By Andrew Gans
11 Jul 2008

	Heidi Blickenstaff with [title of show] director Michael Berresse
	photo by Aubrey Reuben

Question: Earlier you had mentioned the intimacy of the Vineyard. I wonder what it's like playing the Broadway house in comparison.
Blickenstaff: One thing I will say about the Lyceum, which I absolutely love and shocked me, is the intimacy of the Lyceum. When I'm singing "A Way Back to Then," I am able again to look into faces, and I love that. I can look into faces almost to halfway up the orchestra. That's really important to me because, as an actor, I long to really not just connect with my body and my voice, but I like to look at people. Sometimes that really grounds me in a way that nothing else can. Sometimes I'm a "Nervous Nellie," and when I can really look at somebody, I tend to calm down, and I feel something very real is happening. I really do love that about the Lyceum, but we're talking about almost a thousand seats compared to the hundreds of seats that the Vineyard was — 300 seats, if that. I think the first time we got in [the Lyceum] and did a run, I thought, "Whoa, this is different. Now this is happening. This is really different, and we're going to have to really adjust." Also, the Lyceum has three tiers. . . .Those seats are so high up in the air. We really have to crank our chins up to get to those people, so it's a really different experience playing this house. It is intimate, but it's also high, so that's totally an adjustment. I had a "vampire" — to steal from the show — about whether or not the show was going to feel right in a Broadway theatre: if suddenly sharing it with a much larger group of people in a much larger space, if that was going to fit, if that was going to make sense. And, on the night of that first preview, when that audience was in there, that was immediately dispelled for me. I felt like, "Yep, this totally works, this makes sense. We're not a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. This feels really, really right. Just because we have a keyboard and four chairs is no reason to worry. It totally makes sense, the story makes sense, we don't need anything else." I don't know, there's just something about it that really fits for me.

Question: I often find that sometimes the Off-Broadway shows wind up working better in the bigger houses. I liked In the Heights better on Broadway, and Avenue Q I thought worked just as well if not better. You never know.
Blickenstaff: You do never know. It's sort of like the great experiment.

Question: How much has been changed for the Broadway run?
Blickenstaff: Well, because we essentially had almost two years off — it was like a year-and-a-half off because we closed in October of 2006 — we had to incorporate all of that waiting, so the back third has been completely restructured to include the last year-and-a-half. The show's not any longer. It's still 90 minutes. We were able to kind of give the show a haircut and take off the parts that didn't quite work or that we wished we could make a little better, we made better. We changed some things, and then we added the last year-and-a-half to the back third.

Question: Is it ever strange playing yourself or a version of yourself?
Blickenstaff: Yeah! [Laughs.] It is. It's totally weird. It's the easiest thing and the hardest thing because I don't have to do a huge character study because I know what happened to me when I was five. But even though I am playing myself and it absolutely is me, we always say that these characters are kind of a "concentrated version" of us. There are choices that the character of Heidi makes that I wouldn't necessarily make, but in 90 minutes, there are certain things that are more entertaining. [Laughs.] There are some liberties that are taken, but she is me. It definitely is me.

It's odd playing yourself, for the audience in particular… We've got the greatest fans, and they're just these awesome college and high school kids and we love them so much, but because we play ourselves, I think that they have a very unique ownership of us. We also, on the [show's] website, we blog about crazy things that happen to us in our day, and our fans follow all of that stuff. . . . This is weird and stupid, but we all have this war going on about what organic peanut butter cereal is the best. There's Peanut Butter Puffins, Peanut Butter Bumpers and Peanut Butter Panda Poof. One of us blogged about that and how we had a taste test, and I can't tell you the boxes of cereal we've gotten from our fans! They'll grab onto stuff that is true and real about us, and they're like, "I'm going to make them happy because I know something weird and true about them." When we go and sign autographs — which is amazing, and P.S., I still can't believe that that gets to happen to me in my life — our fans are like, "Heidi, Heidi, Heidi…," and they tell me things that I'm shocked that they know. They feel like they know me, and I love that about them, but it's also crazy! [Laughs.] It's totally crazy. We have awesome fans, and that's kind of the magical thing about [title of show], too, is that our fans feel like they have such easy access to us.

Question: Do you have a favorite moment in the show for your character or for you?
Blickenstaff: I have two. One of them is "Die Vampire, Die!" I love doing that song, and I love listening to Susan. Susan is one of my favorite people on the planet, and I have a fierce love and support of her. She just moves me every night, and I love just being crazy and sassy in that number. Also, I can feel the audience shift during that number, and I love feeling the shift in the show when it goes from being this delicious little trifle to being something more than that. If you're going to take the ride, that's when it happens. And, then I do love singing my song ["A Way Back to Then"]. That is a very real thing that happens for me in real time every night. When we were developing that song, because it is so personal, I couldn't get through it without crying for about two months. We just kept plowing through it, and it was just the most public therapy. But eventually with Michael's help and with everybody's help, I got to a place where I could give it away instead of having it be all about me. It's not every show that you can look into people's faces. That's unusual. But during that moment, I can do that, and I see — again, for people who are on the ride — something really real happening for them, and I love sharing my story. I sort of feel like they're sharing their stories back to me. It's sort of this symbiotic, crazy fuel moment. I don't know if I'll ever get to have that again, so I really savor it. I'm very grateful for that moment. Just to be able to sing a song like that on a Broadway stage, I feel very lucky.

Question: Since we've never spoken before, where were you born and raised?
Blickenstaff: I was born and raised in Fresno, California.

Question: When did you start performing?
Blickenstaff: When I was seven.

Question: Do you remember what that was?
Blickenstaff: Yes, I do. I was actually part of a theatre group that a lot of New York actors [were also in], including Audra McDonald, Dwayne Boutte, Andrea Chamberlain, Sharon Leal, Sarah Uriarte Berry, the list goes on. A lot of us are from Fresno, and we were a part of this group called The Good Company Players. We were in their junior company, and we did this 30-minute pre-show, like A Salute to the ABCs or A Salute to the Eighties. And, then they would have the big musical, Hello, Dolly! or whatever, after that. So it was just a 30-minute cabaret full of about 15 kids.

Question: Were there singers or actors you admired at that time?
Blickenstaff: I was kind of a weirdo. I was kind of a tomboy, and I played a lot of sports. I played soccer forever, and I was the only girl on a baseball team for years and years and years. When I was a kid, as soon as my mom threw the Annie [recording] at me, that was kind of it for me. It was over. [Laughs.] I kept playing sports, but I also found this passion for singing, and I was quite enamored of Annie and specifically Andrea McArdle. There were certain musicals that did capture my attention, but none quite like that one. Like so many people my age, I know every nuance of that score from the first oboe in the Overture. I know that score.… I didn't really listen to musicals much, unlike Hunter and Jeff. I listened to much more rock. Certainly in high school I was obsessed with Olivia Newton-John, Hall & Oates, Sheena Easton, and just learned how to shape things in more of a pop-rock world rather than in a musical theatre world, but latched onto musicals like Sunday in the Park with George. I loved all those Sondheim musicals, Into the Woods, but I always had more rocker influences…

Question: When did you know that performing would be your career?
Blickenstaff: Early. Even though I always had other interests and really did play sports all though my childhood, once I hit that stage when I was seven, I was like, "Oh, I'm done for." I knew that this was it. My father's a lawyer, and I had a moment in college where I thought, "I'm gonna do that." But I think it was just because I had been performing since I was seven, and I needed to kind of rest. It didn't take long. I think I was not studying theatre for like a year, and I was like, "This is ridiculous," and jumped right back on. As soon as I graduated, I came to New York and entered the theatrical work force. [Laughs.]

Question: What was your first Broadway show?
Blickenstaff: My first Broadway show was The Full Monty. It was great.

Question: Do you remember stepping onto a Broadway stage for the first time?
Blickenstaff: Hell yes! It was crazy because I was a replacement. I had been on the tour, and the Broadway show had gone on. Because of September 11, they shut the tour down temporarily, and they sent all of the tour kids back to New York. They called me and said, "We've got a girl who is leaving the show. Do you want to take up your role on Broadway?" I was like, "Twist my arm, sure!" I was so thrilled that I was going to be going into my track, which was understudying Emily Skinner and being in the ensemble. I had two weeks before I was supposed to start, and the day after I found out that was happening, Nancy Harrington, the PSM for that show, called me. I was like, "Oh, she must be calling me with my schedule." She called me, and she said, "How do you feel about saving a Broadway show tonight?" I was like, "What?" There aren't that many women in the show. There only like seven women in the show, and four of them had called out that night. She said, "You pretty much are all we've got, and we need you to play Emily's part." I hadn't done that role much at all on tour. I had understudied Andrea Burns on the road, and she had been out just a couple of times. I knew my track really well, but I hardly knew the Vicki Nichols track. So I was like, "Suit me up, Coach. Yeah, I'll do it!" So I went, and it was a complete whirlwind. My Broadway debut was going on for Emily Skinner. And that was crazy, too, because Emily had been a huge influence on me. In college I listened to Side Show a lot and loved that whole cast album and loved her. When I heard her, I wanted to do that. So my Broadway debut, I'm being thrown into Emily Skinner's dressing room. I have Emily Skinner's mic on my back, and I'm thrown out [onstage]. I've never met any of the cast, and I'm kissing Marcus Neville onstage as I'm meeting him for the first time. It was bananas, it was totally bananas, and a moment I will never forget. My best friend Ryan Perry was the only one that I could reach to come witness it. I couldn't get a hold of anybody. My parents are in California, and I thought, "No one is going to witness this happening!" But my friend Ryan Perry came, and he said, "I'll be your witness!" So that was an amazing, amazing night, and that was such a great company, too.

Question: Will there be a Broadway recording of [title of show]? Is there talk of that?
Blickenstaff: No one's come to us about that. I think it would be great, but I haven't heard anything official about that. I would love to do that.

Question: Will you be doing any more [title of show] videos?
Blickenstaff: Yeah, definitely. We're just so busy right now, but we will always go back to "The [title of show] Show." We have a lot of fun doing that and that, again, opens us up to a whole viral audience that we never had before, people who can't come see the Broadway show. We've got fans in Australia. I got an email from a guy in the Philippines the other day. I was like, "That is the Internet!" Amazing!

([title of show] plays the Lyceum Theatre, located in Manhattan at 149 West 45th Street; call (212) 239-6200 for tickets or visit www.telecharge.com.)

	Mandy Gonzalez and Christopher Jackson in In the Heights
	photo by Joan Marcus

FOR THE RECORD
In the Heights
Last month, In the Heights, the new musical penned by Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda won four Tony Awards, including the top prize for Best Musical. Among those four wins was one for Miranda's score, which pulses with a Latin beat and is now available on a two-disc set on the Ghostlight Records label.

The lavish recording, which features a color booklet with complete lyrics, also boasts two of the finest young belters in the musical theatre: Mandy Gonzalez as Nina, who returns home to her Washington Heights neighborhood after dropping out of Stanford University, and Karen Olivo as Vanessa, the hair-stylist's assistant who longs for a life outside of the Heights.

The recording begins with the catchy, opening title song where we meet the show's narrator, Usnavi — played with an ingratiating sincerity by Tony winner Miranda — and the majority of the characters who populate the always bustling Washington Heights area. "Breathe," one of the show's most arresting songs, follows and is delivered thrillingly by Gonzalez. In "Breathe," Nina, the "one who made it out," worries how she will tell her family and friends that she has failed to live up to their expectations. Equally thrilling are the powerful, rangy tones of Olivo, who belts out "It Won't Be Long Now" with ease. Other highlights include "No Me Diga" and "Carnaval Del Barrio," which both feature the sassy charm and rich sound of Andréa Burns as hairstylist Daniela; "96,000," the joyous song about the hope of a lottery windfall; Abuela Claudia (played by 2008 Tony nominee Olga Merediz)'s show-stopper "Pacienca Y Fe," in which the grandmother of the entire neighborhood recalls her youth and her struggles and shares her fears about winning the lottery; "Sunrise," a tender love song between Benny (Christopher Jackson) and Nina; the touching "Everything I Know," which Gonzalez builds wonderfully; and the musical's rousing "Finale."

South Pacific
Combine the vocal talents of one of the musical theatre's finest actresses (Kelli O'Hara) and a leading Brazilian opera star (Paulo Szot) with one of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's greatest scores, and it's not hard to understand why the current revival of South Pacific won the most Tony Awards of any show of the past season.

The cast recording of the Lincoln Center Theater revival is now available on the Masterworks Broadway label, and it's a sterling reminder why the musical at the Vivian Beaumont remains a sellout. Whether she's admitting she's "A Cockeyed Optimist," promising to "Wash That Man Right Outa [Her] Hair" or singing the charms of a "Wonderful Guy," O'Hara is never less than superb, boasting a glorious soprano. Equally stellar are Szot's renditions of the score's best-known song ("Some Enchanted Evening") and its finest ("This Nearly Was Mine"). Another standout is Hawaiian favorite Loretta Ables Sayre, who is making her Broadway debut as Bloody Mary, and lends her lush belt to "Bali Ha'i" and "Happy Talk."

	Phyllis Newman
	photo by Aubrey Reuben

DIVA TIDBITS
Actress, writer, fundraiser and Broadway favorite Phyllis Newman is currently at work on a new theatre piece entitled The Last Time I Looked. Newman, who won her Tony Award for her performance in Subways Are for Sleeping, is co-writing the musical with Larry Grossman (composer of Minnie's Boys, Goodtime Charley, Grind), who had worked with her late husband, Adolph Green, on A Doll's Life. Newman and Green's daughter, Amanda Green, has just finished composing the title song for the The Last Time I Looked, which according to Newman, will "probably be a show for three women. It's a musical about the good times and the bad times we all go through with music and lyrics from a variety of composers — some well known and some original for this piece." A starry reading will likely be held in the fall. "I've been working on this project for quite awhile," adds the multi-talented Newman. "I thought of it as a book at first, and then a theatre piece, but the gypsy in me won out, so I want to do in front of a very live audience. Stay tuned!"

An audio version of Seth Rudetsky's novel "Broadway Nights: A Romp of Life, Love and Musical Theatre" is now available. Rudetsky's tome, which was recently nominated for a Lamba book award, casts Rudetsky as the narrator Stephin Sheerin, a "struggling pianist on Broadway who finally gets his first Broadway show as a conductor and has to navigate his way around his narcissistic opera star mother, his hot boyfriend who's a dancer in Phantom and lives with his boyfriend, a cheap producer and a former alcoholic leading lady . . . amongst others." Lending their voices to the recording are a host of Broadway actors, including Hunter Bell as Jesse, the passive-aggressive co-star; Mary Birdsong as Dianne, Stephen's sister who is obsessed with Dr. Phil; Susan Blackwell as Karen, the no-nonsense stage manager; Jeff Bowen as Jackson, best friend and standby for the lead; Andrea Burns as Staci, the comatose casting director; Kristin Chenoweth as Francoise, fellow pianist and arch rival; Jonathan Groff as Mason, the sweet/cute director; Ann Harada as Bettina, the cheap/crazy producer; Andy Karl as Craig, the sexy dancer boyfriend from Phantom; Richard Kind as Ronald, the evil agent and Jackson's horrible boyfriend; Anika Larsen as Anike, the recovering alcoholic and leading lady; Andrea Martin as Mrs. Remick, the narrator's governess with a screw loose; Billy Porter as Kris, the sassy choreographer with the roaming eye; Jim Price as Vince, the non-Equity leading man; Sally Rudetsky (Rudetsky's mother) as the Broadway-flavor-of-the-month who's a great actress but can't sing; Emily Skinner as Roberta, the soprano who hates every show she's cast in; Rudetsky's partner, James Wesley, as Phil, the pianist who needs a sub; and James' daughter Juli Wesley as the Young Cosette wannabe, who demands to have her music transposed on sight. The audiobook, which runs ten hours and eight minutes, has a list price of $15.95. Visit www.audible.com for more information.

The third annual Broadway Loves the 80's concert, an evening featuring Broadway actors performing their favorite eighties hits, will be presented at Joe's Pub in August. Directed by Jamie McGonnigal and Xanadu's Marty Thomas, the Aug. 10 performance will feature musical direction by Ben Cohn. Spelling Bee's Mo Rocca will host the 9:30 PM concert, which will feature the talents of Thomas, Kate Shindle, Nikki Renee Daniels, Jenn Colella, Eden Espinosa, Anthony Rapp and "Ugly Betty" star Michael Urie. Tickets for Broadway Loves the 80's Vol. 3, priced $25, are available by calling (212) 967-7555 or by visiting www.joespub.com. Joe's Pub is located within the Public Theater at 425 Lafayette Street.

The debut solo recording from British actress Kerry Ellis, who is currently making her Broadway debut in the New York company of Wicked, is now available. Dress Circle, the London show-biz shop, is currently selling Ellis' "Wicked in Rock." The new CD, on the Duck label, is also available on iTunes and is for sale at The Gershwin Theatre in Manhattan. The three-track disc includes two Wicked songs ("Defying Gravity" and "I'm Not That Girl") as well as "No One But You." Produced by Brian May, the single CD features a 60-piece orchestra with Taylor Hawkins on drums and May on guitar. The recording is priced £8. Visit www.dresscircle.co.uk for more information.

	Betty Buckley

And, finally, congrats to Tony Award winner Betty Buckley, who scored raves for her sold-out Broadway By Request shows July 9-11 at Lyric Stage in Irving, TX. Directed by Richard Jay-Alexander and accompanied by Seth Rudetsky on piano, it's likely that Buckley will bring this acclaimed evening of song and story to Feinstein's at the Regency in the spring. Here are a few quotes from the wonderful notices: In the Star-Telegram Mark Lowry said, "It wouldn't have been a show without that ever-strong mezzo-soprano voice and a demonstration of Buckley's ability to lose herself in a character. From her gorgeous, introspective version of the 1776 song 'Momma Look Sharp' to the dramatics of Sunset Boulevard's 'With One Look,' Buckley transported the audience to places as large as the most expansive stage and as intimate as a front porch." And, in GuideLive.com, Lawson Taitte said, "Ms. Buckley began wowing Broadway audiences in 1969, at age 21. Miraculously, she hasn't lost a beat – or her belted high notes – in the years since. From the moment she took the stage with a song from Sunset Boulevard, 'As If We Never Said Goodbye,' you knew that Ms. Buckley still has the knack of creating a whole imaginary world within the scope of three choruses and the intervening verses."

Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com.

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