Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 2 (19 page)

Right after the audition, she went up to see her husband, who was waiting at the fountain at Lincoln Center. She told him that she got the part, and he said that he wasn't surprised because as he was sitting at the fountain he suddenly felt angels around him… He made sure to look at his watch when that feeling happened and it was 3:55! How amazing is that?!

My final trip last week was to Lancaster, PA to do my comedy show,
Deconstructing: The Good, The Bad and the Headache-y
, at the Fulton Theater. It went over
amazingly
! I've never done the show outside of New York (let alone in Amish Country), and I'm so glad to know that it works. I've now decided to tour all religious enclaves. Next stop: Salt Lake City
.
So fun reading that! It’s so cool to see when I did my very first out-of-town DECONSTRUCTING show. I was so nervous it wouldn’t work for a non-New York audience, but because it went so well, I felt confident being booked all over the place. I’ve since done it across the US, in Canada and in London!

Weekend in the Country

September 3, 2008

Happy post–Labor Day! Labor Day has always been bittersweet for me. Sweet because it's a holiday, bitter because the next day meant I had to re-enter Hell and see those horrible people (AKA school and my peers). But now, thankfully, the only "school" I have to go to is
Grease
's Rydell High or
Wicked
's Shiz University, and the only horrible "People" is any version
not
sung by Barbra Streisand! Ha ha ha!!! That's right, my point is not that I work on Broadway, but that I'm a hack comic. Anybody?
Nobody
.

Last Wednesday, I finally saw
Hair
at the Delacorte! I've mentioned this before, but, if you don't know,
Hair
was the first Broadway show my parents took me to. No, I'm not in my sixties, people. It was during the final year of its run and I was barely out of diapers. But the cast sure was! To this day I remember that nude scene. And by "nude scene" I mean noticing people onstage naked for two seconds and then seeing the inside of my mother's palm that she placed over my eyes. She did the same thing during some choice scenes in
Taxi Driver
, which we went to see when I was in
second grade
! I know some of you may think,
Oh she probably thought it was a kids’ movie because it had Jodie Foster from
Bugsy Malone
.
Perhaps, but why that same year did we see
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
and
Death Wish
? Silence. Followed by the sound of a phone dialing The Children Services Hotline.

Nonetheless, I grew up obsessed with
Hair
and I'm very thankful I got to see it as my first show. I wanted to give a link to the Tony Award performance from
Hair
, and I went to
YouTube
and put in the search word
Hair
and Tony Awards, and it led me to a clip of Laura Bell Bundy getting her hair done for the Tonys. I guess that's comparable…

Hair
is one of those shows where it's fun to be a lead
and
it's fun to be in the ensemble. There are so many group numbers so, no matter who you are, you're always singing something fabulous. FYI, I thought the ensemble sounded
terrific
! It's also one of those shows where every song is fantastic. Galt MacDermott has such a brilliant gift for songwriting. Most shows have around 15 songs, but
Hair
has more than 25, and they're all amazing! I especially love the weird ones like "Don't Put It Down," "Initials" and "Going Down." (To watch me deconstruct Gavin Creel singing "Going Down," get thee to
SethRudetsky.com.
) Even though I know
Hair
really well, I was still sobbing up a storm at the end. Bring that music back to Broadway where it belongs
!
And they did
.

For the last few weeks, James, Juli and I were thinking about going away for Labor Day weekend. It looked like we were going to vacation with Andréa Burns and her husband, Peter Flynn, but he's the new artistic director of the Hangar Theater in Ithaca, NY and he had to work through the weekend. I was lamenting my fate to Susan Blackwell from
[title of show]
, and she immediately volunteered her new vacation house near the Delaware Water Gap! How sweet is that? James, Juli, Maggie (my Lab/Dalmatian/Whippet mutt) and I drove down on Friday and had an amazing time. Maggie had the time of her life sniffing everywhere and going in the creek. Susan's husband, Steve, hung out with us and, on the last night, made us "campfire stew." We put carrots, potatoes, onions and fish in tin foil and he cooked it over an open fire in the forest behind their house. Delish! However, Steve gave us a lift in his car at one point, and when I got in it, I thought,
Hmm… that must be that "new car" smell.
And by "new car" I meant, "dead rat rotting in a vent." I was slightly nauseated, but kept my airways closed and appreciated the lift. Later on, we were making ice cream in the ice cream maker that Hunter (from
[title of show]
) bought them as a housewarming gift. We were all talking about how easy it is to make ice cream now… no more rock salt and churning for two hours. Just milk, flavor and sugar. Steve said that the last time Hunter came, he thought he brought everything, but forgot the milk. A week later, Steve and Susan realized that Hunter didn't "forget the milk"… he left it under the passenger seat in their car! The carton expanded and leaked, and
that's
what that amazing smell was! Steve said that they've yet to get rid of the aroma. Hunter Bell! You owe me the oxygen I was unable to take in for the 20 minutes I spent in that car trying not to breathe!

At the
Chatterbox
, I interviewed Tony Award winner Beth Leavel. The first shocker she laid on me is that she's from North Carolina! I asked her if there was a "Lynn" involved with her name, and she admitted her full name is Elizabeth Lynn Leavel, and when she'd hear all three names from her mother, it meant she was in severe trouble. She grew up so Southern that she actually took Cotillion Class! That's where you learn social dancing like the tango and the rumba and fill out your dance card. And you wear a dress made from the drapes. The second shocker is that she didn't grow up wanting to be an actress! Not until she did her senior class play (
Brigadoon
) did she get bitten by the acting bug. She also said that she loved it because she got to kiss the cutest boy in her class. I asked her how long it took for him to come out and she said it happened around six months later.

She got her college degree in counseling, but finally decided to pursue theater for real. However, she was too scared to move to New York, so she got a masters degree in directing. She finally moved to New York and was so hilarious about the horrific-ness of her first apartment: "Remember when 45th Street was awesome in the '80s? Between Ninth and Tenth?" Oh boy. Beth got the role of Bonnie in
Applause
at the Equity Library Theater. That was the theatre where you got paid in subway tokens (seriously!), but agents and casting people would come. It was a great showcase for actors starting out. Beth got her agent then… and is still with him 25 years later!

Her agent got her an audition for the national tour of
42nd Street
, but Beth had not taken tap since she was at Betty Kovac’s School of Dance back in third and fourth grade. They loved her singing and comedy at the audition, but her dancing was not up to snuff. Karin Baker (who was in charge of the tour) told her that if she could nail the dance break to "Go Into Your Dance" at her next audition, she'd have the job. Unfortunately, her next audition was four days later! Yowtch! She rented a studio and practiced every day, coached by her husband. When she went back to re-audition, her husband waited for her at a bar where he knew the bartender. He felt that Beth's tapping was still really iffy, and the bartender felt bad that Beth was about to lose out on this job, so he kept plying her husband with drink. After the audition, Beth breathlessly arrived and was met by her husband who was slobbering, "Hey, Beth! Ah love you anyway! You'll get a job shoon…" She sobered him up and told him that she got the job… right after she danced! Beth sighed and told the
Chatterbox
audience that the business was easier then. They'd tell you that you got the gig on the spot instead of nowadays when you have to wait for a "urinalysis and a pap smear."

Beth did the tour of
42nd Street
, did it on Broadway
and
did it in Japan! You can see her do her treacherous "Go Into Your Dance" tap dance from her audition in a clip on
Bluegobo.com
. They filmed it when she was in Japan and she looks amazing. If you can't recognize her at first, she's the one with the solo dance that's not Peggy Sawyer.

She talked about auditioning for the lead in
Crazy For You
. After her sixth audition (!), she got a call from William Ivey Long (a North Carolina native and the costume designer) who told her that he was going to take her shopping for her next audition. He said that she needed to look completely elegant for the role and dragged her to Macy's, where she tried on a ton of outfits. She finally got a stunning blue dress.
Then
he had someone do her hair and makeup. She showed up at the audition looking stunning… and they promptly decided they didn't want the role to be played by someone elegant, they wanted "cute as a button." Jodi Benson got the gig, but they still wanted to give Beth a job so they offered her a small role… which expanded into a delicious one. She did the show until she got pregnant and then, two weeks after her C-section, she was rehearsing
Show Boat
in Toronto! Ow!

In 2000, she auditioned for the
42nd Street
revival. She went in for the roles of Maggie or Dorothy Brock, but the director said that she fell between the cracks, so he asked her to stand-by. Christine Ebersole, who played Dorothy, had a medical emergency the first week of previews and Beth had to go on with no rehearsals! There were no costumes for her, so someone ran out to Lord & Taylor and got her what she called "some mother of the bride" outfits, and she went on. She said it was terrifying, but she learned that if she could do that, she could do anything.

She recalled auditioning for
The Drowsy Chaperone
, and afterwards, she spoke to the director, Casey Nicholaw, who said that she wasn't really right for the role. They wanted something different… maybe someone older... who knows? But he said it wasn't her. A month later, her agent called with a job offer, and she thought it was for
The Wedding Singer
because she had just auditioned for that. When her agent said it was for
The Drowsy Chaperone
, she made him call back the general manager to make sure it wasn't a mistake! Well, the possible mistake wound up leading to a Tony Award!

Right now, she's starring as Frau Blucher in
Young Frankenstein
and
loving
it. By the way, the reason I know Beth is because she directed a production of
Grease
at the Candlewood Playhouse when I was 22 and worked as the assistant music director. On the last Friday of the show, the guy playing Danny called the theatre and said that he wasn't showing up! No one really ever found out the reason, but we think it was because he got a soap opera and began filming. Anyhoo, it was 3 PM and everyone was in a panic because he didn't have an understudy. Bob Bartley, who played Kenickie, said that he could go on for Danny because he had done the role before. Ron LaRosa (now a big casting agent) was playing Doody, and he said that he would play Kenickie. That left open the role of Doody. Well, I had been watching all the rehearsals and therefore knew all the lines, songs and dance steps. I told the producer I would do the role! She said yes, and I went on without a put-in rehearsal and had
the best
time. The "funny" part is that Eric Woodall was an acting intern that summer and the understudy for Doody. And yet, somehow,
I'm
the one who went on for that role. Eric now works as a casting director for Tara Rubin. I'm not saying I devastated him by acting like a combination of Eve Harrington,
The Bad Seed
and
Drew Barrymore from the film
Poison Ivy
, but here are the amount of shows I've done that Tara Rubin has cast: zero.

Hello Marvin, Goodbye Love

September 8, 2008

Greetings from Philadelphia! I'm doing a benefit to support the Andalusia House, which is a beautiful, enormous house that was built in the 1700s. And, by the way, built by the same architect who built the White House!