By Seth Rudetsky
17 Aug 2009

After rehearsing all week, we finally debuted Seth's Broadway 101 at Ars Nova, and it went great! It was sold-out (it was an Actors Fund benefit), and my sister Nancy and her family came up from Virginia to see it. After the show, Nancy was telling me about an Ann Reinking-type sitting in front of her, loving the show. I didn't understand what her point was until I realized she was telling me that it was the Ann Reinking sitting in front of her loving the show!! AH!! Star-struck! Right before the show, my choreographer Rickey Tripp (from In the Heights) asked me if I like to know who's in the audience and I said no . Thank God because I would have horrified to "dance" in front of her and would not only have spent the whole show thinking, "Every move you make, Roxie is watching" but I know so much about her career that I would have included "Cassie's replacement is watching" and "Pippin's Catherine understudy is watching."

At the end of the show, I give the audience a test about various Broadway terms and I sing a middle C and said, "Who makes this, (sings) AH!...into this!" and then the whole ensemble runs out and sings an enormous chord to demonstrate what a vocal arranger does. Unfortunately, typical of most benefits, we didn't get enough time to tech the show, and the dancers didn't know that immediately after the section about where we demonstrate a quick change, they have to come back onstage to demonstrate vocal arrangements. So I asked, "Who turns this, AH!....into this-" and instead of a full ensemble running out and singing a beautiful chord, a dancer ran out. Literally one. And the note she sang is the same one I'm on. So the beautiful vocal arrangement harmony the audience was supposed to hear was literally two notes. In unison. It was hi-larious.

Also typical of most benefits, I had a last-minute cast drop-out (Friday night at 11:30 PM!), so I texted my friend Marya Grandy who, right away, agreed to do the show, and the audience went crazy for her. She and Gay Willis sounded phenomenal together. Celina Carvajal sassed the quick-change section, Tituss Burgess sounded gorgeous on his song (apparently Ann Reinking loved that section, according to the spying eyes of my sister), and Andy Karl was s-e-x-y in the finale. And, I had Brian Schwartz play me at 13 years old, and every time during rehearsal that I'd forget something in the script, he immediately knew my line. It's always "fun" to work with a child. I must save my biggest shout out for the ensemble. The last time I did the show, I did it old-school with a singing ensemble and a dancing ensemble. This time I did it with just eight singer/dancers, and I cannot believe their talent level. I knew they'd all be amazing dancers (with amazing bodies to further devastate me) but on top of that, their singing is so good . The opening number has a kick-line, and I hate doing it because there are two brilliant singers on either side of me and I have to hear my own clanky voice mixed in with theirs. It's a classic example of "one of these things is not like the other" re-purposed as "two of these people are super-talented, and one isn't." And, a special shout-out goes to my stage manager Jeffrey Davolt and his team. I'm sure it's a joy to stage manage me because I refuse to stick to a script, so you have to constantly second guess what the cues are for lighting and sound. And by "a joy," I mean I hope Jeff is doing my show next week and not taking me to small claims court for stress-related illness. And, the band sounded so great despite the fact that my conductor, Steve Freeman, was seated in a completely different area. Essentially, they were in Queens, and he was in Brooklyn. And not close-to-the-city Borough Park, Brooklyn — like four different subway lines, a shuttle bus and a hovercraft Brooklyn. Also, brava to Rickey Tripp, who's out of In the Heights temporarily because of an injury but took over as choreographer. I essentially told him to schedule his physical therapy around rehearsals — and he did! We have two more shows on Sundays, Aug. 23 and 30, so take a gander; visit www.SethRudetsky.com for tickets. Peace out!

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