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ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Ship of Dreams—Part II
By Seth Rudetsky
28 Jul 2008
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 because she has a thriving side business running a grooming salon for men. Seriously! www.Bbraxton.com. She told me she wasn't going to do anything besides rehearse the show on the boat, 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! I told her that she should have gotten off the ship and been nearly violated in Provincetown like the rest of us. 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, was 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 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 is now essentially the "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! "Lipschitz" was none other than Daphne Rubin-Vega, and she was fabulous. I was filming her doing a little part of it Monday night at the NYCLU benefit, and Julia Murney said she played Hunyak ("Uh-uh") when she was 14 years old in summer camp, and she stills knows the monologue. She then plunged right into it and would have made Graciela Daniele proud (the original!). You can watch footage at www.SethRudetsky.com. 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 set up was: I asked the audience if anyone knew who replaced Gwen Verdon as Roxie in the seventies 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. Take a gander at http://youtube.com/watch?v=sotn0agpVR4. All in all, the cruise was fantastic! Come with us to Alaska next year!!!! www.Rfamilyvacations.com.
On a final note, I saw Damn Yankees 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. Check out this Fosse/Gwen interview and demonstration of "Whatever Lola Wants." http://youtube.com/watch?v=mLx7qUeRGU0&feature=related. 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 so great 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 and 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! Regardless, I went backstage and told Sean he was brilliant in the show…and slipped an untraceable amount of cyanide into his off-stage water. Kidding! It's a mixture of formaldehyde and arsenic.
Okay, have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday!
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(Seth Rudetsky is the host of "Seth's Big Fat Broadway" on SIRIUS Satellite Radio and the author of "The Q Guide to Broadway" and the novel "Broadway Nights." He has played piano in the orchestras of 15 Broadway musicals and hosts the BC/EFA benefit weekly interview show Seth's Broadway Chatterbox at Don't Tell Mama every Thursday at 6 PM. He can be contacted by visiting www.sethsbroadwaychatterbox.com.)
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Backstage at Damn Yankees with (l.-r.) Sean Hayes, Seth, James and Cheyenne Jackson.
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