ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Come On, Come Through Newark, Newark!
By Seth Rudetsky
Mariah Grandy, Seth Rudetsky and Joshua Henry photo by Robb Johnston
Hello from Newark!
I'll soon be saying, "Hello from Newark ."
That's right, I'm flying from Newark, NJ, to Newark, CA. I guess Newark is such a beautiful name it had to be used twice. Will it soon replace "Madison" as the most popular girl's name? Pundits say yes. Or as one famous star I once worked with said about herself, "Pundents "… which is a combination of someone in-the-know and a beautiful brooch. Anyhoo, I'm sitting on the plane…and I do mean sitting. We've all boarded the plane, but we're now delayed because of thunderstorms . Do I dare haul out, "Wow! Those people down there look like ants. Wait a minute, they are ants!" I dare not.
This week began at my old summer stock from yesteryear, Surflight Summer Theater on Long Beach Island in Beach Haven, NJ. I hosted a fundraiser for the theatre and arrived Monday afternoon. I first worked there when I was a sophomore in college, and I told the intern who picked me up that I hadn't been back since 1989. He made me feel "great" by informing me that 1989 was the year he was born. Silence from me. And internal crying. And external phoning for botox.
No performers from my time there performed, but Kelly Briggs (who later on did Les Miz and Cats ) remembered how hard it was to do a different show ever week (14 shows in 14 weeks!). And , children's theatre shows on certain afternoons. He remembered playing the Scarecrow in their version of The Wizard of Oz and having some kids yell out, "If you didn't have a brain you wouldn't be able to walk or speak." Like I've always said, certain children should never be educated.
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I told the audience about some of the antics that happened while I was at Surflight. Most involved my friend, Jason Little. During
42nd Street , they needed more people in the opening number to tap, so of course I jumped at the chance to get out of the pit and strut my (limited) stuff. Jason played Andy Lee, the choreographer. After the opening, I always left the stage as one of the dancers who was cut. Jason felt there should be some motivation for cutting me and decided that Andy Lee was a big anti-Semite. I always wore a Jewish star that I got for graduation underneath my costume so after the last note of the opening number, while the audience was clapping, Jason would point to the star, point to my nose and then give me a "get the hell out of here" point to the wings.
At my Wednesday Sirius/XM Live on Broadway show, I interviewed Marya Grandy, the fabulous beltress who's getting ready to come on the Rosie Family Cruise. Before we started talking Broadway, I had to ask her about her childhood because her father played Gopher on TV's "The Love Boat"! I asked her if she ever met any of the famous guest stars and she said that one day she was introduced to the woman playing her dad's mother on the show…Ethel Merman! Even at that age, Marya was a Broadway fan so she was totally intimidated meeting Ethel, who was sitting in a make-up chair. Marya's dad took her hand and said, "Marya…this is Ethel Merman who's playing my mom." Marya shyly said, "Hello, Ms. Merman" and Ethel looked at her and bellowed, "Call me Grandma!"
OK, I'm finally now in California. The thunderstorm took so long to arrive we sat on the runway for three hours . To help us pass the time, they kindly showed the film but, passive/aggressively, it was "Pink Panther 2." Why make us suffer while we're already suffering? All in all, I was on the plane for eight hours and then had a delicious 45-minute drive to Newark. In the morning, I taught a master class for four hours and then, immediately following, did my tech rehearsal. If anyone's making a bootleg video of my show tonight, I hope they put Vaseline on the lens.
Continued...
