By Seth Rudetsky
08 Mar 2010

	Lynne Wintersteller, Seth and George Dvorsky
	photo by Robb Johnston

At the Chatterbox, I interviewed George Dvorsky and Lynne Wintersteller, two people whose voices I love. I never knew that George was also a dancer. He toured in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas as a dancing football player and also understudied the solo dancer (who became a Broadway director/choreographer: Jeff Calhoun). George said that one night on tour, the guys were doing an entrance on the ramp that covered the pit, and he tripped and fell in! Luckily, it was covered in netting, but it was so bouncy that he couldn't get up. Suddenly the stage manager came to get him…by walking across the netting! Of course, it started to break because of their combined weights and luckily, someone from the stage pulled him up. George was so mortified that he hung his head in shame as he was being escorted off the stage. But, unfortunately, his head hanging down made the audience more terrified because it looked like he had broken his neck! PS, as all this was happening, the show never stopped. I don't know if it's a tribute to that old adage "The show must go on" or a re-creation of no one calling the police as Kitty Genovese was being murdered.

Lynne is not only a beautiful singer, but a great comic as well. And she loves to laugh. However, she wanted me to clarify a story I told in a previous column: I wrote that during Closer Than Ever, she was about to enter the stage to sing, "Stop! All right, that's it, that's the one that does it…," and on the beat before she entered, Brent Barrett took a water bottle and sprayed water in the center of both of her boobs. Turns out, it was not Brent who made her look like she was lactating, it was Richard Muenz. I want to make sure the proper person is given credit…I mean, written up to Equity. PS, Lynne said that she spent the rest of that show trying to spray him back, and he constantly had his hands covering his crotch while saying, "You're not getting anywhere near here." Very mature.

Speaking of mature, she and George were cackling talking about all the times they had laughed onstage. When they both starred in 110 in the Shade, they were supposed to sing their duet sitting at the edge of the stage. In the rehearsal room, this meant being as close to the mirrors as possible. Since George is over six feet, he'd look crazy with his legs cramped up together, and he and Lynne would constantly start laughing during their song. This continued throughout tech rehearsals, and they said the first night they didn't laugh was literally the first preview. And they were only able to do it by looking completely away from each other throughout the whole song. I'm sure the audience thought it was a brilliant directorial choice to have two people singing to each other while gazing to opposite sides of the stage.

Speaking of even more mature, I also interviewed Marilyn Maye who is performing this week at Feinstein's and is about to turn 82. And, she has the nerve to still sound amazing!!! She was also, as usual, hilarious. First of all, my dad (who's 79) was sitting in the front row, and she kept "flirting" with him. At one point, he took out his hearing aid, and it looked like he was brandishing it as some sort of bizarre mating ritual. She glared at the hearing aid in his hand and said, "That is not turning me on." We were then talking about all the famous people she's met (she's done "The Tonight Show" 75 times), and I asked her if she ever met La Streisand. Turns out, she had met her, and it involved Marilyn's usual sass. And, as you read, you should know that the story depends on Marilyn's non-plussed line reading. Back in the sixties, she was friends with Johnny Desmond who replaced Sydney Chaplin in Funny Girl. One night during the show, Marilyn was sitting in Johnny's dressing room and Barbra walked by. Johnny called her in and said, "This is Marilyn who I was telling you about." Barbra looked at her and said, "So…I hear that you sing." Marilyn looked right back and said, "I heard that you sing, too."

The delicious part about my recent journey to Dallas is that my 12-hour round trip to Orlando paid off. Remember? James told me to fly there and back in one day so I could get enough miles to earn Continental Elite Status like him. Well, on the morning of our horrifyingly early 6:15 AM flight (!), we found out that we both got upgraded to first class! Ah…it was fantastic. However, the night before our flight home, I got an email telling me I was upgraded to first class. Unfortunately, James wasn't! Suddenly, I had a tortuous dilemma: Dare I stay in first class without him? Should I give him my upgrade instead? Should I refuse it and stay with him in coach? Not surprisingly, James insisted I stay in first class, and he got himself a delicious exit row seat. Phew. For five devastating minutes, I knew exactly how Meryl Streep felt in "Sophie's Choice."

All right, this week I have the fabulous composing team of Flaherty and Ahrens (Ragtime, Once On This Island) at my Sirius/XM Live On Broadway show. If you're in New York, come by the Times Square Information Center on Wednesday at noon, and no matter where you are, peace out!

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Seth Rudetsky has played piano in the pits of many Broadway shows including Ragtime, Grease and The Phantom of the Opera. He was the artistic producer/conductor for the first five Actors Fund concerts including Dreamgirls and Hair, which were both recorded. As a performer, he appeared on Broadway in The Ritz and on TV in "All My Children," "Law and Order C.I." and on MTV's "Made" and "Legally Blonde: The Search for the Next Elle Woods." He has written the books "The Q Guide to Broadway" and "Broadway Nights," which was recorded as an audio book on Audible.com. He is currently the afternoon Broadway host on Sirius/XM radio and tours the country doing his comedy show, "Deconstructing Broadway." He can contacted at his website SethRudetsky.com, where he has posted many video deconstructions.