By Seth Rudetsky
31 Aug 2009

The woman who was scheduled to play Ann Harada's part in the London Avenue Q got a TV show and had to drop out right before the show opened, so the producers asked Ann to come and play the role in London. She explained to the producers that she had a husband and a child and her parents lived with her. They said it was fine and paid for them all to come! I asked Ann to tell the audience what she calls her parents and she said, "My staff." Brava. Ann told us that the British cast were all young kids right out of theatre school. She said they were all around 23 years old, and when she walked into rehearsal they all gushed with British accents, "Oh, Miss Harada. We so enjoy you on the original cast album!" She said they essentially treated her like Elaine Stritch. Ann and Jen were telling us tidbits about the early days of the show and turns out, the character of "Brian" was named that because during the initial readings because he was played by a fellow BMI writer named Brian. He wound up not getting the role Off-Broadway because he didn't sing well enough which was probably upsetting, but I'm sure his Tony Award for writing the lyrics to Next to Normal was a nice consolation prize. That's right, Brian was originally Brian Yorkey! The other interesting casting choice is that the character of Gary Coleman was originally played not only by a woman, but by a white woman! Amanda Green was also a fellow BMI writer, and she did all the early readings but was finally replaced because the creators thought it was too many steps removed from Gary Coleman to make sense to the audience. However, apparently having a black woman play it is sometimes too close to the real Gary Coleman. When Anika and Danielle were on tour, the swings from the show would sit in the audience and when Danielle would come out, they'd hear people say, "Is it him? Yes! Yes, it is. It's Gary Coleman!" And, often Danielle would get entrance applause! I haven't seen that much gender confusion since my ex-boyfriend Aaron was at the gym a few years ago. He decided to be nice to the guy walking right behind him, so Aaron held open the door to the men's locker room and politely motioned him in saying, "After you"… and it was a woman.

When Avenue Q came to London, Cameron Mackintosh felt the Brits would be really confused if Gary Coleman wasn't played by a guy. He was also nervous that no one would know who Gary Coleman was, so they made the character a former child actor name "Job"…as in the guy who a lot of bad things happen to. Then, after a while, they made him a former child actor who just happened to have the first name of "Gary." Finally, they tried calling him Gary Coleman and turns out the audience knew who it was. Phew. A lot of unnecessary energy was spent changing something that didn't need changing. It's like when they added the character of "Punjab" to the "Annie" movie. Who needed him? Or when they replaced "Hello, Twelve Hello, Thirteen" with the song "Surprise" in the "Chorus Line" film. Why? The "surprise" was I was devastated.

OK, I did two performances of Seth's Broadway 101 last night and they were so fun. I got my first review (in AM NY) and didn't want to read it, good or bad, but of course my friend Jack Plotnick emailed me that it was fantastic, and I had to use all of these pull quotes: "Rudetsky has really hit his creative stride with Seth's Broadway 101…an irresistible piece of theater. Here's hoping that the intimate show...eventually receives the extended run it deserves." I guess my version of "not reading it" is called "having someone else read it and send me all the amazing comments." Peace out and happy September!

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