A week in the life of actor, writer and music director Seth Rudetsky.
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Yay. It's spring and it snowed last week. What is up with that? Is it too much to ask for the weather to simply follow a schedule? Does the weather also have ADD like I do? Anyhoo, this week I saw more Broadway because everything is opening at once and I'm frantically trying to keep up like Lucy in the chocolate factory. On Wednesday, I took my mom to see Catch Me If You Can. Not surprisingly, I'm totally obsessed with Norbert Leo Butz's voice. If you haven't seen my deconstruction of his vibrato
Listen to Seth's Podcast: Celebrating Terrence McNally
and amazing hard R's, please watch this ASAP. Also, it was great to see Rachelle Rak in a great feature role as a Playboy bunny. If you don't remember, she was the one featured in the documentary "Every Little Step" — she was the frontrunner for the role of Sheila in the Chorus Line revival. At the final call back, she was told to simply do what she did at the last audition. The advice wasn't really helpful because the audition had been months before and she didn't remember what she had done. It put her into a panic and she lost the role. But now she's triumphing and looks amazing! I saw Marc Shaiman and wrote him a brava on Facebook. He wrote back with his usual sass, "Thanks for coming to Catch…. Our first Wednesday matinee. The ladies seemed to like it. You fit right in." Hmph. Speaking of matinee ladies, my mother pulled her usual panic based on nothing. We were standing in the lobby before the show and my mother immediately tensed because she heard the noise that signals the show is about to begin. What she actually heard was the beeping sound a truck makes when it backs up. Why would the new Broadway signal for starting a show be a slow "beep….beep….beep" issued from the street?
Monday night I went to a great fundraiser for Juilliard's The Acting Company, saluting Terrence McNally. There were so many great performances. Emily Skinner, who starred in The Full Monty (and is also featured on the Norbert video I just linked) told a great story before she sang. She was doing Full Monty when 9/11 happened and all Broadway shows were cancelled. A few days later they resumed and I remember there was a feeling from some people on Broadway of "why are we doing something so shallow when there are deep things in the world to be dealt with?" Cut to, a few days later, Emily came out of the stage door and was suddenly enveloped in a bear hug from behind. She reminded us that when a friend does that, it's a good feeling, when a stranger does, it's terrifying. Nonetheless, the stranger let her go and informed her that was an NYC firefighter. He told her that seeing the show that night made him feel something for the first time since 9/11. Emily was, of course, incredibly moved and after she left she waited at the end of the block and watched. Sure enough, he did that to every person exiting the stage door! Musicians, actors, hair, wardrobe etc.
John Glover at the Terrence McNally salute.
photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
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John Glover did the phone monologue from The Lisbon Traviata and was hilarious. If you don't know it, the monologue is spoken by an opera fanatic who is desperate for a bootleg recording of Maria Callas' Traviata from Lisbon. He's on the phone with a young guy who doesn't quite remember whether he saw it or not and John Glover is mind-boggled at how non-plussed the guy is. First he says, "Believe me, if you saw it, you'd remember it," but it soon becomes clear that the guy may have seen it and hardly remembers it. It essentially ends with John Glover telling him that Maria Callas died because people didn't fully appreciate how brilliant she was. He then yells "Murderer!" and hangs up. So funny! P.S., John Glover trying to jar the memory of this younger person reminded me of two things. First, growing up obsessed with musical theatre and having no one with my knowledge/passion/obsession to share it with. This was before online message boards. When I was nine, I was walking around constantly asking adults if they'd heard of Chicago and they'd always nod yes and then start singing the Judy Garland song, "Chicago, Chicago." NO! Infuriating! Had no one heard of the Fosse show besides me and Chita Rivera? Secondly, I was once on Sirius/XM, interviewing a pretty famous female Broadway producer. I mentioned the Dreamgirls concert I put up for the Actors Fund. She nodded vaguely and said, "Hmm…I think I saw it." I was flummoxed! She literally didn't remember? It starred Audra McDonald, Heather Headley and Lillias White and was the first big theatrical event after 9/11! It literally took place ten days later! Everyone who was there that night (onstage and in the audience) told me that the experience was so cathartic for them and all she gives me is a "Hmmm…I think I saw it"? Unbelievable! I'm still in a rage. The interview didn't quite end with me yelling "Murderer!," but only because of my fear of copyright infringement.
Continued...
