By Harry Haun Not that she's giving up the nightclub life. "I'm lucky enough I can do both. As soon as this closes, I go to The Carlyle for two months with my husband — September to November."
The philandering Frieda who is making proper use of the park (for an assignation) is played by a new working mother, Stacie Morgain Lewis. "I auditioned back in March, had my baby in October and started rehearsing when she was seven weeks old," she said.
Therein hangs an interesting backstory: "When I first auditioned for the show, I was just shy of three months pregnant. Nobody knew — not my friends, nobody. They called and offered me the part, and they said, 'She has the part, but we know she's pregnant. Stephen Sondheim knows.' Stephen Sondheim had told them in the audition that that's who he wanted, 'but she's pregnant.' Flashfoward to almost a year later, we were at a party in his house, and I asked him how he knew I was pregnant. He said Mary Rodgers told him, 'The way to identify a pregnant woman is by the way she carried her hands.' He said, 'I noticed your hands.' Isn't that amazing? What a perceptive person to notice that!"
22 Feb 2008
Michael Mayer, Sara Ramirez, Jessica Hecht and Becky Ann Baker, Julia Murney, Jerry Dixon and Mario Cantone, Stephen Schwartz, Rob Ashford, Jane Krakowski and Maury Yeston, Euan Morton, Andrew Lippa and Christopher Sieber.
photos by Aubrey Reuben
Cumpsty has done Broadway musicals before (1776, 42nd Street) "but never," he pointed out with some fear and trembling, "for a living legend. He was at my audition. The fact I got the job meant, I assume, he approved me — so that took away one level of anxiety, but he was incredibly gracious. In fact, there was a phrase I was having a hard time with, and he offered to rewrite it for me. It was incredible — like, I would have my very own Stephen Sondheim phrase for the rest of my life. But then I figured it out, so he didn't have to."
Yul Brynner's last Anna, Mary Beth Peil, has a nice contrast in roles — the artist's mother in Act I, and a haughty, heady critic in Act II. "How much fun is that!" exclaimed Peil, who puts subtle touches on the critic that imply an intriguing sexual history. "I think both she and the mother have a very interesting history that influences both Georges."
Alexander Gemignani, who's the beefy, pipesmoking boatman sprawled out lazily on the grass in the left of the painting, goes back a long way with this show — and he remembers it: "I was five when it first came around. My dad [Paul, who was at the opening, as was Alexander's mother, singer-dancer Carolann Page] was the original music director, and I was in the rehearsal room, bouncing around, seeing some stuff.
"It's amazing to be a part of this now — truly, an honor and gift to be able to do these kinds of pieces. They don't come down the pike all the time." But when they do come, Gemignani is becoming an expert at catching them on second bounce. Save for the recent Les Miserables in which he was Jean Valjean, they all seem to have the same signature on them: "There's been Assassins, Sweeney Todd, this and Passion up at Lincoln Center. My fiancee said something really interesting. She said, 'Sondheim is like doing Shakespeare for the theatre. His standard is so singular. From the acting perspective, it's so rewarding. As good as music theatre gets — no, it's never quite as good as Sondheim."
A survivor from that Donner Pass of musicals, Drew McVety made it out of the Lone Star Love fall-out in Seattle in time to sign up for three small roles in Sunday in the Park. For him, the cherry on the sundae was the party that Sondheim threw for the company in his home. "We were lucky," he recalled. "We were there the night he won the Golden Globe for 'Sweeney Todd,' so we were kinda at the center of the universe that night."
Oklahoma-born, Texas-reared Ed Dixon gets two shots at ugly Americans abroad — a South Carolina tourist in Act I and a Texas curator in Act II. "It's the most thrilling thing to be a part of this," he admitted. It's also a relief from his previous exposure to Sondheim — Judge Turpin. "Sweeney Todd is so difficult and so dark that it's upsetting to do. It surprised me. I thought it was going to be such a joy when you get into that hideous head, but after doing it for a few months I was very pleased to take it off. But this [show] is so glorious you want to live in that world. And Sondheim's been around a lot. Openly, he's always very accommodating. He's been supportive and extremely effusive."
At one point in the evening — late — the room was filled two zaftig Ladies of the Lake: Spamalot's Tony-winning original, Sara Ramirez, and the current one who just crossed The Pond, Hannah Waddingham. "I made my Broadway debut on Jan. 18," she chirped proudly, "and I'm here till June 15." Christopher Sieber, her strong-lunged duet partner in the devastatingly accurate Andrew Lloyd Webber ribbing, "The Song That Goes Like This," met her in song in London and persuaded her to make the leap across. "I promised if she did it in America, I would do it with her," Sieber injected, and indeed he did return to his Tony-nominated part, Sir Dennis Galahad. "I leave March 23," he postscripted — to do Shrek with Sutton Foster and a fresh recruit from the Spamalot ranks, Greg Reuter.
While their hubbies were toiling away at "the office" (Dylan Baker at the Barrymore in November, and Byron Jennings at the Lyceum in Is He Dead?), Becky Ann Baker and Caroline McCormick table-hopped with fellow actresses Betsy Aidem and Jessica Hecht.
Baker was one of several Sondheimites who showed up. She and Mario Cantone were among the batch of Assassins (Sara Jane Moore and Samuel Byck) who took over Studio 54 in 2004. Others: Boyd Gaines (who'll be Herbie to Patti LuPone's Mama Rose in the Gypsy that bows March 27 at the St. James), John Weidman, a Sondheim librettist past (Pacific Overtures, Assassins) and present (Bounce, continuing in development); John Doyle, who directed the last two Broadway revivals of Sondheim (Sweeney Todd and Company) and is readying an original for the Walter Kerr on April 17 (John Bucchino's A Catered Affair).
Also attending were Jane Krakowski (heading back to "30 Rock" work — she was Miss Adelaide to Jenna Russell's Sarah Brown and Ewan McGregor's Sky Masterson in London's last Guys and Dolls), Terrence McNally (who had a successful reading of his Kander & Ebb show, The Visit on Feb. 19 and starts work Feb. 25 on Catch Me If You Can), Lauren Bacall, Bob Balaban (still glowing from the reviews he got for directing Ralph Fiennes and Susan Sarandon in HBO's "Bernard and Doris"), Rob Ashford and Mark Brokaw (choreographer and director of Cry-Baby, coming to the Marriott Marquis), Julia Murney, a festering nest of directors (Kathleen Marshall, Bill Irwin, Walter Bobbie, Scott Ellis, Michael Greif, Robert Longbottom and Jason Moore), Taboo Tony nominee Euan Morton (currently readying a nightclub act for The Algonquin's Oak Room), composer Andrew Lippa (whose Jules Feiffer musical, The Man in the Ceiling, had its first Disney reading Feb. 22 with Megan Lawrence, Steven Pasquale, Noah Galvin and Steve Rosen), Primary Stages' Casey Childs (hinting heavily that his current Hunting and Gathering may have a longer Off-Broadway life), Jason Fuchs (young star of Roundabout's super-sleeper, Speech and Debate, which ends its repeatedly extended run Feb. 24), Max Von Essen (late of Les Miz and a recent Jerry Springer survivor), playwright Jonathan Marc Sherman (who was represented recently on Theatre Row with a new play and at home with a new son, named Sam), recording exec Bill Rosenfield (in town from London to prepare the Passing Strange cast recording), Brooks Ashmanskas (freshly signed for Huntington/Williamstown's upcoming She Loves Me — not the Jack Cassidy role as much suspect but gamely against type in the Daniel Massey lead), Tommy Tune, Roger Rees, Susan Stroman, Martin Moran and Michael Mayer.
