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PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: The Drowsy Chaperone: Hot and Cold Running Feats
By Harry Haun
02 May 2006
Giving off solo glows: Christine Ebersole and Sara Gettlefinger, who played the same
role in Grey Gardens (quite differently!); Tarzan’s Tony-winning Jud Fry, Shuler
Hensley; Sweeney Todd Party Animal Michael Cerveris; Jersey Boy John Lloyd
Young, doubtlessly checking out his biggest Tony threat (Bob Martin); Entertaining Mr.
Sloane’s Richard Easton; “Daily Show’s” Mo Rocco; Paper Mill Playhouse’s upcoming
Dolly Gallagher Levi, Tovah Feldshuh; The Light in the Piazzi’s Tony-winning Victoria
Clark and her original babe, now Babe Williams in The Pajama Game, Kelli O’Hara.
There was even a Miss America glamming up the line of arrivals—1998’s Kate Shindle,
who made her Broadway bow as a replacement in Jekyll & Hyde and is now on her way
to originating a role on Broadway—the brunette nemesis Selma Blair played to Reese
Witherspoon’s 2001 "Legally Blonde." Laura Bell Bundy from Hairspray has
the title role in the new show, adapted by Heather Hach and musicalized by the husband
and wife team of Laurence (Bat Boy) O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin. The Wedding
Singer’s Richard H. Blake is the ex she pursues into Harvard Law School where she
finds her true calling and her true love (now played by Spamalot’s Christian Borle);
those roles were played in the movie by Matthew Davis and Luke Wilson, and Jennifer
Coolidge originated the role that has gone to “Saturday Night Live’s” Rachel Dratch.
Such is the workshop cast assembled by producers Hal Luftig, Fox Theatricals and Dori
Berinstein, in association with MGM Onstage, Darcie Denkert and Dean Stolber. New
hyphenate in town, director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell, will do presentations May 18-20.
“Jerry’s terrific,” says Shindle. “I expected him to be able to make pretty pictures on
stage, but I didn’t know that he’d be such a good director as far as character and choices
and stuff like that. They just announced that we’ll be going out of town at the end of the
year [world premiere is set for January 2007 at San Francisco’s Orpheum], so, all things
staying as they are, that would be really, really great. Everybody is sorta burned out about
musicals made from movies, but, if they’re good, who cares? That’s all that matters.”
Stars twinkled and shined with the firefly lighting of Tavern, everybody basking in a happy
post-show after-glow. The ticket of admission carried a cautionary warning—“The bearer
of this pass is entitled to be a bit sluggish at work tomorrow morning”—and quite a few
guests requested the ticket back as they were exiting for the evening (just in case . . . ).
It was one of those parties where wherever you turned there was a classy happening. Jim Dale,
who’s a little bit of all right himself in his amazingly energetic turn in The Threepenny
Opera, rushed up with praise aplenty for Eddie Korbich for his perpetually panicked best
man in Chaperone. (Both are up for the same Drama Desk Award.) “When you’ve actors
out there,” says Korbich,” you know you’ll do a good show. They get every single joke.”
Annie author Thomas Meehan got quite a few himself and bothered to look up
McKellar, who wrote the book with Martin, to tell him how much he enjoyed their work.
A case of well-dressed grace under pressure was Matt Wolpe, reduced to crutch ‘n’ tux
after a mishap doing The Rocky Horror Show in Boston. His father, Lenny
Wolpe, plays Chaperone’s conniving producer, and he didn’t want to miss Dad’s party.
Playwright Martin Sherman, whose adaptation of The Cherry Orchard just got Annette
Bening back on stage (at the Ahmanson in L.A.), arrived with elegance on each arm:
Doubt’s redoubtable Eileen Atkins on the right, and on the left the lovely Sian Phillips,
who is bound for Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre to form Ronald Harwood’s Quartet
with Simon Jones, Kaye Ballard and Paul Hecht May 23 through June 4.
Still lingering around with a contact high from the 10th anniversary reunion concert of
Rent by its original cast were Gwen Stewart, Tony-winning Wilson Jermaine Heredia
and Anthony Rapp. The first two were gearing up to head back West to California
(Heredia has two films coming out—"Nailed" with Roger Daltry and "Descent" with
Rosario Dawson—but “I’m hoping to get back in theatre. I miss it a lot.”).
Rapp was positively rhapsodic about how many emotional bases Martin touched in his
performance. “I thought it was unbelievable,” he said, “and I hope that people appreciate
his work. It is so subtle and unusual and alive and heartbreaking and joyful and sweet and
sad and everything. It truly is one of the greatest performances that I’ve ever seen.”
As you might imagine, Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen were easy converts to The Drowsy
Chaperone. “At one point,” said Bell, “I looked over to Jeff and said, ‘I know this
dude.’” They have their own backstage musical musings going Off-Broadway—or, rather,
will have when their [title of show] resumes performance July 14 at the Vineyard. “We
can get eight to ten weeks, then they start their regular season up again. I’m thrilled to be
down there again. I just want to reopen and see if we can get a little more time of it.”
As two out-of-work actors who write a musical about two out-of-work actors who write a
musical, Bell and Bowen resisted the idea of a director reinterpreting their material, but
they finally relented and hired Michael Berresse to direct and choreograph the piece.
“It was so great to have another pair of eyes,” Bell now admits. “He’d say, ‘I’m telling ya:
This is what I see. Trust it.’ He really stuck it to us, too. He was our secret weapon.”
An up-from-the-chorus-line dancer, Berresse has evolved into actor (Kiss Me Kate) who
turned director for [title of show] and is now writing a vehicle for Christine Ebersole,
while workshopping a Martha Clarke-Arthur Uhry piece about the Shaker movement
called Ann: The Word and performing The Light in the Piazza eight times a week.
“At this point, I’m so happy because so many fantastic things are happening,” he said,
“but, at the end of the day, I don’t know where I am I’m so confused. I can’t collect my
thoughts. I’m, like, ‘I’m a writer.’ ‘I’m an actor.’ ‘I’m a director.’ ‘I’m an Italian.’”
Thank God, he has a job to go while he sorts all of this out. “It’s funny, but the calmest
two and a half hours of my day are doing The Light in the Piazza. When I’m actually at
work is when I can come down and focus on one thing. Listen, if you can find a ticket to
its last performance July 2, grab it because it’s going to be a red-hot show. I can already
feel it. Never before, in all the great things I’ve worked in, has there been such a passion
from the artists for the material. The actors love each other. It’s a great family, but I’ve
had that before. I’ve never, however, been in a show where the company was just a little
bit afraid to let go of the beauty of the show that was provided for them. Meryl Streep
has seen the show eight times, maybe. Richard Greenberg has come 11. They come
back for a reason. There’s something about it that reminds them of why they want to do
this for a living. I’ve learned more doing that show than from anything I’ve ever done.”
All the hats he has been wearing of late come in handy for his next role: Zach, the
director, in the revival of A Chorus Line. Its reformation on a Broadway stage, at its
recent press event, was a moving spectacle, according to Berresse. “The vamp started, we
walked down, we hit the line, we did the poses, and they got their shots. I looked out in
the house, and the photographers were literally wiping tears away from their eyes. There’s
something about being in that line that is so striking. Until that day, I wasn’t fully
engaged in what it was I was about to do. I’ve had so much on my mind. And I looked
down the line, and half the line was crying. Suddenly, everyone understood the privilege.”
Bill Rosenfield, himself a producer of original cast recordings, feigned not understanding
what all the fuss was about with The Drowsy Chaperone: “There was nothing I related
to—sitting alone with cast albums on a rainy afternoon—nothing at all. But I would like to
go out in the first national and tour with it—that’s what I want to do. Pass the word.”
A Londoner these days, Rosenfield is in town to see new musicals and more History Boys
(his favorite play)—and also, unexpectedly, to receive The Richard Rodgers Award from
the American Academy of Arts and Letters for writing the book for True Fans, a new
musical with songs by Chris Miller and Norman Kissler. He can see himself now,
freaking out in the control room like Daisy Clover. “‘No. I don’t want any dialogue on it,
even thought I wrote the dialogue!’ It’s weird to be on the other side of the tables. Now I
have such respect for all those writers who are writing musicals. It Is Very Hard Work.”
The Drowsy Chaperone, on one level, seems light years removed from Rent, which brought Chaperone’s lead producer, Kevin McCollum, to Broadway 10 years ago this week. Both reflect his attraction to new voices and visions in theatre. “Well, you know, I love original stories. I love musicals that have completely original ideas. We’re a theatre with 1,600 seats, and the wonderful thing about this show is that it’s a very opinionated show. Everybody who comes to this show has got their own opinion about the arts. The
great thing about the show is that it celebrates ‘Go to the theatre. Have an opinion about what you see.’ And, if you love something original, come to The Drowsy Chaperone.”
These words pour out of him effortlessly, passionately, and reach an evangelical pitch at the end. I have to ask him: Who writes your stuff?
“I live my stuff. I don’t write it,” he says. Yea verily, Mr. Producer, and yea team!
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The cast gives their opening night curtain call.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
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