Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 2 (7 page)

Side note: speaking of standing on zero, I was lecturing to some school kids about Broadway with a bunch of cast members from
Phantom
and explaining to them that Broadway shows have numbers on the edge of the stage so people know where to stand so they don't block each other/bump into each other. The cast members told me that
Phantom
doesn't use them! I was aghast and then thought that maybe they didn't need them for dance formations. But I was then informed that there are indeed formations, and the cast is told things like "Line your body up to the slight crack you'll see upstage" or "Make sure you land that jeté where the stage paint is slightly lighter." I heard it's a nightmare for the swings because they're not familiar enough with the stage to know where the cracks or fading paint is. Attention
Phantom
artistic staff: it's been twenty years! I'll paint the numbers on for you — it'll take me five minutes!

The lighting guy from
Phantom
said that Tony Walton didn't like to have literal numbers on the stage, so he'd theme them to whatever show he was doing. During
Guys and Dolls
, they all looked like playing cards, and during
Forum
they were all Roman numerals. In other words, V was actually 5, hilariously prompting Nathan Lane to have a breakdown during rehearsal and say that there was no way to find your number unless you had a classics degree.

Patti got a standing ovation after "Rose's Turn," and I think it was the first time I've been in a Broadway theatre where a standing ovation has happened in the middle of the show. Unless you count
Good Vibrations
, but the standing was then followed by walking out
.
Years later, my good friend, the brilliant Andrea Martin, also got regular mid-show standing ovations in PIPPIN.

Even though Dr. Clements said I wasn't contagious, I was too scared to go backstage afterwards, so I sent James with his mom, and he congratulated Laura Benanti for her brava-ness. James complimented her on the last scene of Act One, where she so clearly showed the devastation of June leaving with Tulsa, then the joy of finally being a family, then the horror of witnessing Rose's steely denial. James said that he learned from me to be specific in his compliments after he sees someone in a show. Let me teach you all my theory: The most annoying thing is to not say anything. I've been with so many Broadway friends who'll run into fans who'll say, "I saw you in your show last week."
Silence
. Finally my friend will have to awkwardly ask, "Did you like it?" Devastating. Then people will also say, "You were great in your show!" Hmm, you'll think, that's a nice compliment… but it'll be followed by, "and we got a parking spot right away… that was great!" I guess they're both comparable. I've found that celebs love knowing which specific moment you loved, like "Nice vibrato on the E vowel!" or "Sassy beveled leg while standing in the background!" Specifics, people, specifics! Also, I hate when someone says to me, "You were the best one in it." It implies that everyone was awful, but out of the awful people, you were the least awful. Thanks?

This week at Sirius radio, I had the ultimate pleasure of interviewing one of my idols, Harvey Fierstein! I asked him about his early Broadway experience, and he said that his mom would bring him from Brooklyn to Broadway all the time when he was a kid and he actually got to see Merman in
Gypsy
! As a kid, he wanted to be a visual artist. When he was 15, he was asked to help out a local theatre group and make posters. Then they asked him to help out by being in
Barefoot in the Park
where he got reviewed by
Backstage
. In that issue, there was a notice that said that Andy Warhol was going to do a play at La MaMa. Because Harvey was an artist, he worshipped him and decided he had to audition. It was an enormous open call. Harvey did Juliet's balcony monologue and was the only one cast… as a manic lesbian maid. He did the show at La MaMa but was too young to go with it to London. The director, Paul Morrisey, felt bad for him and said that he'd cast Harvey in his next film,
Flesh
. Harvey got so excited, went on a major diet and lost 60 pounds. He showed up for the first day of shooting, and Paul said, "What am I supposed to do with you?" Harvey asked what he meant. Paul said, "The only thing you had going for you was that you looked like a freak… a fat kid in a dress. Now you look normal." He then fired Harvey! Hmm… maybe that's why I haven't gotten any film work… I'm too skinny! Well, not to worry. Since my strep throat, I've been "treating myself" every night with a full-out chocolate malted. Stand back, Hollywood, here I come! No literally… stand back, I need room.

Speaking of Hollywood,
What Happens in Vegas
just came out, and it's the film I actually did get cast in and then had to ixnay because I couldn't take off two days from
The Ritz
. Has anyone seen it? It's too painful for me to see. That could have been me up there, saying two unimportant lines to Ashton Kutcher. Instead, I said two unimportant lines in
The Ritz
(per act)
.
P.S. Talk about that role being a stepping stone to stardom; I was replaced by the now totally famous Billy Eichner from BILLY ON THE STREET! THE RITZ ruined my possibility to be a star!

Back to Harvey: I recently saw something crazy in his dressing room and found out the backstory. He recently got a New Dramatists Lifetime Achievement Award and they showed a clip of Harvey on
Sesame Street
singing "Everything's Coming up Noses." Afterwards, Arthur Laurents, who was sitting nearby, turned to him and said, "Not bad." That, of course, prompted Harvey to write a note to Patti LuPone, "Please enjoy your run. I'm next." Then Patti started sending over boxes of chocolates she'd get from fans… with her name crossed out and Harvey's written in. But she'd eat half the box first. Then Harvey sent her a bowling bag filled to the brim with
This Isn't Going to Be Pretty
, his 1990s CD of himself live at The Bottom Line called. He wrote, "Dear Patti, Would you mind hawking these in the lobby?" She wrote back, "Dear Harvey, Thank you so much for sharing your talent. I've given one to each member of the cast. As a matter of fact, we're canceling the matinee today so we can have a listening session. And if anyone shows up for the show, we'll make them listen to it." Harvey then wrote back, "Thank
you
so much. And by the way, I wasn't kidding." And he attached another whole bag of CDs! Then Patti took a cactus that she got as a gift from someone (referencing the beginning of Act Two of
Gypsy
) and sent it to Harvey with his CDs taped all over it with ugly red tape. That was what I saw when I walked in his dressing room. An enormous cactus covered in red tape and CDs. I thought it was a tasteless present from a fan, but when I found out it was from Patti, I exclaimed, "It's beautiful."

I talked to him about
A Catered Affair,
whose CD just came out, FYI! He plays the uncle of a bride who wants to have a small wedding and his character is outraged because he thinks he's being excluded because he's gay. I had heard at La Jolla that people thought his character was totally anachronistic in the 1950s and I was happy when I saw it on Broadway because it seemed so real to me. I assumed it was overhauled since the West Coast run. The family knew he was gay, but the actual word wasn't used. He had a very close male "friend," and he was a "confirmed bachelor." Turns out, that's how it was at La Jolla! So what was anachronistic?! Were people saying there weren't gay people in the ‘50s? Ever hear of the Mattachine Society? Morons!

Harvey told me that he feels one of the most pivotal moments of his career was when he was performing the second part of
Torch Song Trilogy.
By the way, the only reason it was in three parts is because he got the first act booked at La MaMa, and it was normally so difficult to get space there, his director told him to say it was a trilogy so he could get the next dates lined up. Brava! Anyhoo, after he performed the second part, an older woman named Mrs. Gettleman, who came to all of his stuff, approached him. She had on a turquoise suit, Brooklyn beauty parlor-styled hair, and a rose from her backyard pinned to her lapel. He turned, and she hit him on the arm. "What!?!" he exclaimed. "Write a part for a mother so I can play it!" she told him. That gave him the idea for a third part of the show, and he gave her the role. She shortened Gettleman and became… Estelle Getty! And had he not written that act, he believes the show never would have come to Broadway, and his career never would have become what it became. It made the show mainstream because everybody identified — not with the disapproving mother, but with him! Apparently, everyone's parents disapprove of something, and that allowed the audience to identify with Harvey's character. No one ever said to him after the show, "That's me and my son." They always said, "That's me and my mother." Brava Harvey and brava Mrs. Gettleman!

Finally, he told me about the celebs he met backstage at
Torch Song
. He freaked out when he heard that Merman asked for tickets to
Torch Song Trilogy
. Or, specifically, she called a press agent friend of his and asked for tickets to "that trigonometry thing." Afterwards, she came backstage and, because she hadn't read this column on how to greet a celeb backstage, Harvey was forced to ask her, "What did you think of the show?" The Merm responded with her signature candor. "Ah, I thought it was a piece of s***. But the rest of the audience laughed and cried, so what the f*** do I know?" He loved it. His other idol (and mine) also came backstage during
Torch Song
... Barbra Streisand! He said that they chatted about Broadway and Harvey feels that he and Barbra are opposites. For him, TV and movies are a great way to make money, but his heart lies in the theatre. He told me that, to him, doing a movie is like going to a job in an office. He feels you can have a great office job, but theater is where he lives. Barbra did Broadway, but it was never what she wanted. She loves to get it right and then move on to the next thing, plus she always wanted to reach as many people as possible. We should have seen the writing on the wall when she accepted her Emmy for
My Name is Barbra
. In her Emmy acceptance speech she mentions how many people saw her television special and says that after doing the math, she figured out that in order to reach that many people, she'd have to do
Funny Girl
for 63 years. My question is, why
didn't
she do
Funny Girl
for 63 years? She stopped doing it before I was even born. And whenever she does sing
Funny Girl
songs in concert, it's always the one song I'm not interested in hearing. Come on, already! Ixnay "Don't Rain on my Parade," and haul out "Private Schwartz." And, quite frankly, the last time she sang one of my other faves, "Coronet Man," she responded to the name "Mrs. Gould."

His other favorite backstage star was Richard Chamberlain. Harvey told him that he'd always had a crush on him and Richard agreed to act out a scenario Harvey had always fantasized about. Harvey left the room, waited ten seconds, Richard turned out the lights and lay on the couch. Harvey walked in, said, "Honey, I'm home," and kissed him! Hmm… I thought. That was the fantasy? I'd call that the preamble to the fantasy.

All right, I'm out. This week I'm finally gonna see
Sunday in the Park with George
and then interview Jenna Russell at my
Chatterbox
! But first, some throat-coat tea, two Halls and a delicious malted. Purely for medicinal reasons.

Jenna, Emily… and Elle Woods

June 2, 2008

After being sick last week, I am officially better. Or "So Much Better,"
Legally Blonde
-style. Speaking of which, tonight is the debut of the
Legally Blonde
reality show on MTV. They came up with an amazing title:
Legally Blonde
The Musical: The Search for Elle Woods
. What clever word play! It's not literal at all. Yes, it's a little lengthy, but putting the colon in the middle of the title gives me plenty of time to rest and then finish the second half.

Speaking of childhood, after I did
Broadway 101
(which, I just found out, raised $30,000 for The Actors Fund!), I got a call from a television production company. We set up a meeting and I had delicious visions of filming
Broadway 101
for network TV. Well, turns out, the woman in charge of creative development for this company saw
Broadway 101
and was very interested in the sections where I talked about my childhood. She wound up contracting me to write and develop a sitcom about my (devastating) adolescent years! Sort of
Everybody Hates Chris
, but more like "Everybody Hates Fat, Gay Seth."

There's one classic story that happened to me in English class, but I don't know if I can re-enact it in a series. My whole class was supposed to have read
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
but, even though it was an honors English class, essentially nobody read it. Mrs. Messner (who was always all smiles and we therefore called her "Goody" Messner à la
The Crucible
) was our teacher and first asked my friend Whitney Malin what the theme of the book was. Whitney started flipping through the book like the theme was on a certain page and she just had to find it. After some aimless flipping, she muttered, "Call on someone else." But Mrs. Messner didn't hear, so Whitney essentially had to yell, "
Call on someone else
!" Then Mrs. Messner called on Julie Einhorn who said, "Ooh… you caught me at a bad time." We were obsessed with that comment later on. Did Julie just get out of the shower and her hair was still wet? Weren't we in the middle of English class? What's a better time for a question relating to English? Finally, she called on my friend Terry Heyman by saying, "And Terry?" But because Mrs. Messner had a Midwestern accent, it sounded like "And Tirry?" Terry thought Mrs. Messner was asking about some obscure character from the book, so she looked miffed and asked, "Who the hell is Ann Tirry?" Nonetheless, we all somehow graduated.