By Seth Rudetsky
15 Mar 2010

Kevin Chamberlin was the other guest star who came by right before his rehearsal for The Addams Family. I made him tell my favorite "The show must go on" story to Lynn and Stephen, which is that during one performance of Seussical, he passed a kidney stone. Of course, they then all decided it couldn't have been any worse than the whole experience of putting that show on. If you don't know, it was marred with so many difficulties, including the costume designer being fired right before previews began and then the star of the show being replaced after the show opened! The amazing news is that Seussical is now one of the most-produced musicals in the country! So, brava! The show ended with Kevin singing "Alone in the Universe." He said he was going to try to hold it together emotionally because he hadn't sung it in the same room as Ahrens and Flaherty since the show happened ten years ago. And since we didn't have a little boy on hand to play Jo-Jo, Stephen sang with Kevin. Turns out, by the end of the song, I couldn't keep it together emotionally. It was so moving! If you love their music like I do, go see their big concert coming up April 19 at the 92nd St. Y Tribeca and check out news and amazing videos at their site: AhrensAndFlaherty.com.

This week was thrilling for me because it was the culmination of something that began at a dinner last year. James and I went out to our favorite Thai place on Ninth Avenue, and we were talking about how expensive New York is and how hard it is to get theatre work, and we started talking about the fact that the best way to get work is to create it. Instead of trying out for a perfect role, I always say you should create it. I knew that James wrote, but I had never read the play he had written years ago because it was based on something that happened to him, and I was fearful it was going to be an hour-and-a-half therapy session under the guise of a two-character play. Nevertheless, I asked to read it that night…and turns out, I loved it! I told him he had to get it produced. He spent a year fixing it up, and in January we decided to start sending it out. My friend Jack Plotnick told us we had to do a reading of it because people don't want to read plays, they want to see them. But who should star in it? It needed to be an amazing older actor. James decided he wanted Len Cariou. We sent it to him…and a few days later he said yes! Last Friday afternoon, they did a reading, and it was thrilling! So many people in the audience were weeping at the end of the reading, but, of course, none more than me. I was so proud of James, and it was unbelievable to see him acting opposite Sweeney Todd! I won't tell you the whole plot, but here's the premise, (which really happened to James ten years ago): When he lived in L.A., he studied with a great teacher named Carlos Noble who worked at MGM in its heyday. One day, James came to his apartment and discovered that Carlos had had a stroke six hours earlier. James stayed with him for 36 hours trying to convince him to go to a hospital…because he was a Christian Scientist. The play is called Art and Science, and I can't wait to see what happens next with it!

Tonight (Monday) I'm going to introduce the Actors Fund production of Valley of the Dolls starring Heidi Blickenstaff, Julia Murney, Tovah Feldshuh, Martha Plimpton and the phenomenal Charles Busch as Helen Lawson. Go to www.ActorsFund.org for tickets and when you're done, you can come "crawlin' back to Broadway!"

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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.