Hello from lovely New Jersey Transit. "Lovely" means crowded and hot, right? I'm on the train to get to [title of show] rehearsal. It's a lovely hour ride each way (see previous definition of "lovely"). The other fun part is there are young pretty college girls sitting in front of me passing around juice laced with alcohol. It's completely appropriate because it's 10:30 in the morning. Regardless, I'm loving rehearsal. We spent the first three days learning the music, and I appreciate the score even more than I did before. It's so lean, and all of the lyrics are so specific to the characters and

Listen to Seth's Podcast: Rehearsing [title of show]

the "journey" (not to sound too actor-y) they're on. Thankfully, my co-star Tyler Maynard has the high notes of a young Patti LuPone, so I've manipulated him into taking the top part in every harmony section. At one point, I finally offered to switch a section with him, but he saw through my generous offer and mentioned that the "high note" I was willing to take was an F. As Samantha Stevens would say… "Well?"

On the first day of rehearsal, there was the signature fun "meet and greet" that is done at most shows, AKA everyone introduces themselves and the producers usually splurge for bagels and some sassy side dishes. Well, George Street went all out, and the food spread was a lot more than just bagels. There were cakes and cheeses and general deliciousness. The other pertinent information is that David Saint, the artistic director of George Street, listens to my Sirius/XM show. Unfortunately, this created a perfect storm because he happened to hear me talk on the radio about going on a diet for [title of show] and, during the meet and greet, as the all the scrumptious food was unveiled, I was unceremoniously handed a bucket that had printed on the outside: "Seth TOS Diet." It was filled to the brim with veggies and fruit. How helpful…and devastating.

We were all talking about the number "Monkeys and Playbills," where my character has a stack of Playbills from crazily obscure flop musicals. The stage management team has been frantically searching eBay for the Playbills, but when David Saint heard the names of the shows he was like, "Where's the obscure part? I have them all at home." Turns out, he grew up in Boston, and he saw every single show that passed through there before Broadway. And there were some doozies he got to see! Dude, Got Tu Go Disco, Prettybelle. He told me that he has the original program for Follies that describes the place and time of the show simply as "A party on the stage of this theater." It was then promptly changed. Why? Well, it didn't literally say, "The show itself is a party on the stage of this theater" it just said there was a party on the stage of the theater. Therefore, half the audience stayed after the show expecting a party!