Forbidden Broadway: Behind the Mylar Curtain (15 page)

NORA

ALL

BILL

ALL

CHLOE

ALL

[They repeat verses as a round.]

GERARD

Ambition, ambition. Without our ambitions, our lives
would be as crazy as ... as ... as an actor in New York!

ALL

[They turn and aim slings, arrows, and pistols at the
Forbidden Broadway marquee. The marquee glows.
Tableau.]

My best contribution to Forbidden Broadway, I am told, was my rendition of Lauren
Bacall. I had never done any kind of impersonations before my audition for Gerard, and
I was asked to work up Julie Andrews singing "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" and something
else-a Merman number, I think.

When I got the job, I went to see a late
show that Saturday night at Palsson's. The
audience was screaming with laughter, and
I wondered how I was ever lucky enough
to get into a show as good as this obviously
was. It was great to join Forbidden Broadway early on, when Gerard was still in it; I
replaced Nora Mae Lyng, and the other two
people in the cast were Chloe Webb and Bill
Carmichael.

I never worked as hard as I did in that
show, but I also never had so much fun or
was in such great physical shape (the black
dress!) or vocal shape. I felt like I could sing
anything. We all shared one dressing roommake that "closet"-and we all helped each
other make the quick changes, laughing and
cursing all the way. There were no dressers
but us, and in those days, the costumes came
by way of someone's good will or Goodwill.

Dee Hoty.

My worst experience was forgetting the words to the new Cats parody; I was overwhelmed by so many other additions to the show, and I guess I just snapped. The
next day, Gerard gave the number to Bill. I was relieved, if embarrassed.

Anyway, back to Bacall. She was on Broadway in Woman of the Year. I hadn't seen
the show and had no idea how to "do" her, but when I discovered the "head back,
eyes half open" stance, she was mine! How I miss those days. Forbidden Broadway
was the best on-the-job training I ever had, and I will never forget it.

P.S.: In the "You KnowYou've Made It When ..." department, the best compliment
I've ever been paid was that Gerard mentioned me by name-quite nicely, thank
you-in the lyrics for his Stritch parody. Everyone in town called to tell me about it.
How cool is that?!

When Forbidden Broadway started, we were just kids, and we did the show because
it was fun. But, suddenly, everyone in NewYork was coming to see it. I think some of
the initial charm has been lost over the years; now, we need seasoned performers to
do all the imitations effectively. But in the beginning, it must have been very delightful
to see twenty-four-year-olds making like Merman and Martin and Yul Brynner.

We did the first edition of Forbidden Broadway right around the time when Dreamgirls was opening, but we didn't spoof that show because we were already set with
numbers from The Pirates of Penzance, Woman of the Year, and Evita. Those were the
big-ticket items that everyone had seen. I began to realize that you have to wait about
six months after a show opens and give everyone a chance to see it-or, at least, read
and hear about it-before you can make fun of it, so we didn't get around to Dreamgirls until almost a year later.