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ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Michele Lee, Jason Danieley, Farah Alvin — and Shaw
By Seth Rudetsky
29 Sep 2008
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Madeleine Martin
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben | A week in the life of actor, musician and Chatterbox host Seth Rudetsky.
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Happy fall everybody! I'm writing this while looking at the beautiful fall flower bouquet that AMFAR sent me after I did last week's benefit with Cheyenne Jackson in Bucks County. I forgot to mention that in the middle of Cheyenne's show, we did an auction. Cheyenne was too shy to hawk, so I opened up my signature big trap. We were auctioning off four house seats to Xanadu, plus dinner for four at Sardi's, plus signed posters and CD's. Well, turns out, it was supposed to be one package, but I was a moron and thought they were all separate! I auctioned off the four tickets for $2,000, then the dinner for $1,000, the signed stuff for $500 and then four more tickets were offered and we got another $2,000! Turns out my idiocy paid off.
Monday I spent all afternoon at The Players Club rehearsing for my New York debut with a British accent. David Staller, who runs Project Shaw, cast me as Theodotus, the King's tutor, in Ceasar and Cleopatra. Project Shaw's goal is to present a reading of every single play that George Bernard Shaw ever wrote and while I'd much prefer Project Lloyd Webber, I was still very honored to be asked to be a part of it. And the audience for the show was sold out! If I'd have known that George Bernard Shaw was such a draw, I would have booked him at my one of my Chatterboxes. I don't know how David does it, but the cast was star-studded and amazing. Daphe Rubin-Vega was a brava as Cleopatra's arrogant maid with the impossible to say name: Ftatateeta. And Daniel Reichard from Jersey Boys was hilarious as the dapper Venetian rug salesman. Then there was the great Brian Murray playing Caesar and young Broadway star Madeleine Martin as Cleopatra. Madeleine is 15 (!) and plays the young girl in August: Osage County. She was really quirky and funny as Cleopatra and totally nice offstage. I got a photo of the group warm-up right before the show. Daphne made everybody hold hands and throw their arms up while saying Pshaw. It made no sense but it was funny.
Tuesday night I saw Equus. During the whole show I was obsessing about what would happen if I was cast as one of the horses because they all wear skin tight shirts tucked into their pants. How could I keep my stomach sucked in for two acts? Can a horse wear a mumu? As soon as I walked in and saw the rows of seats on the stage I glared and said something to James about everybody jumping on the "Spring Awakening sitting on stage" bandwagon. I then shook my head and muttered "how unoriginal." That night I spoke with sister Nancy on the phone and she remembered that she saw Equus in the '70s while wearing a corduroy jacket and denim skirt. She said that she was lucky because she got to sit in one of the seats onstage. That's right. They had the onstage seating 30 years ago. Shockingly, I judged something without knowing all the information, something I never do. And by "never" I mean "every hour on the hour."
Wednesday I did another "Sirius Live On Broadway" interview at the Times Square Information Center. This time it was with two of the stars of Spring Awakening. But first I had a special appearance by Jason Danieley who has a new CD called "Jason Danieley and The Frontier Heroes" which is basically him recreating what he did as a child, aka, his whole family would sit around, grab an instrument and sing. Conversely, my whole family would sit around, grab a resentment and fight. All right, that last comment was more for comedy's sake. Actually, we also did a lot of music-making. Some of it was great (driving in the car singing Pete Seeger and The Weavers) and some of it was a terrible, terrible mistake (the duet version of "What I Did For Love" my sister and I performed at my Bar Mitzvah reception). Anyhoo, since I had just seen Equus I had to ask Jason about being nude in The Fully Monty. In the final scene, the guys in the show would totally drop everything and, at that moment, a light would come up from behind them that pretty much blinded the audience so nobody's "business" was seen. Unfortunately, one night, as they were doing the number, all the guys felt warmer onstage. They realized they felt warmer because the lights were different. They then realized that the lights were different because the computer that controlled the lights was off and was actually one cue ahead. Meaning that when they finally revealed their various Harry Potters, the lights would be on the curtain call setting…in other words, at full brightness! I remember talking to Patrick Wilson about this and he said right before he took it off, he locked eyes with an 11-year-old girl in the fourth row. She now looks like a 41-year-old woman.
After we chatted, Jason sang a beautiful song from the album and made way for Emma Hunton, who plays Ilse, and Gerard Canonico, who plays Moritz, in Spring Awakening. They were both in Les Miz (She was Young Cosette on tour and he was Gavroche on Broadway). I asked him about doing Gavroche's death in Act Two and he said that once as he got shot, a woman in the audience called out, "No! Not the boy!" Emma said that after she did Les Miz she auditioned for a local show singing "On My Own." After she sang, the casting person said she sounded like Britney Spears (lip-synchy?) and that if Emma kept using that pop sound, she'd never get anywhere in the business. And by "never get anywhere in the business" she meant "go straight to Broadway in a show that uses a pop sound."
After the interview, I did a game show segment where people from the audience were contestants and Gerard and Emma played as a team for another audience member. Let me say that they may be on Broadway, but the fact that they are 19 and 17 has limited their knowledge of musical theatre. Ouch. They were clanking and finally I decided to throw a question I knew they'd know. I played a phrase from Les Miz (when the locket crone sings, "Come here my dear…let's see this trinket you wear") and I asked, "Who sings this phrase?" Both Emma and Gerard stared blankly and then one of the other contestants buzzed. Her answer: Anita. I thought it was so hilariously wrong that I awarded her the winner. I then gave Gerard and Emma a free copy of my book, "The Q Guide to Broadway," and begged them to pass it around the cast. After that, they both sang a duet of "Suddenly Seymour" and then performed "I Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind" from Spring Awakening and I forgave them.
Wednesday I put on a show through Hearts and Voices at Cardinal Cooke Hospital with Alison Bender, Matthew Lutz and Lindsay Lavin (my intern!). Hearts and Voices (now run by Lifebeat) is a great organization that brings music to hospitalized people with AIDS. I've been doing shows for them for around 15 years and I love it. So many times I've brought singers with me who are in a bad mood about something and by the end of the show, they're so happy. A lot of times, performers lose the joy of singing because it becomes about looking for a job, or keeping their job, and there's something so nice about performing for people who are there just to enjoy the music. They're not there to deny you a call back because you sound too pop. And what's great is that the patients don't care what's on your resume, they just care if you connect with them and sound great. They gave the same reaction to my sassy intern as they gave Audra MacDonald. If you or anyone you know wants to volunteer, go to http://www.lifebeat.org/what_we_do/hearts_and_voices.htm. Continued...
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