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Well, I've done what I've promised (so far)!

Since I discovered Youtube, I've been putting up video deconstructions of songs I'm obsessed with… but due to laziness, I've been posting them about as often as Audra MacDonald wins a Tony Award (every two years). So, I announced last week that starting April 1, I would do 30 deconstructions in 30 days…and I've actually done one every day! I'm loving it because I get to tell everybody what I think is brilliant about certain singers/songs. I posted one about Zanna, Don't! and was so happy when people commented that they had to go out and buy the CD. Go to http://www.youtube.com/user/zonkzink to view them all.

This week began, as usual, at In the Heights. It's literally my eighth time seeing it, and I'm Still Obsessed. I went this time with my sister Nancy and my two nieces: Rachel Sarah and Eliana. Both of them are obsessed with the MTV Legally Blonde reality show that I did, and they remembered the moment when the two finalists (Autumn and Bailey) first walked on the stage of The Palace Theatre. They bathed in the lights with their arms outstretched, and I busted them in my MTV video blog for looking like they were sunbathing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6A0EjRBpIk&feature=related). Anyhoo, after the show, we went to say hi to Andrea Burns, and the doorman told us to wait on the stage. I told Rachel Sarah and Eliana I was going to take a picture of them on their first Broadway stage, and they immediately assumed the Bailey/Autumn sunbathe position. I don't know if they were busting the girls, or if they thought that's the pose you automatically hit whenever you first set foot on a Broadway stage. Either way, Brava!

On Wednesday I had the lovely Ann Sanders from Avenue Q at my Sirius/XM Live on Broadway Show. She told the audience that she bases her blunt portrayal of her character (Christmas Eve) on her mother's signature Asian directness. She gave a reading of one of her mother's typical comments about someone's weight ("You're fat"), and all was clear. Ann also played Belle in Beauty and the Beast and said that at one point, her wig came loose on the sides, so she literally had tendrils hanging down the side of her head. In other words, she was not only the first Asian Belle, but the first Hasidic one as well. Then, when she kept brushing them out of her face, she became the first Belle as played by Cher. No wonder the show closed. (see this video for proof http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HBPAgOvAXo)

Then I had brilliant beltress, Shoshana Bean, come onstage. Shoshana sounded amazing when she took over as Elphaba in Wicked, and I asked her about the time the lift didn't work during "Defying Gravity." Essentially, when Shoshana realized she wasn't going up during the flying section, she unstrapped herself from the harness and strutted along the front of the stage with sass. This story was recounted in a former column where Marty Thomas told me that the chorus didn't know what to do because they couldn't stand and point at Shoshana towering above them. So they made the bold choice of crouching down as low to the floor as possible to make it look like the 5'2" Shoshana was in flight. It didn't. Shoshana informed us that she felt since the audience wasn't getting flying, they needed to get something... and the option she chose was crazy riffing on every single note. Cut to during intermission she found out that the original music director, Stephen Oremus, was in the audience. After the show, he sternly folded his arms and asked, "What… was… that?" She was like, "Dude! It was a special circumstance! The audience needed something to make up for the lack of me in the air…so I riffed it!" I'm sure on the outside he was like, "Not cool" but inside he was like "Miss Thing! You better add six notes to a two note phrase. Work!" Shoshana is performing April 7 at Le Poisson Rouge….let the riffing continue! www.ShoshanaBean.com for all details…plus her new amazing CD!

At the Sirius/XM live show, we have a game show sequence in the middle called the Showtune Showdown. We bring up two audience members as contestants, and then the celebrity guest(s) plays for a member of the audience. The prize is two tickets to a show. Well, usually, the Broadway people are the worst players. They essentially only know information about the show they're starring in at the moment. One exception was Andrea Burns, who had at her disposal more Broadway trivia than a stack of Playbills and Shoshana Bean who feigns she's all about being a pop star but probably spends all of her free time "friending" Broadway fan pages. I was proud of her for winning the game show but also obsessed with one of the contestants. He was only 18 and hasn't had the years I've had sitting up til 3 AM on IBDB.com. I was asking a question that referenced the famous scene in My Fair Lady when Henry Higgins makes Eliza Doolittle say, "In Hartford Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen." So I asked, Where do "hurricanes hardly happen?" and the 18-year- old buzzed in right away. He then proceeded to say, "Uh…New York…," and I quickly cut him when I realized that he was listing states that rarely get hurricanes. I thought it was hi-larious that instead of relating it to Broadway, he thought I was asking for information from the Weather Channel. But, I was also judgmental because when I was growing up, I wanted to be a weatherman, and anyone who's studied weather knows that New York does get hurricanes! Just to list a few: Belle in 1976, Donna and the big one in 1938. Anyone? Any other weather nerds? Silence.

Right after my Shoshana interview, I got back to Sirius and found out I had a last-minute-booked interview with one of my comedy idols…Cloris Leachman! First of all, she looks beautiful. I told her I was obsessed with how stunning she looked when she won her Oscar, and she told me that she was exhausted that whole day and thought she was going to faint. Her version of looking exhausted is gorgeous…check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuYk6ypdBug. I asked her what her early career was like and turns out, she was taking voice lessons from Mary Martin's teacher when Mary was in South Pacific. Cloris heard they were having auditions for the national tour and felt it would be great to go in for it because she knew couldn't go out on tour, so the pressure would be off. She auditioned for Rodgers and Hammerstein, and they told her that they wanted her to be Nellie either on Broadway, on tour or in London. They decided to give her a chance to learn the part and make it her own, so they arranged for her to play Nellie on Broadway for four weeks! And, before that, she had never sung a song all the way through. After her Broadway stint, Rodgers and Hammerstein wanted to sign her to a nine-year deal (like a movie studio), which she didn't want to do…so she never played the part again. Cra-za-zy.

Cloris also talked about doing live television and how once Barbara Bel Geddes had a quick change and, while she was changing, heard her cue. Barbara went running back onstage, but the director who was watching above the set came running down the aisle, then backstage and suddenly tackled her before she came on TV. Why? Because she didn't finish her quick change, and in her panic was going to go on live television with her top completely off! I don't know if "Bel Geddes" is Italian for "exposed knockers" but it almost was!

I then told Cloris how obsessed I was with her "…some warm milk" section in the film "Young Frankenstein," and she suddenly launched into it with me. When she got to "…Ovaltine?" I couldn't believe how lucky I was, actually getting to hear her do that hilarious moment live. She really does "still got it," and said she'd totally do Broadway again if there's a good role. Listen up, producers of August: Osage County!  Continued...