This week started with an installment of Celebrity Autobiography at The Triad. This is the show where various actors get up and read sections from actual celebrity autobiographies. All of it is real…and mind boggling. When Joan Lunden describes in "Hi, I'm Joan Lunden" how she lays her clothes out at night in the order that she puts them on the morning, why do I need that explained any further? She literally writes, "For instance: Panties, stockings, skirt, some sort of blouse or top…," I get it!

This Monday I'm doing my signature reading of Star Jones' "You Have to Stand For Something, Or You'll Fall for Anything," and Gene and Dayle Pack (who created the show) have added a new section from the book for me to read. I love saying, "People ask me all the time how I see myself." Then I stare at the audience quizzically and say, "Am I a woman?" followed by a long pause. I'm obsessed because Star should have written, "Am I just a woman," but instead she earnestly asks the most basic of questions that is usually answered by a quick glance downward. One of the stars reading last week was Matthew Broderick, who is such a funny guy. He was devastated while he was performing because, as he told me, "I tripped on the way up to the stage and I never emotionally recovered." He said he felt the audience saw it happen and "I broke their trust…I broke their trust." There were so many "Saturday Night Live" people there as well, and I was totally intimidated being surrounded by such quick-witted hilarity backstage. A group of them were talking about some celeb and one of them asked, "Did he act well?" Jason Sudeikis corrected them, with mock pomposity, "He listened well. Someone asks me, 'Is he a good actor?" I say, "He's a good listener." I loved the acting-school pretentiousness.

On Monday afternoon I did an interview with Jason Robert Brown for the Broadway Artists Alliance, which is a program for kids to come and train for a few days and then present a song or a monologue for casting agents and agent/managers. First of all, the kids were so great! I was super impressed with how "on their gig" they were. Also, the monologues were so fun to listen to. One girl did "The Judy Miller Show" (the 11-year-old girl-stuck-in-her-bedroom character that Gilda Radner used to do). I think I'm stealing it. It begins with "I'm bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored!" Which, unfortunately, is sometimes the reaction I get from casting people during one of my audition monologues.

Jason talked about his first big job in New York which was at the WPA Theater music directing New York Rock, the musical Yoko Ono wrote. The music was as great as other songs she's written and recorded. Let me repeat: It was at the same level as other music she has put out in the world. 'Nuff said…and implied. It was a "challenging" experience for Jason, and as a thank you, the WPA offered to do something for him. He asked them to produce a revue of his songs, and that's how Songs for a New World got a production. He knew Andrea Burns from the summer camp they had both gone to when they were tweens-teenagers (French Woods), and then he ran into her when he moved to NY. She started doing demos for him and that segued into her getting cast in his show. He used to accompany Brooks Ashmanskas and Billy Porter because they'd both come in and sing at Don't Tell Mama, where Jason worked in the piano bar, and that's how they both wound up in the show. I love how Jason met all three of them in everyday life, and I feel it's a perfect illustration of how the people you start out with can wind up working with you in the big league. And by "big league," I mean "limited Off-Broadway run," but regardless, it's cool!

Tuesday night, James and I went to see Betty Buckley at Feinstein's. She did songs from her new CD "Quintessence" and her recent CD, "Betty Buckley 1967." Not only is her acting/singing a brava, but her patter is so funny in it's underplayed-ness. She was telling us how she was essentially singing the songs on her 1967 CD to her first boyfriend. I love how her next sentence was said so simply: "That relationship taught me about true love… and ever since then it's pretty much been downhill"… and cue music. Fun-nee.

After the show James and I went up to her hotel room to hang out, and Betty said that she was doing an all-Broadway request show on Saturday. What happens is people show up, write down the name of a song that Betty has sung on Broadway, and she'll sing it. I brazenly started rifling through her music charts and began hyperventilating when I saw the music to "Writing on the Wall" from Drood. She knew her only options were to get me oxygen or ask me to be a guest pianist at the show, and she chose the latter. We came back for the Saturday show, and Betty was a little stressed because she had done a ton of shows at Feinstein's and then flew to Denton, TX, to do a concert (where James' sister, Danielle, happens to live...and saw the concert and loved it). Betty had gotten around three hours of sleep and before she went on told me that I should pray her voice holds out. Turns out, she sounded more amazing than ever! She was belting so high I wound up being incredibly impressed with my praying skills. I guess my Haftorah paid off.

Someone (thankfully) requested "Writing on the Wall," and I shot up from my seat and walked onstage. When Betty began, it felt surreal to me. I've been listening to the recording of Betty singing this song obsessively since college…and here I was, onstage, actually playing it for her. It was thrilling! Then I stayed onstage, and we sang a duet of "Love Song" from Pippin...which was also surreal for me because I saw Betty play the role of Catherine when I was seven! Every song Betty did was prefaced with a hilarious, self-effacing story (including Betty's two attempts to get the role of Genevieve in The Baker's Wife…both failures), and I decided that she must do this show in New York at a bigger venue. It's a delicious, mega-dose of Broadway with a brilliant star. The only devastating part is that someone in the audience shouted out a request. I was not devastated by the breaking of the fourth wall, but because the request was for "Memories." There is no Broadway song called 'Memories'!" That makes me crazy! It's called "Memory." And, by the way, so-called Barbra fans, there's no Barbra song called "Memories" either. It's called "The Way We Were." 'Memories' is the first word she sings, not the title. That's like me calling Frederik's first song in A Little Night Music "Now." Oh, it is called that? All right then, what about "Soon"? Huh. "Later"? And cut. Continued...