By Seth Rudetsky
18 May 2009
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| Seth and sister Nancy |
A week in the life of actor, musician and Chatterbox host Seth Rudetsky.
I'm sitting in the Norfolk airport waiting for my flight back to NYC.
I've been here visiting my sister Nancy, and this morning I kept saying that I was worried about rain. Nancy asked me, "Why would you think it would rain specifically when your flight is supposed to take off?" Cut to: My flight's been delayed due to rain. Why does my mental imaging only come true when it's a hindrance? I noticed I have not won a Tony Award nor have I reached my goal weight, but the cable guy does show up during the two minutes I'm in the shower.
Anyhoo, I'm down in Virginia not only to visit Nancy and my two nieces, Eliana and Rachel Sarah, but also to take them to see the national tour of Wicked. We went on Thursday, and the show was great. It also happened to be opening night, so there was extra excitement in the air. I was really impressed by the crazily big set. How the hell do they haul that all over the country? It certainly doesn't fit in a carry-on. Speaking of which, the plane to Norfolk is so small that they pretend you can bring carry-on, but before you get on the plane, they check it into baggage. Passive/aggressive. It was "fun" to look out the window of the plane and see propellers instead of jets. I've always wondered what it was like to fly in a B-52 during the 1940's and now I know: nauseating.
Back to Wicked. Marcie Dodd is a brava as Elphaba and Madame Morrible is being played by Marilyn Caskey, who was brilliant as Electra in the recent Gypsy revival. Norfolk is a conservative town, and since Eliana is only 12, Nancy decided to try to appear like a good mother. After the sexy touching and major making-out between Elphaba and Fiyero during "No Good Deed," Nancy whispered, "Girls…don't watch that last part." It's called being a good mother while trying to break the time/space continuum.
And now let's talk about the parallel to Nothin' Like a Dame… Last Monday was the fourth Leading Men concert! Like the past two, Alan Muraoka was the director, I was the music director and John Tartaglia was the host. It raised more money than ever…over $10,000! While John was onstage, he mentioned Beauty and the Beast, and I asked him how he got the fire to come out of his hands when he played Lumiere. He said that Lumiere carries propane on his back, and that's what lights the fire. Isn't that what those trucks have that always crash and burst into flames on the interstate? I guess that sounds safe. He also said that during his put-in rehearsal, he was in full costume offstage with the man who was in charge of teaching him how to use the fire. Right before John went on he was told, "Oh, by the way. The only thing in your costume that's not fireproof is your wig." And…places. He said that the publicity shots of him show him posed with his head at a crazy angle, avoiding the flames. What a worrywart. I'm sure nothing could have gone wrong. And, I'm sure that's what they said to Margaret Hamilton just before she was engulfed in flames during the filming of "The Wizard of Oz."
Jonathan Groff performed at The Leading Men IV, and we have a history of doing one-nighters together where I give him a note during rehearsal and during the show it makes him laugh onstage and/or ruins his performance. During the Broadway's Back concert that we did when the big strike was over, he had a lyric that said, "There was no business in restaurants…". I told him that "There was" had too many syllables and it should be one. For some reason, we changed it to "T'were no business in restaurants…" which was sort of ye olde English with a smattering of making of no sense. I posted the video on my website, and you can see him start to laugh halfway through his verse because he looks at me in the pit. Then, in last year's Leading Men concert, he sang "Try Me" from She Loves Me. During an acting moment in the middle of the song that's supposed to take place in silence, I came in early and started playing. It threw him, which, of course, led to his signature onstage laughter. This year, he sang a medley from The Sound of Music where he inappropriately went back and forth between the title song, "Do Re Mi" and "The Lonely Goatherd." I told him that right before the end I should stop and say to him, "Well, say it, Sister Margaretta!" and then he should say, "Maria…makes me…laugh!" Well, we added it to the show that night, but the audience laughed so much that he got thrown and came back into the song singing the wrong section. The song was supposed to end fairly quickly, but he was back in the middle of it. I thought I made it obvious that we were about to end it, but he kept singing….even after I stopped playing. He finally realized it was over because the piano had stopped so he arbitrarily said goodbye, British-style, to the audience. In other words, instead of ending the medley by signing, "Do re mi fa so la ti do…so do!" He went, "Do re mi fa (realizes piano has stopped playing, and he's now singing a cappella)… Cheers!" Cheers? Is he Dame Judi Dench? For more inappropriate laughter, check out how much time we wasted by giggling/guffawing and cackling during the recording of my audio book version of "Broadway Nights." http://sethrudetsky.com/blog/2008/10/ Continued...
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