By Seth Rudetsky
11 Aug 2008

I worked again this week with the Broadway Artist Alliance. Those kids are good! Check out when Nick Oliveri sings the word "Hooray" at the end of this song. His spin is amazing!!!! (he's only 16!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Qrkc_X1YE

	Seth with Lin-Manuel Miranda

While I was there I interviewed Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz whose voice I am totally obsessed with. He said that he was embarrassed to do musicals in his high school, but he found a way to have leads all over town. He grew up in St. Louis, and there were tons of all-girl Catholic high schools that were desperate for boys to be in their shows. Norbert said that he'd find out about the upcoming musicals through some crazy underground network and went from school to school playing Harold Hill, Sky Masterson, etc… He studied classical theatre in undergraduate and graduate school and spent most of his twenties working in regional theaters and being based in Alabama. He finally moved to New York, and one of the publicists of Rent heard him sing at a benefit and got him an audition. The show had just opened up, and Norbert tried out to be the understudy for the two male leads. After five auditions, he got it. He began rehearsals and two days later had to go on for Adam Pascal! I couldn't believe how little time he had, but he said that throughout the audition process he was learning the music so he felt like he knew it very well. Well, turns out, there already was an understudy for Adam who didn't know Norbert was going on. So, of course, he wasn't happy. Norbert said that he began Act One and right after he sang the first big Roger song ("One Song, Glory"), one of the producers went backstage and fired the other understudy! Norbert said that he left the stage, and as he was walking up to his dressing room, the other understudy was walking downstairs with his stuff. Ouch! Norbert also said that the other understudy didn't come from the world of theatre and had to understudy five parts and was not prepared for what it took to do so. He also said many times he'd do a matinee as Roger and then play Mark at the night show or vice versa. What a headache. It sounds very "she's my daughter/she's my sister."

Then, I followed Norbert with the fabulously talented Marc Shaiman. The first Broadway show Marc saw was Fiddler on the Roof, and he remembers studying the souvenir program and being obsessed with the picture of the woman who played Tzeitel. He loved how her smile made her eyes get super-small. Then, when he was in junior high school, his chorus teacher gave him two albums to thank him for accompanying. They were Bette Midler's first two albums, and he became obsessed. He then realized that the woman in the Tzeitel picture was the same! He used to go to the Village and wander down the street where Bette lived, hoping he'd see her. Now he says he doesn't really know what he was hoping he'd see — he said maybe Bette watering her flowers in the front yard. Does anyone even have a front yard in New York? He saw Bette's concert on Broadway and fantasized that he'd run down the aisle saying, "Oh, Miss Midler! I know how to play every song from every album you've ever recorded!" Then, he'd sit onstage and play, and she'd say to the audience, "This kid is good!" Well, one day when he was 16 years old (!), he wandered into Marie's Crisis in the middle of the afternoon with some friends and began playing piano. Old movie-style, the person sweeping up behind the bar said, "You're good, kid!" He told Marc that a comedy group, "The High-Heeled Women," were looking for a pianist, and Marc got the gig. He stayed with one of the women in the group, and she happened to live across the hall from one of Bette's back-up singers! Marc found out that the three singers (The Harlettes) were putting together an act. He auditioned to be their pianist and got it! They got great reviews, and Bette said they could open for her in Los Angeles! Suddenly, Marc was in an L.A. rehearsal studio, and there onstage was Bette Midler! He was freaking out! Bette suddenly asked the band if they could play "No Jestering" from her third album. They were just a bunch of pick-up musicians and not her actual band so they didn't know it at all. Suddenly Marc saw The Harlettes talking to Bette and pointing at him. Bette asked him if he knew it, and Marc literally got to run up to the stage saying, "Oh, Miss Midler! I know how to play every song from every album you've ever recorded!" He played it, and she told him to stick around for the tour in case she needed him. Instead of paying for a hotel room for him, she had him stay in her guest room! He said he went from walking down her block hoping to get a glimpse of her as well as covering his room in posters of her, to literally eating breakfast with her across the table from her not wearing a bra! I told those kids that this story goes to prove that they can be obsessed with someone today and wind up hanging out with them in a few years. Hopefully with a bra on.

Marc also said that Scott Rudin asked him to write the score for Hairspray, and he said yes. Then, ten years passed. Margo Lion got the rights and asked him to do it. He said he wanted Scott Whitman to write the lyrics with him, and she was nervous because they were partners and what would happen if they had a fight. She asked him to write some songs on spec, and they wrote four songs…all of which stayed in the show: "Good Morning, Baltimore," "Welcome to the Sixties," "I Know Where I've Been" and "Big Blonde and Beautiful." Every time he started playing one, the kids all immediately started singing and knew every lyric. At the end of the interview, he was asked by one of the kids what the most rewarding moment was in his career. Someone made a joke and said that it was today. But then Marc said it was amazing. He asked, "Can you imagine how thrilling it is for me to go to the piano and start playing a song I wrote… and suddenly have you all singing at me? That's as rewarding as I can ever imagine." Brava!!

All right, people. This week my sister Nancy is coming in! She's hilarious (see proof at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs6a7MW1pgY). We're going to see [title of show] (I think it's my seventh time!), and I'm taking my nieces to see Legally Blonde. And then Wednesday and Thursday night I'm playing for Andrea McArdle's act at the Metropolitan Room (Metropolitanroom.com) and then driving up to P-town to play for Varla Jean Merman (www.Varlaonline.com). Peace out and put a bra on!

*

(Seth Rudetsky is the host of "Seth's Big Fat Broadway" on SIRIUS Satellite Radio and the author of "The Q Guide to Broadway" and the novel "Broadway Nights." He has played piano in the orchestras of 15 Broadway musicals and hosts the BC/EFA benefit weekly interview show Seth's Broadway Chatterbox at Don't Tell Mama every Thursday at 6 PM. He can be contacted by visiting www.sethsbroadwaychatterbox.com.)

(clockwise from front left): Andrea Burns, Norm Lewis, Gavin Creel, James and Seth.

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