ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Jennifer, Julia and "Something's Coming"
By Seth Rudetsky
15 May 2007
Wednesday I went to Washington to play for Jennifer Hudson (again) at an event for the National Lupus Foundation. While we were running "I Am Changing" during the sound check, she kept beginning it by walking up to me and saying "Do you know this song?" — à la Effie in the movie scene. We wanted to do it during the show, but we knew nobody would remember that specific line, and it would make her look hostile and me, a moron. The event went long, and I wound up missing my train home. I took a flight the next morning that left at 6:50. Let me repeat that. My flight
left at 6:50 AM. I haven't been up that early since high school driver's ed. Not cool.
Thursday I had Julia Murney on my Chatterbox. I'm so proud she's starring in Wicked. I asked her about her sassy slide during "Defying Gravity" at the end when she goes, "No one's gonna bri-i-i-i-ing me down!" She claims it was because she was nervous belting the crazy high "me" out of nowhere, so she decided to slide up to it instead. Like I always say, out of fear of belted high notes comes brilliant phrasing. She also talked about her lucrative voice-over career and the one time she needed some extra bucks, so she was the voice of a porn cable channel. She did one of her signature commercials, and let's just say I never realized what the first syllable of the month of October could rhyme with. We were trying to think of other dirty months that they could have used. I pitched "Janu-hairy."
Thursday night, I had one more Jennifer Hudson gig. It was for the Candie's Foundation, and before the show I was talking to Jennifer about how hard it must be to sing these big showstoppers for every live gig. She said it would actually be easier if she was doing it more often. When she toured with "American Idol," even though she was doing a show every night of the week, she didn't really have to worry about warming up. I knew what she meant. One would think that if you do 11 o'clock numbers all the time, you'd tire your voice out. But it's actually much better to be consistently doing them. I remembered doing my Actors' Fund concert of Dreamgirls and how Lillias White always wanted to sing all the Effie songs full out during rehearsals so she'd get it into her body and not go into a state of shock on the night of the show. I still can't believe that Effie has to sing "And I Am Telling You" and follow it with "I Am Changing." Even though plot-wise it's many years between those songs, it's only around 20 minutes in real time. When I was the Rabbi in my high school's Fiddler, I had to sing "Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov" in "Tevye's Dream" and then follow it with my hilarious "Let's sit down" moment during the wedding reception. Thank goodness I rehearsed them both full out during the three-month rehearsal period so I was able to nail them during my high school's signature two performances (Friday and Saturday night).
Mother's Day morning, my boyfriend James sang for the expectant mothers in his Unitarian Church. He sang "Something's Coming," and we hardly had to change the words to make it apropos to motherhood: "There's something due any day/ you will know right away/ Soon as it shows… It may come cannonballing down thru your thighs/ gleam in its eye/ bright as a rose."
That afternoon, my mom and I finally got to see Talk Radio (last week the traffic was a nightmare and we missed it). Christine Pedi is my co-host on Sirius radio and in Talk Radio, and she does a slew of the different voices who call Liev Schreiber. Her acting and comic timing were both so great, and it was fun trying to figure out which characters she was voicing. It was also fun to see producer Jordan Roth in the audience taking his mother, producer Daryl Roth and her mother to the show. Three generations of Roths. It was very "Gilmore Girls."
Okay, I have to gear up to read all the Broadway message boards about the Tony nominations and watch the finale of "America's Top Model"! Talk soon!
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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." He has played piano in the orchestras of 15 Broadway musicals, and he can be contacted by visiting www.sethsbroadwaychatterbox.com.)
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Julia Murney and Seth Rudetsky at the Chatterbox.
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