ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Luxury Problems
By Seth Rudetsky
Anyhoo, I did my Deconstructing show at the Provincetown Theater (which, by the way, is a really nice space), and it went great. The terrifying thing about P-town is that people don't buy tickets for shows, essentially until "places." So the whole day I was devastated because Juli decided to have a play date that night instead of coming to my show, and I thought that meant I lost half my audience. But, thankfully, at the last minute I wound up having a great house.
We finally fled P-town after James had a fight with a toy store because they wouldn't let Juli use the employee bathroom (I stared straight ahead, Fairway-style) and decided to drive down the Cape to visit my old college friend, Liz Higgins. Liz and I were piano majors at Oberlin, and she now lives in Boston. I always use her as an example when I talk to Broadway synth players about "checking your patch." The different sounds synths play (organ, electric piano, sound effects) are called "patches," and you change them by hitting a switch…either on the synth or with a foot pedal. But sometimes, the switch doesn't work or it skips two sounds ahead, so you should always check to see what patch you’re on before you play. Liz was playing A Christmas Carol in Boston (look back to the beginning of the article), and during a love scene she was supposed to play two soft chimes. Unfortunately, she had it on the "scary ghost" patch. So, instead of the lovers hearing the sound of a distant church bell (ding….ding) , they literally heard "who-o-o-o… who-o-o-o-o" with signature old man ghost vibrato.
While I was at the Cape, I heard that the Actor’s Playhouse is closing. I'm devastated because that’s where I did my one-man-show, Rhapsody in Seth , and I loved that theatre. I'm thrilled though because there was an article in Backstage about actors that performed there who moved on to greater prominence, and it included my name next to James Earl Jones and Robert DeNiro’s! Do you think that they were so excited that they emailed the article to their parents like I did?
So, we all had a great time with Liz, and as we drove home I thought that the vacation would end on an up note. Then in the car Juli said, "There’s a bug on Maggie." I thought, "Oh! She's so cute! She's concerned because a fly landed on Maggie" I turned to look where she was pointing and saw a blatant tic on the inside of Maggie's ear! We pulled over, bought tweezers and James pulled it off. I thought to myself, "Why should I be panicked that it had Lyme disease…just because the last place we went to a rest stop was in Lyme, Connecticut?!?!" Why don't they at least change the name of that town? Who wants to make a pit stop in Hepatitis, Rhode Island?
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We finally got home, and I calmed myself down by realizing that everything I was upset about was a luxury problem. I walked into my apartment, ready to do some new video blogs and discovered that I left my brand new iMac at Liz's house on the Cape…and she had left for Boston. Let me end with this chestnut: I need a vacation from my vacation. And a new iMac.
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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.)
