-o-o-o-ow! (Second arm lifts at button of song = another $1,000)."

The next day, I did a
Chatterbox
interview with Shoshana Bean and Julia Murney, or as I called it, "Dueling Elphabas." Julia said that she first met
Wild Party
composer Andrew Lippa when she was auditioning for the Stephen Schwartz revue called
Snapshots.
The director asked her if she could sing "Meadowlark" and she said that she could but didn't have the music. Even though Andrew was the music director and not the audition pianist, he got up and played it for her. He had just started writing
Wild Party
and put a note down about her on his audition sheet that said, "Queenie?" She got to do all the initial readings of
Wild Party
as Queenie, but then right before the big workshop of the show, they made her try out for the role. She said she walked in with a huge chip on her shoulder because she was annoyed she had to try out for a role that was pretty much written for her, and — cut to — she didn't get the gig, Marin Mazzie did. Before it came to Off-Broadway they asked Julia to try out again and she said, because the worst had already happened, she didn't have the chip anymore, and she got the gig! I then, of course, ran to the piano and made her belt all of "Raise the Roof." She's still got it!

I asked Shoshana and Julia how hard it was going to a theatre conservatory (Shoshana went to CCM and Julia to Syracuse), and they said that all the girls were made to feel neurotic about their weight. At Shoshana's first evaluation they asked her how much weight she felt she needed to lose (!), and Julia said her school would post a "weight list"… which would have the names of students who needed to lose weight. That's great for the self-esteem of any 18-year-old. We talked about Sho having to go on for Idina Menzel on her final weekend because Idina got injured. She said she went on for the last five minutes of the show, but refused to think she'd be going on for Idina's last show. She didn't want to think that was possible. But it happened. People had flown in from
around the world
to see Idina do it one final time, and instead they got the dreaded "At this performance, the role of Elphaba..." But I'm sure once they heard one of Shoshana’s signature high notes/crazy flexible riffs they were like, "Bring on the Bean!"

The final night of the cruise I hosted an all-'70s show. I started with Jimmy Smagula (from
Phantom
) who sang "Love Will Keep Us Together" and sounded great… in the original Toni Tennille key! I even put that weird back-up part in at the end… remember? "Bah… bah, dah, dah, dah… Sedaka is back…" Neil Sedaka told me that by the end of the '60s, he didn't have any hit songs. Suddenly, the Captain and Tennille did "Love Will Keep Us Together," and his income went from something like $50,000 to $1,000,000! Sedaka
was
back… and rich! Then, my friend Traci Lyn Thomas, who was in the Vegas
Mamma Mia!
sang "The Winner Takes it All," and I told the audience that I was annoyed she had moved to Colorado, and after she sang, I wanted them to tell her whether they felt she should stay or come back to Broadway. After she belted that last amazing C, they were all shouting for her to "come back to Broadway." She later informed me of the irony in their shouts since she had never actually been on Broadway. Details, details. Shoshana Bean came out and sang "I Will Survive" which she should have re-titled "I Will Survive (And Interpolate Sassy High Notes in the Process)." Then, I introduced James and said that we started dating late in life, and I'm always jealous when he talks about his other boyfriends. I said that tonight I would allow him to talk about his first relationship and we'd see how jealous I get from the piano. He started singing. "Oh, What a Night… late December 1963…" when he got to the part about "Oh, I… got a funny feeling when he walked in the room..." Gavin came out in short shorts, high white gym socks and an afro. He was dancing all around James and working it, and finally near the end of the song, I got up from the piano, ripped off Gavin's wig as he scurried offstage… and James and I ended the song in a kiss. Awwww, cute!!

It wound up being the Gavin show when he came back out and sang the H-E-double hockey sticks out of "Enough is Enough" with the multi-talented Matt Zarley. Matt and I realized that we've known each other for 20 years! I met him when he was first doing
Chorus Line
on Broadway, and I was trying to sub on the piano. Then, we went on the
Chorus Line
tour of Germany, or as my mother still calls it, Nazi Germany. Matt and Gavin both sounded so great together and added a full layout to the middle of the song that had Gavin asking me for an aspirin the next day on the plane home. Seriously. Kevin Chamberlin then came onstage and sang the Barry Manilow classic (that I also sang in ninth-grade chorus) "Daybreak." In the middle of the song, all these kids filed onstage. They had been working on the song all week as part of the cruise's version of "Rosie's Broadway Kids," and they sang along with adorable choreography (no layouts.). Kevin sounded great despite the fact that he was hit with a 15-foot wave while body surfing in Puerto Vallarta. Ouch
.
He had to miss the Playbill cruise I offered him years later because he was getting surgery on his shoulder because of that effing wave
!
Finally, Marya Grandy got up and sang "Last Dance" and sounded phenomenal on the signature Donna Summer high F. Matt Zarley and Frankie Grande (who was voted Mr. Broadway last year) did a dance break in the middle of the song that had the moves of
Solid Gold
, the tackiness level of
The Shields and Yarnell Show
and the hotness of an old '70s Colt video
.
That’s the same Frankie Grande who was on BIG BROTHER and is brother to Ariana Grande
!
It's so nice that so many non-gays come on the cruise… and so many non-parents! And the cruise inspires everyone. As a matter of fact, James ran into two couples who came on the last cruise just for fun, and were so inspired, they've now become parents! Brava, R Family Vacations!

Daphne and Priscilla

March 31, 2008

This week I interviewed Daphne Rubin-Vega for my Sirius radio show. I thought it was very cool that she was born in Panama and then moved to New York. That's probably the same way people feel when I tell them that I was born in Jamaica and then moved to Long Island. At first they think I'm an exotic island specimen ‘til I clarify and tell them Jamaica, Queens. Anyhoo, the first Broadway show that changed her life was
The Me Nobody Knows
, which was the early-‘70s
Spring Awakening
… as opposed to the
late
‘70s
Spring Awakening
, which was
Runaways
. My sister Nancy did
The Me Nobody Knows
in high school, and there's nothing like seeing a group of 1970s Jewish Long Islanders put away their Frye boots long enough to sing about how hard it is growing up in a slum. I think Nancy wore overalls to look "poor" and left one strap hanging off her left shoulder for street cred. Daphne went to the High School of Performing Arts and majored in art. P.S. Irene Cara made the High School of Performing Arts famous and was in
The Me Nobody Knows
. Daphne, with her Latin looks, said that Irene Cara was the only role model she had because Irene was a "citizen of the world." She was one of my role models, too, but mainly because she danced on a car, which I thought was super cool. Even though Daphne was an artist, she always wanted to perform, and when she was nine years old, she bought a
Backstage
(the newspaper that lists auditions) and saw there was an audition coming up for a children's theatre. She showed up ready to book it and was devastated that children's theatre means that it's
for
children, not that it has children in it!

Daphne went to NYU's film school and wound up being six credits shy of graduating... but ended up in a girl group called "Pajama Party." Her look included braces, a nose ring and pink hair. Why didn't it catch on? Anybody? Nobody. Pajama Party opened for Menudo and Milli Vanilli… all the big "M" groups of the ‘80s. (AKA two.)

Speaking of the letter M, Daphne told me about getting Mimi in the workshop of
Rent
and told us what it was like right after Jonathan Larson died. They did the final dress rehearsal and he died that night. The next day was supposed to be their first public performance, and they didn't want to cancel the show, so they decided to just do a table reading. Well, Daphne said that it became really hard to do it that way. She asked me, "How do you do 'Out Tonight' sitting down?" My question is: "How do you do it standing up?" At least sitting down you can keep the top button of those signature pants mercifully open. Daphne said she got up on the table during the song (tip o' the hat to Irene Cara on the car), and by the end of Act One, the whole cast was on its feet. During intermission, director Michael Greif ran backstage and said, "Let's do the second act for real!" Everyone got into their costumes and make-up, and Daphne said it was the best way to exorcise the grief and show their love for Jonathan.

She said the hardest thing about that whole period of
Rent
was losing her anonymity, being watched when she wasn't onstage. As I get older, I also find that I've been losing my anonymity… and by "anonymity," I mean "high notes" and "hair."

I interviewed another Latina actress this week,
In the Heights
's Priscilla Lopez. What a career! Her first audition was at the Broadway Theatre for the role of Baby Louise in the original production of
Gypsy
. She saw the girls ahead get in a line and she watched as the casting person told a few to stay. There was one girl who got typed out and started crying immediately. Priscilla vowed that she would not cry. She lined up with her group of girls… and was typed out. She remembered her vow and didn't cry… in the theatre. She was able to hold it in while exiting, but as soon as she stepped outside, she started crying like the "Leave Britney Alone" guy
.
That was a very current reference when I originally wrote this.

She then started taking dance classes because a guy from an amateur TV show came to her apartment, touched her foot to the back of her head and said "this little girl could be a star," which is a line in
A Chorus Line
… but it's not Morales who says it... it's Kristine. Priscilla also said
she's
the one who said she walked around as a kid saying "I'm gonna be a movie star," which is Bobby's line in "Hello Twelve." The script mixed and matched many lines and stories. As a matter of fact, Donna McKechnie told me that Maggie's story in "At the Ballet" is really hers. As a child, Donna would "dance around the living room" with her arms up in the air, pretending she was dancing with her father. Coincidentally, as a child, I would dance around
my
living room... pretending to be in
A Chorus Line
.

Every time I ask Priscilla about something in
A Chorus Line
, she always says, "It's all true!" The weirdest thing for her was the fact that so much of Morales was based on her, but Morales wasn’t her. There's a section where Morales doesn't want to talk about herself to Zack, and he says, "Don't you want the job?" And she says, with much need, "Sure, I want the job!" One night, she didn't feel that needy and said it with a little more maturity and confidence, and Michael Bennett came backstage and told her that she was no longer playing herself. He said, "Even though you are growing as a person, Morales isn't. You have to freeze her in this moment."

Back to her childhood, she did indeed go to the High School of Performing Arts and, devil's advocate-style, I asked her why she couldn't just improv with the rest of the class! She said she remembers being on "that bobsled," and she felt the rest of the class was faking it, pretending to feel the snow and the cold. She really didn't feel anything and thought that either she could lie… or she could tell the teacher she wasn't feeling it. She hoped that by telling the truth, he would teach her how. But, alas, she became the class pariah when she admitted she felt "nothing."

As soon as she graduated, she got her first Broadway show:
Breakfast at Tiffany
's with Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain. It was not the
Spring Awakening
of the late ‘60s — more like the
In My Life
. She remembered one review that said, "Even Dr. Kildare can't save this show." Ouch! Then she did
Her First Roman
(more on that later) and
Henry, Sweet Henry
. That was her first Michael Bennett show, and she "fell in love" with him at the audition. She still doesn't know why. She admits that he was short, and he had moles all over his face, but she was mesmerized. She said that he'd put his arm around you and talk to you like it was the most important and private conversation of your life. He asked her to be the swing, and she said yes. She literally thought it meant sitting and swaying glamorously on a swing onstage. She didn't know it meant understudying all the girls in the ensemble… including future
Chorus Line
cast member Baayork Lee and Pia Zadora! Priscilla heard that Pia's last name was fake, and had based it on her mom always saying, "Look! Pia's adorable!" Say it out loud. It sounds like Pia Zadora!

Priscilla heard about a new show coming to Broadway called
Hair
and traipsed down to the Public to try out for it. She walked in and saw the whole creative staff behind the table, apparently stoned. She didn't know what the show was about, so she decided to sing her signature audition song. She nodded at the pianist… and… "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…" She did not get it.

Priscilla then did the national tour of
The Boyfriend
and inherited Sandy Duncan's costumes. Inside one of the hats someone had written, "Sandy Duncan, the Texan Grasshopper." Priscilla crossed that out and wrote "Priscilla Lopez… the Puerto Rican cockroach." When Priscilla got back to NY, she heard that they were having auditions for
Follies
, and now that she had played various leads, she wanted to show Michael Bennett that she wasn't just a chorus girl. She auditioned for
Follies
with… a song from
The Me Nobody Knows
! Shout out to Daphne Rubin-Vega! Michael wound up offering her a part in
Company
… she was the standby for Donna McKechnie and then took over the role. Priscilla got to dance that crazy ‘70s "Tick Tock" solo in Act Two and thinks it’s the best dance Michael Bennett ever did.

While she was backstage, she saw a C-U-T-E guy. She found out he was a sub trombonist and realized she had to work fast! There was a Coke machine right outside the pit, and she kept going over to it and bending down in front of him to make her selection. One thing led to another… and 36 years later, they're still married!

After
Company
, she heard they were looking for a new Fastrada for
Pippin
. She thought she could do the part, but knew that Fosse would have a hard time believing her as John Rubinstein's mother… especially because she and John went to high school together. She didn't want to leave it to Fosse's imagination, so she had a friend who worked at NBC do some old age make-up on her, and she had another friend who worked at
Pippin
steal Leland Palmer's Fastrada wig! She literally walked into the audition in full costume, hair and make-up. She felt like an idiot standing around all of her peers and thought, "I'm either going to be the laughing stock of Broadway… or I'm going to get this gig!" She came onstage in her crazy get up, did the number, which she had choreographed in front of her mirror at home, and when she finished, Bob Fosse ran up to the front of the house, slapped his hand on the stage and said, "Now that's what I call a well-prepared audition!" She got the gig, but soon had to deal with what she called the "Nazi Dance Captain." Every time Priscilla was onstage, the dance captain would be in the wings, taking notes. Every finger move, every eye direction, every aspect of her performance was scrutinized. Priscilla used to pray for Fosse to come and free her. Finally, Fosse watched the show, and Priscilla realized why the dance captain was such a specificity ogre… because Fosse was a bigger one!

Right after that began the infamous tape sessions with Michael Bennett that eventually led to
A Chorus Line
. She was nominated as Best Featured Actress for Morales and it was a difficult time for her because she
really
wanted to win. When Kelly Bishop's (Sheila) name was called, Priscilla said it felt like a truck hit her in the stomach.
But
she was also thrilled because Kelly is her best friend. As a matter of fact, they had side-by-side dressing rooms at the Shubert Theater, and they had the wall knocked down so they could be in the same one! The good news is Priscilla won a Tony for the fantastic show (I saw it twice)
A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine
. In Act One, she played an usherette at Grauman's Chinese Theater (listen to the fantastic Jerry Herman song "The Best in the World"… I'm obsessed!) and in Act Two, which is essentially a live Marx Brothers movie, she played Harpo Marx. Unfortunately, to this day, she's still devastated that she was so frazzled when she won the Tony, she forgot to thank Harpo Marx. She actually got hate mail about it! (Sending hate mail is what people had to do before they could just post on a theatre chat board under the name "Priscilla'sUngrateful432.")

Now it's time to get back to
Her First Roman
. It featured one of my favorite onstage mishaps and I made Priscilla save it for the end of the
Chatterbox
. In order to wear a wig, the chorus girls had to pin wig caps to their hair, and because Priscilla's hair was short, it was hard to attach the caps. She found out if she stuffed some clothes underneath the wig cap, it would give something for the cap to be attached to. She'd stuff anything she could find: underclothes, socks, whatever… it all worked. One day, she taught this trick to the other chorus girls as they were applying the leg paint to themselves that made them all look Egyptian. Well, in Act Two there was a funeral procession where all the ladies walked in a solemn line around a coffin. Priscilla happened to look up at the dancer in front of her during the procession, and saw that she had taken her advice. Unfortunately, as Priscilla marched in the solemn funeral, she saw that the dancer didn't tuck all the clothes in, and swinging freely from underneath her wig was a large white bra. Priscilla wanted to laugh, but of course, couldn't, because it was supposed to be a sad scene. She tried to suppress it, but all that did was cause incredible pressure… which resulted in her peeing onstage! She couldn't stop and was mortified that it was also causing her leg makeup to run in rivulets to the stage. Soon she was even more horrified, because the stage was raked. A raked stage means that the back is tilted up and it lays in a diagonal towards the audience. Well, what comes down must go further down, apparently, because soon the pee was running downhill and overflowing from the front of the stage to the pit! I'm obsessed thinking about those poor musicians sitting in the pit wondering what was dripping on them. Hopefully, they felt some comfort in knowing it was from a future Tony Award-winner!