By Seth Rudetsky
04 Jan 2010

OK, on to 2003. That was the year I finally got my one-man play Rhapsody in Seth, directed by Peter Flynn, produced. One of my favorite parts was the beginning of the show when the lights would come up on me, sitting at a piano and playing "Rhapsody in Blue." I'd turn out to the audience with a smile and say: "This is the story of what it was like growing up talented and gay on Long Island. Subtitled: The Worst 17 years of my Life." The show was about the dichotomy of being praised as a child for being good on the piano but also, at the same time, hated by everyone at the school for "acting gay." There was also a lot of comedy in the show, like my diatribe against my parents for never hiring a babysitter and taking me to a slew of inappropriate movies when I was seven. The list included "Death Wish," "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' and "Taxi Driver"! And cut! Doing that show was so satisfying for me, because I had started to write it in 1999 and had an incredibly difficult time getting it produced. I have to thank Peter Breger who owned the Actors Playhouse for producing it and making it happen. Because of that show, I got signed with my agents (Abrams Artists) and I got interviewed on Sirius radio which led to me getting hired as the Broadway host. The nice version of the story is, after I was interviewed, Ray Romano (not the actor, the radio engineer) said he thought I'd be good as a host and asked me for a tape of myself. I gave him an audio of a Chatterbox (my live show at Don't Tell Mama) interview with Bebe Neuwirth. Four months later I got a call from Mike Peters who ran the Broadway station and he put me on as a host two nights a week, Saturday and Sunday. I now know that he was just trying me out and those are considered dead nights. Regardless, two weeks later, I was on seven days a week! I still got it! The not-nice version of the story is the guy who interviewed me initially asked me to come on his show to talk about Rhapsody in Seth. I got there and we chitty-chatted for a while. Then, when the show actually began airing, he started out the interview by literally saying, "Hey, Seth, I saw your show last night. I had just flown in from the West Coast and I have to apologize… I slept through most of it." That's right, he helped "sell" my show by telling the audience that he slept through the majority of it. Yay! SO the interview where Ray thought I'd be a great host was me at my most devastated/hostile. That's the personality trait that works on the radio? It either means I covered it up well, or he also thinks my mother would make a great radio host.

2004 was when I did the Hair concert for the Actors Fund. That was a great lesson in how you have to go for what you want from different angles. Billy Porter came over for a rehearsal (he sang "Abie Baby") and I asked him for ideas about who should sing "Easy To Be Hard." He immediately said I should get Jennifer Hudson from "American Idol." I told him that I liked her voice, but I didn't think she sang high enough (more on that later). He had a clip of her on his computer and when I listened, it convinced me to get her. I contacted someone I knew from "Idol" as well as my friend Jerry Sharell who knew Jennifer. The guy from "Idol" got back to me and said that Jennifer was doing the "American Idol" tour and her final performance was literally the night before the Hair concert. Unfortunately, he said, there was no way she could do it. Then Jerry called me back and said he spoke to Jennifer personally and she would do anything to make it happen! And she did. She learned the song during the tour, flew to NYC the morning of the concert and, that night, made her Broadway debut. P.S., as for me thinking she didn't sing high enough, she later told me that the "Idol" people didn't want her singing high on the show and made all of the songs in her lower register. What a great choice. I'm "shocked" that the people running that show would make a terrible musical decision…just listen to the beautiful medleys they do. Speaking of which, I can't wait to visit Six Flags over Ohio to see Rockin' Rollin' Review. P.S., I had to transpose "Easy to Be Hard" up three steps for her!

2005 is famous for me and my comedy partner Jack Plotnick flying to Las Vegas for the Hollywood Video conference, rehearsing all of our comedy bits for the higher ups and then promptly being fired on the day of the show. If you've never seen the song that sent them over the edge, here we are recreating it at my Chatterbox.

2006 was the year I got to perform at the Tony Awards! And by "perform," I mean, "have pre-recorded videos of myself shown to a limited in-house audience." I was filmed deconstructing different sections of previous Tony Awards and then they were shown to the Radio City Music Hall audience during the commercial breaks. It was actually amazing to have all those people watching me deconstruct things like the distinct lack of blinking during the I Love My Wife performance (53 seconds with nary a blink). Of course, one of my signature lack-of-recognition moments happened that night. I was watching from the audience, and right after I deconstructed Evita, a woman walked by me and said, "You're really funny." I could tell she wanted to say more, but, of course, I was more concerned with star-spotting and not with talking to random audience people, so I nodded politely, said, "Thank you," and looked away. It wasn't until she had walked up to the stage to present an award did I realize it was Julia Roberts. Argh! It's terrible to be a combination of star f****r and blind.

	Andrea Martin

That brings me to 2007 when I began this column. So, let me wrap up by saying we had a fun New Year's Eve party with many of our friends, including the brilliantly comedic Andrea Martin. I walked Maggie and took Andrea to get a cab around 11:30. It was hilarious watching her stand on 125th street in her stunning white coat and crazy high heels with her hand in the air muttering to random cars passing by, "Anybody? Anybody?" Happy 2010!

Seth Rudetsky has played piano in the pits of many Broadway shows including Ragtime, Grease and The Phantom of the Opera. He was the artistic producer/conductor for the first five Actors Fund concerts including Dreamgirls and Hair, which were both recorded. As a performer, he appeared on Broadway in The Ritz and on TV in "All My Children," "Law and Order C.I." and on MTV's "Made" and "Legally Blonde: The Search for the Next Elle Woods." He has written the books "The Q Guide to Broadway" and "Broadway Nights," which was recorded as an audio book on Audible.com. He is currently the afternoon Broadway host on Sirius/XM radio and tours the country doing his comedy show, "Deconstructing Broadway." He can contacted at his website SethRudetsky.com, where he has posted many video deconstructions.