ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Love, Loss... and Change Your Hair

By Seth Rudetsky
21 Feb 2012

Seth with Maggie
Seth with Maggie

A week in the life of actor, radio host, music director and writer Seth Rudetsky.

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Hello, again Playbill readers. First let me start with the sad. This has been an incredibly hard week since Maggie, my dog, passed away last Sunday night. James and I have been literally sobbing every day. Right now, I feel distant from the feelings because we're in LA. Being separated from New York makes it harder to connect with the fact that she's gone. I've gone away a lot over the past 14 years, and it feels like any other time I'm out of town. It's easier not being in the apartment and seeing all the places she would normally be sleeping or begging for food or standing by the door to go out. Or leaving the room and not having her follow me like she always used to. Walking around our neighborhood and having to look at all the stores we'd pass by on her walks was incredibly depressing all last week. This break has come at a great time, and I'm hoping that when we go home, all the memories we have of Maggie will only make us happy.

On to L.A. I'm out here because I'm playing for Andrea Martin's show (coming up in Palm Springs) and because I have my own show at Reprise. Sadly, Reprise just announced that they're canceling their upcoming season and working on a new business model, so I'm the last scheduled show. Yay, pressure! The good news is I'm sold out. I still got it! The other good news is my radio show is national. Meaning what, you say? Well, I was talking about coming to L.A., and I mentioned that I'd be staying with Marissa Jaret Winokur like I did last year. If you don't remember, we all stayed with her and her adorable family last February, but because she actually doesn't want overnight guests, she doesn't have an extra bed. That's right, she has a pile of pillows/couch that she calls "The Pit," and quite frankly it was the pits.

Marissa Jaret Winokur

The house is amazing, her son adorable, but I had to get three (3!) massages because my back went out from the gelatinous sleeping area. So, I was mentioning my aching back on Sirius/XM and the next thing I knew, I had an email waiting from Max Mutchnick (creator of "Will and Grace"). Max's husband is Erik Hyman, who is the best friend of one of my childhood best friends, Anne Martin, with whom I went to musical theatre summer camp (USDAN), and that's how I met Max. Max told me that he would not allow me to stay at a "poor actress's" house and that we had to stay at his place. Meanwhile, Marissa is loaded. It became a battle of the 1%. At the point Max told us he had a guesthouse, I stopped returning Marissa's phone calls. I'm writing this column in his backyard, overlooking his pool and tennis court and listening to the sound of his stone fountain while I smell the jasmine in the air. So pretty. TV pays a lot differently than Broadway. Especially TV in "the day." I was doing Andrea's show last weekend and Sean Hayes, Dan Bucatinsky ("Web Therapy") and his partner Don Roos came. I was fawning all of over Don because I'm obsessed with one of the films he wrote and directed called "The Opposite of Sex." He told me that it was easy to fund independent films when he made the movie, and we were talking about ways to make money now. His advice was: "Make a sitcom…in the '90's." Great. Excellent time-traveling advice.

Speaking of traveling, I'm going to Fayetteville, AR, to do Seth's Big Fat Broadway Show on Saturday, March 3. My motto will be "I'm putting the sass in Arkansas(s)!" Go to http://www.waltonartscenter.org/calendar/view.aspx?id=7217 for tix and info.

 Continued...