Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 2 (14 page)

Comic Jessica Kirson made her fourth appearance on the ship and told a joke I loved, specifically because I was traveling with my mom.

Q: What did the waiter say to the older Jewish ladies?


A: Is
anything
OK?

Brava!

Then I did a
Chatterbox
with some of the great ladies on the ship. Carolee talked about how she did all the pre-Broadway readings, workshops and recordings of
The Scarlet Pimpernel
. She loved the role of Marguerite because of the great songs she got to sing, as well as because the character was from France and French was her minor in college. Even though she had done the role numerous times in front of the powers-that-be, they still made her audition for the Broadway production and
then
they cast someone else! Ouch! She did eventually get to play the role and I had her sing "When I Look at You" to show everyone how great she was in the part. Then we talked about my
Funny Girl
concert for The Actors Fund and she recreated the 11 o’clock number she did that night: "The Music That Makes Me Dance." No surprise, the audience gave her a full standing O. Yes!

I also talked to Lillias White and asked her to recount her audition for
Dreamgirls
. She said that in the early ‘80s, she went in to audition as a replacement for the role of Lorrell and sang "Ain't No Party" for Michael Bennett. There's a section that has the lyrics "Now it's been seven years and it don't take a smarty to realize that even though my man throws confetti in my face, it still don't make it no party." When she got to the throwing of confetti part, she mimed throwing it from her crotch. After the move, Michael Bennett thought, "Hmm… I think she's an Effie." She came back and had to sing
every single thing
that Effie sings in the show. By the end, she had no voice. Regardless, Michael Bennett offered her the understudy to Jennifer Holliday in Los Angeles! However, Lillias didn't want it. First of all, she said, she didn't think it was right for her because she doesn't have that gravelly type of voice that people equate with Effie; secondly, she had a newborn and didn't want to go out of town; and thirdly, it was L.A., and she didn't drive! Michael assured her that she sang it great, she would definitely go on in the role and she would have everything she needed. She wasn’t sure whether to trust him because, as she hilariously said, "white man speak with forked tongue," but when she got to L.A. Michael kept his word and got her childcare
and
put her in a driving school. And then there was a five-show weekend, and Jennifer couldn’t do all five. Lillias went on for Effie… and Michael re-invited all the critics to see her! Of course, she got amazing reviews. I then asked her to sing "I Am Changing" because that's my favorite song on my Actors Fund CD of
Dreamgirls
. I still remember conducting it that night and hearing that crazy cheering after she sang "…nothing's gonna stop… me… now!!!!" Of course, all the R Family audience stood up immediately after her song. Brava!

All right, there's more to report… stay tuned.

Ship of Dreams—Part II

July 28, 2008

Okay, part two of the Rosie Cruise!
First, let's discuss the onboard food. My version of dieting was that I would never let myself get one of the fresh baked waffles in the morning… after that small bit of self-restraint, all bets were off. I'd have delicious oatmeal with a ton of brown sugar, and thanks to a tip from Brenda Braxton, melted butter in it as well. Mmm. I was outraged, though, that the delicious chocolate chip cookies were only in the children's area of the main dining room. Rude! I had no shame about leaning my whole body over the partition that's supposed to separate the kid area from the adult area and grabbing a fistful of cookies while claiming to the shocked faces around me that they were for Juli. And no, Juli never got any from me.
Why
were they in one area and restricted from the other? Quite frankly, I wasn't acting out with food, I was standing up against discrimination!

OK, we're midway through the trip at this point. I haven't mentioned the ports we went to, so let me just say they were all beautiful, but they also all rated a ten on the melanoma-inducing scale. Is there literally no more ozone? Only after St. John in Canada did I not spend the whole night checking my moles for any changes.

Back on the boat, I did a full hour
Chatterbox
with the brilliant Christine Ebersole. She talked about what happened after she and her husband adopted their first child. Her husband was flying to China to get their second, a baby girl (they had been trying to adopt from different places) and while he was flying home with their new baby girl, Christine got a call that there was a little boy who needed a family! She couldn't call her husband because he was mid-flight, so she said yes. When she got to the airport, she met her husband, who was carrying their new daughter, and then she told him they had to go to a different terminal to pick up their new son! They went from having one child to three in literal minutes!

Christine ended the
Chatterbox
by singing "Around the World," of course. We were both a little panicked, though. Me, because it's a crazy hard piano part that I, of course, started practicing ten minutes before showtime, and she because the show closed a year ago and she was nervous about lyrics. I'm sort of fascinated by what the window is before you start forgetting what you've done in a show. And sometimes you don't just forget lyrics, you forget whole songs! Betty Buckley loves singing "Old Friend" from
I'm Getting My Act Together…
but when I suggested she do "Put in a Package," which is the opening number from the show, she stared at me blankly. Then, I started playing it for her, and the only thing she added to her staring was blinking. Of course, you have to remember, she performed that part 30 years ago, so I think that's a fair amount of time to forget something,
but
Priscilla Lopez told me something that happened when she was doing
A Day in Hollywood…
She took a one-week vacation and came back to the show refreshed. She had a
great
song in Act One called "The Best In the World." It had four choruses and pretty much each one began with "Papa said you're the best… you're the best in the world." Cut to; she stands in her spotlight, starts the song, gets to the chorus and sang, "Papa said… uh… um…
silence
." Suddenly, from the pit she heard, in a crazy stage whisper, "…You're the best!" She literally forgot the
title of the song
! I guess it's more about your brain deciding it can forget. Priscilla went on a vacation and didn't have to think about the show, and a part of her brain stayed in that mode. So, in conclusion, you can forget a song/lyrics after 30 years or after a week at a spa.

But back to the cruise. Finally, Saturday arrived, the night of the big show. Last year, we hauled out a mini-version of
Annie
starring Andrea McArdle, and this year we decided to do
Chicago
. A few weeks before the cruise, I was thinking of who should play Velma, and I remembered my friend, Brenda Braxton, whom I saw play the role twice on Broadway. I called her and said, "We're going to do
Chicago
on the Rosie cruise, and I wanted to know if you had any interest in playing Vel-," and before I could get to "-ma," she said, "Yes." Brenda had been hankering for a vacation and she told me she wasn't going to do anything on the boat besides rehearse the show… and she wasn't kidding. The cruise stopped in five different ports, and Brenda didn't get off once! She said she just sat and relaxed, ordered room service and ate it on the balcony in her room!

All right, back to casting. I had to find a Roxie. I knew Michael Lee Scott (who was the choreographer for the opening show) performed with his cousin, Sandy Duncan, so I asked him to ask her to do it. Sandy couldn't break her other commitments, so I was left Roxie-less. I was thinking, "Michael Lee is sad because he couldn't get Sandy to play Roxie." Then my mind changed the sentence to, "Michael Lee is sad, get Sandy play Roxie," then "Michael Lee is Sandy play Roxie" and suddenly: "
Michael Lee is Roxie
!" That's right, I gender-bendered that role because I knew Michael Lee was hilarious and would dance up a storm. I then asked the amazing Lillias White to reprise her Broadway performance as Mama Morton and did one more gender-bend by having Andrea McArdle play Billy (Billie?) Flynn. And, as luck would have it, David Sabella, who was the original Mary Sunshine on Broadway, happened to be on the boat vacationing as a gay dad. Well, vacation or not, I needed him onstage! We got some drag, his original music charts and the next thing he knew, he was out of the shuffleboard area and hitting high As. He was great!

Since we could only do a 45-minute version of the show, I narrated the story line between songs. I told the audience that I've been obsessed with it ever since I was a little boy. As a matter of fact, I was desperate to get the music so I could play it on the piano. While other kids were harassing their parents to get them Atari, I was begging mine for the complete piano/vocal score of
Chicago
. (I finally got it after two months of begging.) Also, my mom got me tickets to see it and I still remember they cost $15, which now just covers the newly implemented "theatre improvement" fee. I would always listen to the record in my den and try to choreograph it (never getting much past flexed hands), and one of my favorite songs was "Cell Block Tango." So, of course, I cast myself in it as "squish." It was so much fun!

Anyhoo, the last casting problem was "Class." We wanted to make it different for the boat version. Dev Janki and I decided to ask two fabulous women to do it. Actually,
four
fabulous women. My setup was: I asked the audience if anyone knew who replaced Gwen Verdon as Roxie in the ‘70s for a short time. A few people called out Liza. Brava. Then I said, perhaps Liza coveted the role of Velma. Then I suggested that if
Chicago
had opened in the Golden Age, perhaps Mama Morton would have been played by the premiere belter of Broadway. I then introduced "Class" as sung by Ethel Merman (Klea Blackhurst) and Liza Minnelli (Christine Pedi). Yes, it made no sense, but ending it with the "New York New York" vamp brought the house down.

Finally, Brett Macias had orchestrated "Don't Rain On My Parade" for Lillias White, but we wound up not doing it on the first night of the cruise in the Barbra show. But I didn't want to deprive the audience of her brilliance, so as an encore to
Chicago
, I kept Lillias onstage and started the vamp. Needless to say, she sounded
amazing
. All in all, the cruise was
fantastic
! Come with us to Alaska next year!

On a final note, I saw
Damn Yankees
at
Encores!
Thursday night. I'm obsessed with how funny Cheyenne is and how he can spin his vibrato. Beautiful! And I've loved Jane Krakowski ever since I saw her in
Grand Hotel
as Flaemmchen. I remember spotting her on the street a few weeks after I first saw her (in '89) and going into shock. I just stepped in front of her, stared, and said, "You're amazing." She thanked me, while stepping the hell around me ASAP. Now though, in 2008, I'm able to go backstage… and act awkward to her face in her dressing room. I love how she's such a theatre person! Jane said that she loves doing Lola because she gets to dance Fosse. And she researched the role vigorously. Apparently, Gwen Verdon complained to Fosse that she couldn't do certain steps without falling because she had to wear heels. Fosse kept telling her she could do it and Gwen finally flat-out said she couldn't. Fosse literally then showed up the next day with his own pair of heels! Once he did, he understood the problems Gwen was having, and together they fixed it.

I didn't know what to expect from Sean Hayes, since I've never seen him do theatre. Let me say: he was amazing! He had so many hilarious choices that were so original and didn't seem "I thought this up in rehearsal and now it's frozen and not fresh at all." He was fantastic in his scenes and then in his song, "Those Were The Good Old Days," he sang great
and
he had the nerve the play the piano. My jealousy meter was ticking on high. How
dare
he be so talented? Then (spoiler alert), he came out for his encore holding a violin. What? The violin is my favorite instrument. I know how to play a little, but I stink. I've always dreamed of being a concert violinist, but my terrible technique and lack of talent has prevented me. I turned to James and said, "If he sounds amazing, I've had it!" Sean lifted the violin to his chin… and promptly threw it offstage. Phew! Still, I turned to James and said, "He's so amazingly talented, I'm phenomenally jealous." James "comforted" me by reminding me that Sean is also a multi-millionaire.
Not cool!

Okay, have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday!