Forbidden Broadway: Behind the Mylar Curtain (2 page)

On a late spring afternoon in 1967, 1 was riding my bike up a hill on Richdale Road in
Needham, Mass., when I saw a strange sight: Gerard Alessandrini was in his driveway,
talking into a cardboard appliance box. Curious, I pulled over. I was twelve that year,
Gerard was thirteen. We knew each other from school, we lived on the same block
and took the bus together every day. Everybody knew Gerard was an eccentric kid,
but why the heck was he talking into that big box?

Moving closer, I heard him mimicking Robert Preston hosting the 1967 Tony Awards.
Inside the box was his friend Joey, applauding and cheering wildly. Gerard was recording the whole bizarre performance on a Grundig cassette recorder. Still not getting
it, I asked him, "Why the box?" His answer-something about trying to electronically
rechannel the sound for "360 Stereo"-eluded me. But that afternoon, hanging out
with Gerard and Joey, I got hooked. I was entering a showbiz Neverland, all in Gerard's
head, a place where a cardboard box in a driveway could be the Shubert Theatre on
Broadway.

It was like joining a secret club, and the clubhouse was Gerard's basement. Any
kid with an imagination can create fun in a furnace room; Gerard's obsessions, even
then, were on a higher level. First, there was his record collection: every Broadway cast
album, movie soundtrack, and opera record. On the walls, he had painted by hand
perfect replicas of his favorite show album covers. There were movie posters and souvenir programs. I called it the Gerard Alessandrini Broadway Musical/Movie Museum.
Music was always playing on the stereo, filling the room with that big, brassy Broadway
sound. It was all so over the top! Walking down the stairs to Gerard's basement, you'd
feel like you were descending the grand staircase at the Harmonia Gardens.

During high school, Gerard was always writing song lyrics and plays. In freshman
year, he wrote a comedy called Thanks a Million, an irreverent farce featuring Jackie
0. as a kleptomaniac. In sophomore year, he wrote his first original musical with a
starring role for me; it was called Peter Get Your Slide Rule (with apologies to Irving Berlin). Gerard was cutting his teeth writing lyrics, constantly coming up with new,
often blue, parody songs. He'd write them
anywhere, often scribbling in the back of a
textbook.

Gerard Alessandrini as Curly in Oklahoma!
at Xaverian Brothers High School in
Westwood, Massachusetts.

One day, our geometry teacher caught
Gerard in the act. To make an example of
him, he held up the lyrics for the class to
see and said in a disgusted voice, "Mr. Alessandrini, you will never make a living doing
this!" I remember feeling so embarrassed for
my friend, but it didn't faze Gerard. He headed off to English class and penned a Gypsy
Rose Lee striptease number, "Put Your Best
Breast Forward (And Let It All Hang Out!)."

It's a good thing Miss Murphy, our English teacher, never caught him writing that
one. She actually encouraged Gerard by
raving about a pre-Broadway performance
of Company, a new musical she'd just seen.
From then on, Gerard never missed a new
Sondheim musical. He even cornered the
composer after a performance, questioning
him about the hook of a lyric. (These days,
Mr. Sondheim returns the favor, giving Gerard notes on every new edition of Forbidden
Broadway.)

Of course, Gerard was first to audition for the school musical. For reasons still
unclear, he chose to sing "So Long, Dearie" from Hello, Dolly! His song styling was
probably more Streisand than Channing, but the distinction was lost on everyone
except him. The director asked if he could sing something with a little more weight.
Gerard replied, "You mean, more like Ezio Pinza?" And then he sang "Some Enchanted
Evening" in a rich, deep baritone. Jaws and pencils dropped.

Gerard was immediately cast as Curly in Oklahoma! His performance was a smash,
even though he literally broke a leg on opening night (during the "Farmer and the Cowman" fight scene) and completed the rest of the run on crutches. After that, he was a
star at school-and until he graduated, no one else ever auditioned for the male lead
in the school musicals. That role was always reserved for Gerard. You'd think people
would have resented him, but no one did. He had found his place. He went from being
an oddball and an outcast to being the star of the show, a big man on campus. In an all-boys school filled with jocks, Gerard
found respect, and he did it on his own
terms. Ile repeated that success in college, and after he graduated, he moved
to New York. All of his classmates from
his school days were pretty sure Gerard
was going to make it.

Peter Brash and Gerard Alessandrini in The Fantasticks at
Xaverian.

I moved to New York that same year,
and our friendship began a new chapter. Gerard kept performing and writing, and before long, he had a trunk full
of parody lyrics. Some were quite blue.
He became the hit of our annual New
Year's Eve parties, singing his dirty ditties. All the titles are unprintable. One
song, to the tune of "Razzle-Dazzle"
from Chicago, included the line "Flow
can they see with urine in their eyes?"
(This was almost a quarter of a century
before Urinetown.)

In those days, there were many piano bars around town with an open-mike policy
that gave new talent a free showcase. Gerard got the idea that singing his parody
lyrics-the G-rated ones!-might get some attention, so he put together a show for
himself and fellow performer Nora Mae Lyng. Since my partner and I happened to
have a piano in our shoebox apartment, that's where Gerard and Nora rehearsed their
act, with Pete Blue at the piano.

When they had enough songs ready, they decided to try them out in front of an
audience, so we invited some friends over for a party and a show at our place on June
28, 1981. It was a backers' audition without backers. (None of us had any money.) We
moved the dining table, set up rows of chairs and the sofa facing a makeshift stage,
and dimmed the lights. The show began with Gerard singing, "There's a Great White
Way where the white is gray, and the great is only okay..."

By the time the show was over, the dozen or so invited guests were on their feet
cheering. We didn't want the night to end, so we all paraded over to Palsson's Supper
Club on West 72nd Street. It was late, the mike was open, and Gerard and Nora took
to the stage, reprising their earlier blockbuster performance. The club's manager sat
up at the bar.

There was something in the air that night, a certain feeling of stars aligning. The
manager booked the act, and the cast of two was expanded to four. Numbers were
added, including that amazing opening, with Gerard and Nora as waiters rushing the stage. This was the era when punk rock performers would get "rushed" by fans. Gerard was never influenced by punk, but that same spirit of anarchy infused Forbidden
Broadway. My friend threw his own Molotov cocktail onto a stage of an Upper West
Side supper club, and the New York theatre establishment took notice. Before long,
the show was the hottest ticket in town.

As a performer, Gerard peaked at age nineteen. Here he is in a Christopher Ryder House revue
circa 1979.

My one regret about Forbidden Broadway is that I never kept track of how many
times I've seen the show. By now, I'm sure it must be in the hundreds. And every time
when the show is over, I hear the sound Gerard captured years ago in that cardboard
appliance box in his driveway: the sound of wild cheering and applause. His audience
is cheering to this day.

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