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ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Opening Night
By Seth Rudetsky
15 Oct 2007
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Stephen Schwartz and Joe Mantello at the opening night of The Ritz.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben | A week in the life of actor, musician and Chatterbox host Seth Rudetsky.
Um…any other songs with open? Let's see … I remember a song that the French Folk group Malicorne sang; "Ouvrez, ouvrez la porte…"
Quelqu'on? Personne. (Tip o' the hat to last week's column).
My point is, last Thursday was opening night, and it was so much fun! But, first, back to a review of last week's events. I spent last Sunday night at the Gerswhin (nee Uris) Theatre seeing Julia Murney's final performance in Wicked. Brava, Murney! Such a great actress and she does my favorite "nothing's gonna bring me down" in "Defying Gravity" because she slides up to the E flat. "Nothing's gonna bri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ing me down!" I thought it was just her way of adding sass, but she told me that it's easier for her to hit the high note that way. Perhaps tip o' the hat to Julie Andrews ending of "Le Jazz Hot"? Perhaps not.
Okay, then Monday my boyfriend got a babysitter. That was so exciting! We were actually able to make plans at night. Normally, we're like the opposite of vampires. We're only out during the day. Anyhoo, we hightailed over to Ted Sperling's gorgeous apartment for my first foray into one of his signature game nights. He has the ground floor of a brownstone with a beautiful garden in the back. I decided that this would serve as the beginning of many, many trips to his city oasis. Of course, he immediately informed me that he's moving. Well, at least I got to see it once. Anyhoo, there were a ton of people whom I did not know, some I recognized, and some I did many low paying readings with. The gorgeous Kelli O'Hara, soon-to-be Nellie Forbush in Lincoln Center's South Pacific was there with her new hubby, Gregg Naughton. Also, I hung out with cutie pie Steven Pasquale, whom I heard is rumored to play Lt. Cable. I was also thrilled to see the multi-talented Jeff Blumencrantz, whom I first met while I was still in college doing a New York internship back in the late-mid-eighties!
We saw those performing twins Will and Anthony Nunziata, and Jeff told me the name of their show was "Double Trouble" just because he wanted to think of the most hackneyed name for a twin show. Of course, I believed him and then later found out their show has a great name: "Thank God the Egg Split." The mind bogglingly young Michael Arden, fresh off his Streisand tour, was also there. Also, my friend David Turner, who plays Duff in The Ritz, came and it was so fun to see him "out of school," as it were.
Anyway, we all came to play "running charades." That's where you have three teams (or in this case, three teams consisting of various Tony nominees/winners/egregiously overlooked), and each team is in a different room. There is a person with ten titles (movies, songs, plays, books, etc.) who is centrally located, and every time a team gets a right answer, they run back and get the next clue. Whatever team gets all ten first, wins. My favorite mistake was when David Turner gave the title "Dobie Gillis," which was an old TV show. The Kelli O'Hara team was stumped on it for the whole time period. We later found out it was because the clue giver had never heard of it and mistakenly told the group: A), It was a song and B), it was one word. Wow. Way to stump a team!
My ten clues had the theme of clanky sequels including "Archie's Place," "Golden Palace" and "Joanie Loves Chachi."
Tuesday at Sirius radio, I interviewed one of my favorite Broadway composers, Stephen Schwartz. He's being saluted by all these fabulous Broadway singers Oct. 19 at Town Hall. (FYI, Oct. 20, my favorite Broadway beltress, Betty Buckley, is doing her show there!) I do not think that he gets enough credit for coming up with a new sound for Broadway. He said that when he first started out, he wanted to write Broadway music that had the essence of Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, The Mamas and the Papas, James Taylor and various other late sixties, early seventies singer/songwriters. He created a meld of all of them combined with his own sass. And, he writes his own lyrics! He became super successful at a very young age. He had the nerve to have Godspell, Pippin and The Magic Show happen all in his twenties. He said he was shocked when he went from Godspell to Pippin because Godspell was Off-Broadway and so informally put together. The cast would improvise harmony and when it sounded good, they would keep it. When he walked into rehearsals for Pippin, he was shocked that the cast wanted the harmony written out! But, he did write it out, and now listen to the amazing back up for "Morning Glow" or the beautiful harmony in the finale. My favorite part is when Ben Vereen and Leland Palmer sing "Think about the beauty...in one perfect flame." Gorgeous!
He was very concerned with trying to sell his cast albums as crossover pop albums, and that's why he decided to cut the opening number off of the Godspell album. I guess he thought that people who liked pop music didn't want their albums to begin "Wherefore, O men of Athens…". He also said that he took out a lot of the brass parts in the Pippin orchestration on the album so it didn't sound too Broadway. That's also why "Magic to Do" does the signature pop "repeat and fade" at the end. And why Irene Ryan really funks out during "No Time At All." Anybody? Nobody.
I saw Pippin when I was a little kid, and one of the few things I remember is that the lyrics to "No Time at All" came down on a scroll for the audience to sing with. Stephen said that he loved folk groups growing up, especially The Weavers, and they always had a sing-a-long and he decided that when he did a Broadway show, he'd have one, too. I'm glad it was The Weavers he liked and not Ozzie Osbourne because seeing Ms. Ryan bite the head off a bat would be not cool. Anachronistic? Anybody?
Stephen also confirmed the crazy David Merrick story that happened during The Baker's Wife. Producer Merrick had the nerve to hate "Meadowlark," but everyone else wanted it to stay in the show. He demanded that it be cut and decided to handle it himself. He snuck into the pit after a Wednesday matinee and stole all the music so the orchestra couldn't play it that night! Brava, cuckoo bird! Continued...
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