Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 1 (9 page)

The
Xanadu
cast is so talented, it's mind-boggling. Comedy stars Jackie Hoffman and Mary Testa have tons of great line readings and their version of "funking out" on "Evil Woman" is a big, fat brava. All the backup muses sing up a storm, and the two leads are brilliant. Kerry Butler is so funny and sounds phenomenal. It takes so much skill to be comically imitating someone (Olivia Newton-John) while still giving full-out high soprano yet belting up a storm. I can't believe she sings eight shows a week, yet after the show she told me, "actually, this show is really vocally easy for me." Huh? It's every part of the female range!! So, what would be difficult for her to sing? Coalhouse Walker? And Cheyenne Jackson is perfect as Sonny. As usual, gorgeous and hilarious. And, like Kerry, vocally brilliant. After the show, I complimented his incredible flexible riffs, and he said he added an extra one for me because he knew I was in the audience! Can that be considered a form of flirting? Let's just say yes.

OK, now it's Monday morning on the cruise, and I have to run to the breakfast buffet. My mother just called me in a panic and said it closes in a half-hour! Out of my way at the Waffle Bar!

The Rosie Cruise, Part I

July 17, 2007

I'm back from the Rosie cruise, and I'm too scared to weigh myself.
My friend Tim said that we were doing Body for Life-style dieting on the cruise (six small meals a day), but changing the modifier from "small" to "mammoth." There was one dinner where I fully acted out during dessert and had two Tiramisus and some chocolate cake. Of course, after 11, I went to the late night buffet just to meet my friends, thinking there was no way I would eat, but there was a crepe bar. I'm talking fresh-off-the-grill crepes. Of course, I had to have one… but then I noticed the "make your own sundae" bar. Ever since I saw a commercial for "Zips" when I was a kid (anybody remember?), I've been obsessed with making my own sundae. Suffice it to say, I made my own sundae as well as confirming my future outfits would include drawstring pants. But enough about my eating disorder, bring on the cruise details.

Saturday: Got onto the ship early (you're not supposed to call it a boat… it's like calling an "Original Cast Recording" a "Soundtrack") and started rehearsal for that night's show, "Rosie's Broadway Belters." The opening number had great lyrics by Michael Lee Scott sung to "Magic to Do": "We've got cruisin' to do… just for you/We've got tons of events each day/ Where the seas are serene." Rosie: "And no split screen!" That was a sassy reference by Michael Lee to Rosie's last day on "The View" where she and Elisabeth Hasselbeck duked it out. When Rosie sang that line, the ensemble held up a pic of Elisabeth. I guess it was immature on my part, but I suggested we add a mustache to the photo. Of course, someone in the audience took a photo and it wound up in US Magazine. Where's my commission?

Since a lot of couples get married on the boat, I thought it would be fun to do a marriage song with a twist. Hence, Jimmy Smagula and my boyfriend, James, sang "Old Fashioned Wedding." It sounds great with two guys, and I changed the key so both James and Jimmy had to belt B flats! When Rosie introduced the number, she talked about Jimmy being in the audience of her TV show years ago, saying he wanted to be on Broadway, and since then he's been in three! Or, as Rosie said, nine. Oy! She exaggerates more than my Mom!

The show closed with three singers doing an audience sing-along of "You Light Up My Life." After a few measures, Capathia Jenkins stormed onstage and said we couldn't end the show that way. She launched into the brassy "(Let a Big Black Lady) Stop the Show" from Martin Short's
Fame Becomes Me
. I'm obsessed with the lyric "Now if Julie Andrews had a black maid in that play, well then
My Fair Lady
would still be running today." Hilarious! The brilliant team of Marc Shaiman/Scott Whitman wrote it, and, P.S., I just hung up the phone with Marc, who told me that the workshop for their new musical,
Catch Me If You Can
, begins rehearsals this week starring Nathan Lane, Christian Borle and Tom Wopat
.
Only one stayed with the show
!
He managed to give me the information while also berating me for being so out of the loop. Kudos for double tasking.

Sunday: Egg White omelet for breakfast, counteracted by a "side" of oatmeal with a cup of brown sugar. Mmmm. That afternoon I did a
Chatterbox
interview with Andrea McArdle. Amazing. First of all, I hope you know that she wasn't cast as Annie originally. She was Pepper, the tough orphan, and the girl they had as Annie was adorable and sweet. When they started previews at Goodspeed, the creators realized that Annie wasn't adorable and sweet, she was sassy and street smart. Andrea was bumped up to the title role and played it on Broadway and in London where Molly, the youngest orphan, was Catherine Zeta-Jones! And Daddy Warbucks was Michael Douglas! All right, the Daddy Warbucks part was a lie, but not particularly far-fetched.

I demanded that she talk about my favorite TV movie
Rainbow
(the young Judy Garland story), and she said that she had a terrible time filming it. Jackie Cooper directed it and did things like tell her to look at the wall, which she would do. Then he'd say "Okay, we got the shot." She literally has certain close ups where she's supposed to be feeling something deep, and the feeling is actually "hmm… pretty wall."

I asked her about college, and she said that she got into NYU, but got offered
Jerry's Girls
, so she left. She regrets it, but if she hadn't done that tour, we wouldn't have the fabulous recording of her doing "Wherever He Ain't" and "Look What Happened to Mabel." Listen to it when you can. She holds the last "Ma" of "Mabel" straight tone and then adds vibrato. Perfect.

Carol Channing was on that tour and heard Andrea complaining about always having to sing "Tomorrow" or, as Andrea called it, "The T Song." Carol sternly told her that although Leslie Uggams (who was the other lead) is a great singer, she doesn't have a signature song, so Andrea better appreciate how lucky she is that she does. Carol has a point, but I'd be curious to know if she's ever seen Leslie's "rendition" of "June is Bustin' Out All Over" on
YouTube
because she certainly makes it her own.
Go to my website and look up the video I did with Leslie where she explains it all!

Anyhoo, Andrea also said that Carol would get wigs on 14th Street and ask Andrea to cut them for her ("to look like Madonna"), and Carol would love Andrea's shoes and frequently buy the same ones for herself… but in a size 10. Size 10? You know what they say, big feet, big… um, range? And by "range," I mean scanning the entire bass clef. Also, Andrea was always miffed that in every publicity shot, for some reason Carol looked younger than springtime and Andrea looked like ye olde hag. Carol's advice? Always wear something nautical. Looking around the ship's lovely Spinaker lounge, I realized that Andrea's story was informative
and
timely. Wait a minute… didn't Barbra always wear a sailor top in all her photos in the ‘60s? She had the nerve to steal Carol's look
and
film role!

Andrea talked about playing Fantine on Broadway in
Les Miz
and having to come back as a boy on the barricade in Act Two. She said that at one performance, she was eating a giant bag of M&Ms backstage and put them in her pocket before she got on the barricade. Her character got shot, and because she had friends in the audience, she did an incredibly dramatic death that involved flailing her body upside down on the barricade. Of course, clackety clacking out of her pocket came pouring multi-colored M&Ms. The good news for my musician peeps was that because the stage was raked, the orchestra suddenly got a ton of M&Ms raining down on them, which no doubt provided some much-needed carbs to get through the last half hour of the show. That was one of the many times she was written up to Equity. Another time, she found something called "circus" backstage. Was it a perfume? She didn’t know. She put it on the orphans pillows. Turns out, it was amyl nitrate or "poppers. " She put the pep in Pepper that night!

Sunday night, my good friend Jason Little, who won best actor in Minneapolis for playing Hedwig, belted out some songs from
Hedwig
. My favorite part was at the beginning of "Tear Me Down" where Hedwig normally name-drops the city he's in (When I first saw Jason do the show in the Midwest, it was "Don't you know me Twin Cities?"). On the boat, Jason hilariously used the literal nautical location of where we were to start the song. He strutted out and shouted, "Don't you know me Greenwich Mean Time Starboard naut 38?" Amazingly awkward.

After his songs, Jason got a standing O, and we all rushed down to see Sandra Bernhard. I've always been a fan of hers ever since
Without You I'm Nothing
. And I had the privilege of telling her, that morning while waiting to get my signature hot cereal with the abundance of brown sugar, her show was great. She began with "And I Am Telling You" (seriously!) and did a whole riff on Angelina Jolie. My favorite part was when she commented on Angelina constantly carrying her kids everywhere ("Has Maddox
ever
walked on the ground?").

All right, I've been writing forever, and I'm only up to the first full day on the cruise, so I have to continue this tomorrow. I'm off to rehearse for the NYCLU benefit I'm doing tonight at The Skirball Center, and I've got to find something nautical to wear.

The Rosie Cruise, Part II

July 20, 2007

This is part two of my Rosie cruise experience. I'm typing slowly because I'm lacking energy. My body now demands a steady influx of bread/sugar/deep-fried products and it refuses to fully function unless I attend at least one buffet a day.
My boyfriend and I went to Trader Joe's and stocked up on "healthy food" now that we're back on dry land, and I've spent the last few days trying to explain to my stomach that smorgasbords are for special occasions and do not normally occur six times a day. By the way, I got an email from my friend Amy Corn saying, "I read your last column. Did you really eat that much for dessert?" Short answer: "yes"; long answer: "…and it was delicious."

Anyhoo, we're now on (last) Monday, the third day of the cruise. We docked in Cape Canaveral and many people went off to Disneyworld. I made that mistake on the first cruise and opted out this time. It's a long, hot bus ride and then a long, hot day so I opted to relax on the boat, i.e. eat non-stop.

Tuesday, we docked in a Dutch oven, I mean, Key West. With the ozone layer almost gone, a two-block walk gave new meaning to the expression "sun kissed." I could feel my collagen evaporating and deciding ne'er to renew itself.

That night, four of my friends (Richard Roland, Michael Klimzak, Tim Cross and JD Daw) performed a bunch of songs from
Forever Plaid
. That show is literally perfect. The James Raitt harmonies are so beautiful and creative and Stuart Ross wrote such clear-cut characters that make each character distinct within a few lines. And even though we just did a small version of it, everyone kept commenting on how much heart there was in the show. The only problem was that all of us hadn't done it for years. And I mean
years
. So, not only did everyone have to re-learn the harmonies, but the four Plaids who are supposed to be clean-cut young guys cut down in their prime were well into their sixties. I'm exaggerating, but let's just say I'm glad it was a large venue.

Wednesday, we docked on a private Island that the Norwegian Cruise Line owns. James, his friend Cheryl and I went snorkeling, and I was having fun till they both pointed out a barracuda. I didn't know if you're supposed to remain immobile so they'll leave you alone or if you're supposed to get the hell out of the area. I opted for the "get the hell out" route, but I was wearing a mask, a life vest and flippers, so I moved as fast as a glacier. Luckily, the barracuda ignored my attention-getting splashing and I relaxed until James spotted a stingray. That was it for me and I hightailed it to the beach and a virgin Piña Colada.

That evening, Euan Morton did a fabulous concert. He has 1,000 megawatts of stage presence and a glorious voice. I always think he sounds like the male Karen Carpenter. He sang the haunting "Stranger in this World" from
Taboo
and the beautiful "Hallelujah." He also ripped his shirt off at the end of the show, which made it clear to me that he and I were eating in different places on the boat… with different sized portions. Rosie has an organization called Rosie's Broadway Kids that teaches inner city kids musical theatre lessons and Euan offered to sing any kid on the boat to sleep if the parent would make a $50 donation to the charity! How cool was that?

Thursday featured
Sibling Revelry
, which consists of sisters Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway and their sassy music director, Alex Rybeck (who also celebrated his birthday on the ship!). Ann and Liz sound great together and are both so funny. At one point Ann was doing patter but was hilariously upstaged by Liz walking up and down the aisle hawking her CDs. Then Ann "accidentally" discovered her 15 MAC Awards onstage. Liz countered that by sauntering to the stage to reminisce about her Tony Award. "Nomination," Ann quickly added. Brava bitchery!