By Seth Rudetsky
05 May 2008

What the hell happened to global warming? Why is it May and the heat is still on in my apartment? I decided to go to the play that most described the month it feels like…November.

It was the Sunday night Actors Fund performance, and the audience loved it. Nathan Lane was hi-larious, and I can't believe he did my Chatterbox a few weeks ago and then did the show that night...it's a mammoth role! People are always talking about roles where "he/she never leaves the stage"…and then they follow it with "…except to change costumes" and then "…and except for a short time during a few scenes in Act Two but she's getting a new wig on at that point." Okay, once the word "except" is used, it's called "She leaves the stage." Whereas Nathan never left the stage! Except during intermission. But while the play is on, he's there the whole time. It's very similar to my role in The Ritz in that I never left the stage… if all the world's a stage.

Monday afternoon I saw the Easter Bonnet Competition, and seated behind me was one of the contestants I just worked with on the Legally Blonde reality show. Because we finished filming a few weeks ago, I know who won… and quite frankly I can't take the tension of keeping it a secret. It's very tense seeing anyone involved with the show because I'm always nervous that whatever I say will give away to the people around us whether or not the person got the role of Elle Woods. Example: "How are you today?" Meaning, "still giddy from getting the role of Elle Woods?" or "How are you coping with not getting the role of Elle Woods?" Even "Hi" makes me nervous to say because I can't tell whether people can tell my subtext is "Hi, winner!" or "Hi, not Elle Woods."

On Monday night I was a judge at the second annual Broadway Beauty Pageant. Male beauty, that is. Five contestants competed for the title that was won last year by Frankie Grande from Mamma Mia! I judged alongside two of the brilliantly talented stars of [title of show], Susan Blackwell and Hunter Bell. The male contestants were from Grease, Curtains, Xanadu, A Chorus Line and Hairspray. I loved Mr. Curtains who sang "Show Off" from The Drowsy Chaperone. He went en pointe (!), played the saw, did rhythmic gymnastic scarf dancing and during the snake-charmer section of the song, was about to pull off his underwear but then decided he didn't want to "show off." He also put cookie dough in an "oven," and at the end of the number served the three judges cookies. Brava! The whole night was a benefit for the Ali Forney center, which is a place for young gay kids who have nowhere to go. Even though it's much easier to come out of the closet now than when I came out (with Quentin Crisp), there are, devastatingly, still plenty of families who kick their kids out. Carl Siciliano, who founded the center, told of a girl who came out to her parents who then put her in a car, drove for a while and dropped her off in the woods. The Ali Forney Center is essentially a homeless center for children, and it does a great job. The winner of the evening was Marty Thomas, who was Mr. Xanadu. He sang an amazing version of "Proud Mary" that sounded like it was in the original Tina Turner key. I remember seeing him years ago on "Star Search" when my friend Billy Porter was on a winning streak. Marty was in the kid's category and was up against a buck-toothed brunette who sold it a little too hard. He wound up winning…and the girl who lost wound up becoming a mom with two kids. She also wound up in the Off-Broadway show Ruthless, The New Mickey Mouse Club and the film "Riding in the Car With Boys." Yes, his singing won "Star Search" over Britney Spears' performance...which incidentally may have been the last time she didn't lip synch. Here he is sassing "Defying Gravity"… http://youtube.com/watch?v=bDaBAJE88aw&feature=related.

I had so much fun judging with Hunter and Susan. First of all, I'm so obsessed with their [title of show] Show. It's these ten-minute movies they've filmed over the last few months with amazing Broadway guest stars. I love the episode entitled "Snake Eats Tail" and Susan's seriousness when she talks of "sexperts." It's not a word and/or profession! How dare she infuse it with such gravitas? Brava on the line reading.

At the "Broadway Beauty Pageant," Hunter asked the contestants what he called "tough questions," such as "Tyne, Bernadette or Patti?" I focused solely on the latter and asked one contestant a string of Patti questions which hit him like a machine gun: Evita or Anything Goes? The Old Neighborhood or Noises Off? "Life Goes On" or that movie about Lady Bird Johnson? After each option I threw out, Hunter would nod his head and mutter "tough questions…"

Speaking of Patti, on Thursday at the Chatterbox, I had two of Gypsy's sassy strippers: Alison Fraser, who plays Tessie Tura, and Marilyn Caskey, who plays Electra. Alison grew up in Natick, MA, where William (Bill) Finn (composer of Falsettos, Spelling Bee, A New Brain etc…) is from. After Bill graduated college, he came back to town and saw a high school show where Alison was singing "Stormy Weather." Why do so many theatre kids perform stuff they need 30 more years of life experience to be able to perform with any understanding? Why, at 13, was I one of the 27 (!) performers in my camp's production of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Did I need to know that the "old folks never die…they just put down their heads and go to sleep one day…"? Why was that my solo? Devastating.

Anyway, Alison and Bill began performing together in the town square (he'd play piano and sing with her, and they'd get tips), but then she went off to Carnegie Mellon University. She hated the way they taught there, which she thought was sort of based on the theory, "You've all been the stars of your high school, so let's tear you down completely and then build you up again." She wound up leaving and moving to New York. Bill started working on In Trousers (the first of the Marvin trilogy…Falsettos is the second and third installment) with Mary Testa and Alison. Alison said that she told Bill they should do a concert of the music in his apartment and see if anyone's interested. She said that they borrowed chairs from the local synagogue. I asked if she barged in and said, "I'm Christian. I'm taking these." She said that Bill was a member. Ira Weitzman, who was developing projects for Playwrights Horizons, was there and gave them a spot. I'm obsessed that their allotted time for rehearsals was 12-4…in the morning! It was in the Times Square area during the terrifying 1970's when anything went. Alison said she remembers Bill at around 3 AM in the morning, exhausted, go up to the assistant and say, frantically, "Get me some coke!" The assistant ran out and came back an hour later. He said that he couldn't get any right then, but was promised some tomorrow. Bill said "Why'd you go outside? There's a machine right in the lobby!" Yes, that old chestnut actually happened.

Alison also talked about auditioning. She absolutely hates it. She said that she's one of those actresses who really needs to delve into a role for a while to finally nail it. She said that it takes a brave director to watch her audition and say, "Hmm…she's terrible…but might one day have it." She got cast in The Secret Garden and cut her hair super short as did Rebecca Luker, who was playing the ghostly wife. Rebecca is from the South and would hold hands with Alison when they left the theatre. One day, they were being interviewed for the radio, and the interviewer turned the tape off and asked, "So, you can tell me off the record. How long have you two been together?" It's that old equation: short hair + hand holding = hot girl-on-girl action. Continued...

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