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It's Spring Break so I'm heading to Florida! Normally that means I'm a fun-loving college kid, heading to Miami to soak up the sun and drink from a keg with my fraternity. My version of heading to the white sandy beaches in Florida to party is actually going to Performing Arts Centers in Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach where I'll spend every day in tech rehearsal and every night deconstructing '70s variety shows. And, my traveling companions are not my fun-loving pals from my fraternity but instead my soon-to-be 80-year-old mother. Yay? I'm heading out on Friday and what's annoying is I'm going from the Kravis Center to the Broward Center to Sarasota's Van Wezel Performing Arts Center so my days are spent traveling and then in tech rehearsal. And my Mom is always so much "fun" to travel with. When she was in San Diego before we got on an rFamily cruise, she was outraged that it was 11 AM and her hotel room hadn't been cleaned yet. She tracked down the maid who only spoke Spanish, but that didn't stop my mother who repeatedly pointed to her watch and said "mas tarde!" First of all, that doesn't mean "very late" it means "more late" so I'm sure her babbling was met with a blank stare. Made even more blank/confused by the fact that my mother hadn't yet changed her watch into the Pacific Time Zone so in fact it wasn't 11 AM, it was 8 AM. Mas moron. To come see my Florida extravaganzas. Get tix and info here.
This week I took my sister Beth to see Jesus Christ Superstar. At first I was disappointed that Josh Young wasn't on for Judas, but then excited because Jeremy Kushnier went on instead. He was great and so was the whole cast. King Herod (Bruce Dow) added some great comedy moments and Jesus (Paul Nolan) had so many high notes that he could also be the matinee Evita. I think that score is so fantastic. To me, it's like Hair and Pippin, meaning every song is fantastic. There's no "Henry Street" to make you frantically run to your record player and pick up the needle to skip to something, anything. Beth actually wound up crying during the show because she was so moved. I cried because I didn't hear any of the amazing string section that sounds so thrilling on the original recording. Devastating.
Then I had Adam Berry on the show. I first heard him sing in Provincetown a few years when he was around 20. Amazing voice. Now, he's still pursuing musical theatre, but his "day job" is as a ghosthunter on…"Ghosthunters." I decided to watch an episode before interviewing him. Um…it was supposed to be an episode, but it seemed to me like footage they decided not to use. It was basically the ghosthunters in Alexandria, VA, checking out three different locales where there had been unexplainable activity. The bulk of the show was the ghosthunters walking in dark areas saying, "Did you see that?," and another ghosthunter saying "no." Then there was a lot of "Hello?"…. Hello!?" I confronted Adam on all of it and he invited me to come to an actual ghosthunting with them and then I'd see for myself that it's truly paranormal activity. I agreed, assuming it meant he was buying me tickets to Ghost.
OK, this week I'm seeing Newsies and Peter and the Starcatcher and tonight I'm off to Nothin' Like A Dame (tix at www.ActorsFund.org) and then a Disaster! cast party. If you wanna come see me in Florida, get info/tix here. And here's a fun interview I just did with Adam Rothenberg for his online blog, "Call Me Adam." Hope to see you in Florida this weekend and you can hang out with me and my Mom. Or better yet — my Mom! Peace out.
(Seth Rudetsky has played piano in the pits of many Broadway shows including Ragtime, Grease and The Phantom of the Opera. He was the artistic producer/conductor for the first five Actors Fund concerts including Dreamgirls and Hair, which were both recorded. As a performer, he appeared on Broadway in The Ritz and on TV in "All My Children," "Law and Order C.I." and on MTV's "Made" and "Legally Blonde: The Search for the Next Elle Woods." He has written the books "The Q Guide to Broadway" and "Broadway Nights," which was recorded as an audio book on Audible.com. He is currently the afternoon Broadway host on Sirius/XM radio and tours the country doing his comedy show, "Deconstructing Broadway." He can be contacted at his website SethRudetsky.com, where he has posted many video deconstructions.)