Did you know New Orleans can get crazily cold weather? I didn't, but I had the "pleasure" of finding out. I was staying at a hotel near the French Quarter and put the fan on to cool off what I assumed would be a hot, Southern night. Let's just say that I woke up colder than Chita Rivera's greeting to Rita Moreno when they ran into each other after the West Side Story film premiere. OK, my recall of their meet and greet is total conjecture, but suffice to say I was freezing! I grew up listening to the 70's song "Southern Nights." [AUDIO-LEFT]Glen Campbell apparently lied when he told me it would "feel so good." (By the way, as another blow to my barely-holding-on-youth, I had to look up the lyrics to the song at "OldieLyrics.com.")
"Any to the hoo," as the say in the 'hood (do they?), I was down in New Orleans starring (barely) in Varla Jean Merman's first feature film called "Varla Jean and the Mushroom Heads." I shot all of my scenes in two days, and when I say "days," I pretty much mean we used all the hours that make up a day. It was relentless. We had to get every scene that I was in shot done before I left because there was no way I could come back. So we just filmed until we got it done. The first day I was up at 6:45 AM, and we didn't finish shooting until 10 PM. The fun part was we didn't get a dinner break. But lest you think I lost weight for my [title of show] diet, you should know that there was a hefty amount of candy on the set. That's pretty much how everything is in New Orleans, which is French for "unhealthy." In the morning of the first day of shooting, I asked my friend Mark Cortale (who's producing) to pick me up an egg white vegetable omelet (I'm a vegetarian) and some unbuttered wheat toast on the way to the shoot. He arrived with what he said was the "New Orleans" version of my order: two fried eggs and cheese on a biscuit. With a sausage on it as well. He literally couldn't get the sandwich without the sausage. When I checked in the night before, I noticed that my hotel is the only one I've ever been in that has a fresh box of "pain pills" in the bathroom waiting for each new guest. It's literally assumed you'll have a hangover. Then I went to get coffee while we were filming exterior shots, and there were three tins of milk next to the sugar. I always avoid the skim, but sometimes will get one percent or treat myself with delicious half and half. Well, there was no need to make a decision because all three were half and half! And finally, on the last morning, I asked my cab driver on the way to the airport if we could stop at a bank so I could go to the ATM. "No need," he said, "most bars have an ATM." "But," I asked, confused, "can you find a bar that's open this early?" One minute later, he pulled up to one of the many 24-hour bars in New Orleans. I walked in, nervous at how strange I would look, being the only person in a bar at 8 AM in the morning. That's right, for some reason, after all I'd seen in that city, I was still surprised to see the bar full of people. At 8 AM! My question was: were they still drinking from the night before? Or had they just woken up and headed to the bar first thing? I didn't hang around long enough to hear the slurred response but I suspect, as my therapist says when I ask a question with two options, "Can't it be both?"
Michael and I go way back, and we made our first short film together 20 years ago! I remember that I came over to his apartment on 98th Street, and we made this bizarre video about my obsession with the fact that actors have to do whatever a director or choreographer tells them. In the video, I play a dance-happy choreographer who makes the original cast of Into the Woods do their finale with inappropriate elaborate dance that should instead be basically walking. After the first performance, I disappointedly tell the cast that all the moves have been completely cut, but I praise Barbara Bryne, who played Jack's elderly mother, for being the only one who really tried to sell it, and I make her my dance captain. In the video, I also played an audience member at the first preview. My favorite part is where I'm trying to understand the meaning of the non-stop lyrics to Little Red Riding Hood's "I Know Things Now."
(Shot of me, listening to lyrics intently) And I know things now, many valuable things, that I never knew before. Do not put your faith in a cape and a hood (nodding) they will not protect you the way that they should (nodding) and take extra care with strangers, even flowers have their dangers, (confused… checking Playbill) and though scary is exciting, nice is different than good (thinking…finally getting it). Mother said, straight ahead, don't be afraid or be misled. Isn't it nice to know a lot? (Nodding in agreement. And relief it's the end of the song) And a little bit not. (looking at everyone in audience mouthing WHAT?!?!?!) My favorite Varla moment in the film happens in my hotel room. Throughout the movie, she keeps putting off paying me (she's hired me to write the score to her new children's television show). At one point I ask for my money, and she proudly hands me something. I look at it and say, "This is a coupon." Finally, I show up back at my hotel and she's lying suggestively in my bed. When I ask what the hell she's doing there, she tells me that she hopes we can clear up this "little check misunderstanding." She asks that the cameras be turned off because she doesn't want a sex tape out there. Then she seductively adds, "Again." One second later, she begins scratching her crotch and asks, "Do you have bed bugs?"
photo by Aubrey Reuben |
The Broadway "It Gets Better" Video:
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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 be contacted at his website SethRudetsky.com, where he has posted many video deconstructions.)