By Seth Rudetsky
19 Jan 2009

	Seth with the cast of Forbidden Broadway

Thursday at the Chatterbox I had the cast of the current and hy-sterical cast of Forbidden Broadway. Gina Kreiezmar was the understudy in the show for twelve years before finally taking a main part. She wanted to stay as the understudy for all those years because it allowed her to raise her son. Essentially, she was able to be in her apartment at night and had a beeper in case she had to perform. Unfortunately, she had to go on last minute for one performance and couldn't get a babysitter, so she brought her toddler son along. She was in the middle of a Dame Judi Dench parody, heard the audience laughing up a storm and thought, "Boy! I'm really killing today. still got it!" Unfortunately, like the "I Love Lucy" episode where Ricky, Fred and Lucy upstage Ethel, Gina was being upstaged by her three-year-old son, who wandered out on stage looking for her! (PS, for those of you youngsters who don't know the Lucy reference, I put the clip on my website).

Christina Bianco got out of college and spent a year touring as Dora, The Explorer (she cautioned "Don't knock children's theatre…it let me buy my apartment!"). Getting cast in Forbidden Broadway has been a dream come true because she'd been obsessed with the show ever since she was a kid and waited years to be old enough to finally be in it. Speaking of years, Michael West spent years following Ethel Merman's career across the country and actually went to the auction of her estate. On the Don't Tell Mama's stage he brought a dry-cleaning bag containing the dress Ethel used in concert! I was impressed/uncomfortable/coveting.

Saturday night I christened (Bar Mitzvahed?) my new apartment by having the first game night. The players: Michael Lee Scott (the asst. choreographer for The Ritz who came up with the idea of putting the white gloves on an umbrella for my "Magic to Do" spot), Paul Castree (gearing up for 9 to 5), Kevin Chamberlin (in town doing a workshop of Addams Family) and Sally Rudetsky (my mother, coming off yet another failed commercial audition). Kevin said that the directors of Addams Family (who also did Shockheaded Peter) are brilliant, and he's loving playing Uncle Fester. We first hauled out Pictionary, and Paul and Kevin were an annoyingly knowledgeable team. Kevin quickly drew a picture of the U.S., then Great Britain and then three little land masses. We all thought they were random shapes, but suddenly Paul started spitting out geographical locations and after each one Kevin nodded 'til Paul got the answer. It literally sounded like this: PAUL: "Scandinavia? (Nod) Norway? (Nod) Sweden? (Nod) Finland!" What the-? None of us knew what happened and just stared slack-jawed. Paul started explaining that Scandinavia is, in fact, three different countries, and I glared and got some low-fat Edy's ice cream. Then we played Taboo, and my mother simply calls out answers not based on the clues, but based on whatever's in her head at the moment. I was trying to make my team guess the word "raccoon," so I decided to use the image of a woman whose mascara is running, and the dark circles under her eyes makes her look like a raccoon. As I was describing it, my mother spouted off an irrelevant word. I completely ignored her and kept going, which for some reason made her think I implied she was on the right track, so she took her random word and refined it. This was how it went:

SETH: (looks at card, sees raccoon and starts describing it). Uh…I'm a woman and I'm crying so my mascara is running-
MOM: Witch!
SETH: So I look like a-
MOM: Warlock!

What? After the turn, Paul Castree acted out what happened, and Kevin Chamberlin laughed so hard he was literally crying. We did a little film version on my website, so if you want to see my apartment, Paul and my game-losing mother, get thee to SethRudetsky.com.

This week I'm doing "Celebrity Autobiography" (Jan. 19), and tomorrow (Jan. 20) I'm doing a fundraiser for Artists Striving To End Poverty (founded by Mary-Mitchell Campbell) at Joe's Pub. Wednesday's Sirius/XM Live on Broadway show at the Times Square Information Center will have the cast of the York Theater's upcoming Zanna, Don't benefit and Andrea Burns from In the Heights. Okay, gotta go! I started vocal coaching again, so I have to clean up my apartment asap for my first appointment. And by "clean" I mean get another bowl of Edy's low-fat ice cream. Peace out!

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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" and the novel "Broadway Nights." He has played piano in the orchestras of 15 Broadway musicals and hosts the BC/EFA benefit weekly interview show Seth's Broadway Chatterbox at Don't Tell Mama every Thursday at 6 PM. He can be contacted by visiting www.sethrudetsky.com.)