THE LEADING MEN: The Best of 'Times'
By Wayman Wong
04 Oct 2006
THIS 'DEAD'-HEAD IS HAVING A BLOODY GOOD TIME
No one can accuse Brandon Wardell of being gutless because he gets his intestines ripped out of him for laughs in Evil Dead: The Musical at New World Stages. Based on Sam Raimi's 1983 cult horror film, this kooky campfest began previews Oct. 2 and opens Nov. 1. It's got a book by George Reinblatt and a score by Frank Cipolla, Christopher Bond, Melissa Morris and Reinblatt, and it stars Ryan Ward, who created the lead role of Ash in Toronto and even looks like the film's star, Bruce Campbell.
Wardell, a six-foot hunk from High Point, NC, says, "I play Scott, the horny best friend of Ash. We take our girlfriends and Ash's sister to this cabin in the woods. There, we find the Book of the Dead and later we do a dance called the Necronomicon. It's like the Time Warp from Rocky Horror. Hinton Battle has done some amazing choreography for us. Anyway, when a demon starts to possess my girlfriend, she whips my butt and kicks me in the balls because I've been such a jerk. Wait'll you see our special effects. Blood and limbs will be flying." In fact, the theatre's first two rows have been designated "The Splatter Zone," and tickets there will be only $25 a piece.
Wardell, who loves horror movies, says, "I never saw Carrie, the musical, but last fall I did a reading with Stephen King of a new John Mellencamp musical called Ghost Brothers. It's based on a true story about two brothers who got drunk one night in Louisiana. They had a shooting contest, and one of them killed the other. Matt Cavenaugh played my brother, and Stephen wrote an amazing book. John's score is new, and it's Southern rock and folk, and really good. I don't know what's happening with it, but I'll ask Stephen when he comes to see Evil Dead."
Wardell made his Broadway debut in James Joyce's The Dead, appeared as the Balladeer in Assassins and boogied to the Beach Boys in Good Vibrations. Marc Kudisch jokingly calls him "a goofball," and Chad Kimball recalls, "Brandon was a major positive force on Good Vibrations. When everybody would get down, he would rally everyone up." Wardell, 31, adds, "We had a lot of fantastic people. If we had gone out of town first, it would've turned out differently. Still, it was fun. It's where I met the love of my life, Sarah Glendening."
Besides acting, Wardell has shopped for fabrics as William Ivey Long's assistant, produced play readings for Johnny Roscoe Productions and played Axl Rose in the Guns n' Roses tribute band Nightrain. But maybe his most amazing moment in showbiz happened on March 23, 2002, at
Thoroughly Modern Millie: "I was making a costume change [in Act I] and Catherine Brunell comes in and says, 'Omigod! Gavin [Creel] blew out his knee!' My dresser, Geoffrey Polischuk, says my knees buckled under me. Our stage manager says, 'Can you go on [for Gavin]?' I thought, 'Hell, no!' It was only our fifth preview. I never had a rehearsal. But I said, 'Yeah, absolutely.' Gavin had to be taken to the hospital, and Sutton [Foster] was amazing. Just before I went on, Marc Kudisch said the most brilliant thing: 'No matter what happens, you're a hero. The show could not go on without you. It's all gonna be fine.' And it was!"
For more info, visit www.brandonwardell.com and www.evildeadthemusical.com.
WHERE THE GUYS ARE
Hope you all made it to the New York Musical Theatre Festival (Sept. 10-Oct. 1). Among the "Leading Men" who turned in terrific performances were Christian Campbell (Drift), Steve Orsino (Illyria) and Michael Hunsaker (The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun). There were also two incredible concerts at the Ars Nova by Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and Manoel Felciano, who staged a stellar reading of highlights from Peter Foley and Kate Chisholm's sci-fi musical, The Hidden Sky. But Heath Calvert, who was a six-foot-four surfer in Good Vibrations, starred in our favorite and funniest musical moment at NYMF. In the zombie movie spoof The Children, Calvert played Harry, a hunky deputy, and belted "Two Kinds of Love." Here, he sang about being torn between his girlfriend, Susie, and his love of the law. At the conclusion of his song, he wildly tore off his tank-top T-shirt. For each reprise, he put on a new T-shirt, and then later ripped that off, too. Calvert, 26, was a riot and had it down to a "T" three times. Bravo!
Got comments or questions? E-mail me at waymanwong@hotmail.com.
Until next month, let's hear it for the "boys"!
Wayman Wong edits entertainment for The New York Daily News. He has been a movie and theatre critic for The San Francisco Examiner, a writer for The Sondheim Review and a Drama-Logue Award-winning playwright.
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Brad Anderson, Brandon Wardell and Heath Calvert
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| photo by Ben Strothmann |
