Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 1 (12 page)

I was totally going to lead a
Ragtime
/"He wanted to say"/Emma Goldman-style protest of the restaurant… but it was way too hot to picket. So I just told the story to everybody I could, making me sound either like a folk hero or that crazy person on line at Fairway that you avoid by staring straight ahead.

Anyhoo, I did my
Deconstructing
show at the Provincetown Theater (which, by the way, is a really nice space), and it went great. The terrifying thing about P-town is that people don't buy tickets for shows essentially until "places." So the whole day I was devastated because Juli decided to have a play date that night instead of coming to my show, and I thought that meant I lost half my audience. But thankfully, at the last minute, I wound up having a great house.

We finally fled P-town after James had a fight with a toy store because they wouldn't let Juli use the employee bathroom (I stared straight ahead, Fairway-style) and decided to drive down the Cape to visit my old college friend, Liz Higgins. Liz and I were piano majors at Oberlin, and she now lives in Boston. I always use her as an example when I talk to Broadway synth players about "checking your patch." The different sounds synths play (organ, electric piano, sound effects) are called "patches," and you change them by hitting a switch… either on the synth or with a foot pedal. But sometimes, the switch doesn't work or it skips two sounds ahead, so you should always check to see what patch you’re on before you play. Liz was playing
A Christmas Carol
in Boston and during a love scene, she was supposed to play two soft chimes. Unfortunately, she had it on the "scary ghost" patch. So, instead of the lovers hearing the sound of a distant church bell (ding… ding), they literally heard "who-o-o-o… who-o-o-o-o" with signature old man ghost vibrato.

While I was at the Cape, I heard that the Actor’s Playhouse is closing. I'm devastated because that’s where I did my one-man-show,
Rhapsody in Seth
, and I loved that theatre. I'm thrilled though because there was an article in Backstage about actors that performed there who moved on to greater prominence, and it included my name next to James Earl Jones’ and Robert DeNiro’s! Do you think that they also emailed the article to their parents like I did?

So, we all had a great time with Liz and, as we drove home, I thought that the vacation would end on an up note. Then in the car Juli said, "There’s a bug on Maggie." I thought, "Oh! Juli's so cute! She's concerned because a fly landed on Maggie." I turned to look where she was pointing and saw a blatant tick on the inside of Maggie's ear! We pulled over, bought tweezers and James pulled it off. I thought to myself, "Why should I be panicked that it had Lyme disease… just because the last place we went to a rest stop was in Lyme, Connecticut?!?!" Ah! Why don't they at least change the name of that town? Who wants to make a pit stop in Hepatitis, Rhode Island?

We finally got home, and I calmed myself down by realizing that everything I was upset about was a luxury problem. I walked into my apartment, ready to do some new video blogs and discovered that I left my brand new laptop at Liz's house on the Cape… and she had left for Boston. Let me end with this old chestnut: I need a vacation from my vacation. And a new laptop.

Kerry, Anthony and Sideburns

August 14, 2007

First of all, my hair.
Joe Mantello wants us all to grow our hair out until rehearsals begin for
The Ritz
. We're going to have our hair cut into ‘70s styles, so the more hair we have to work with, the better. It feels bizarre to have crazily long sideburns. I don't know if I look like a Village Person or a Yeshiva student.

This week I did an interview for my Sirius radio show with the ultra nice and brilliantly talented Kerry Butler. Back in the day, Kerry and I performed in a kids' nightclub called "Youngstars" when we were super young (she was super
super
young). At the end of the show, all the kids in the show got to wear the T-shirt of the Broadway show they were in at the time, so there'd be kids doing the finale in T-shirts that said
Annie, Peter Pan, Evita
… even
I Remember Mama
(!). Kerry and I, however, had never done a Broadway show and we’re
still
devastated that our T-shirts were blanker than Sofia Coppola's face throughout
Godfather: Part III
.

There are so many
Annie
audition devastations out there, but Kerry's tops the list. She actually has two that need to be told. First, she auditioned to be a replacement orphan on Broadway and actually got to the final callbacks! She was in Catholic Elementary School, and her principal made a loudspeaker announcement on the day of her last audition asking the students to pray for her. One student named Joey Mazzarino heard the announcement while he was sitting in class and thought, "Pray that someone gets a part in a show? That's ridiculous!" He refused… and Kerry got cut. She was devastated years later when Joey revealed to her that he boycotted helping her out with a little prayer… especially since she wound up marrying him! No wonder she didn't take his last name.

The real doozy of a story happened a little later. She went to the audition for the
Annie
movie and, again, got to the final callbacks! That night there were a few messages on her family's answering machine. Could one of them be "the" message? Her mom pushed play, and suddenly they heard what they had been waiting for: "This is a message telling you that you've been cast in the
Annie
movie. Congratulations!" Kerry remembers jumping up and down screaming. But then wait! There was another message: "Um… that last message was a mistake. Sorry."

Can you believe that!? She got to have ten seconds of joy followed by an eternity of heartache. I was plunged into a depression when I heard that story… and then more so when she told me that she didn't save the messages. How much fun would that be to actually hear? I'm sure that Kerry
was
devastated that she didn't get cast until she actually saw the movie — she then probably had a feeling similar to the "devastated" passengers who couldn't book a ticket on the initial voyage of the Titanic.

Kerry's done so many shows it's mind-boggling. We talked about her playing Belle in
Beauty and the Beast
, and I asked her what happens if the contraption that helps the Beast do his transformation back into the Prince doesn't work. Due to the non-disclosure agreement she signed that said all she's ever allowed to reveal about the special effects in the show is that they're "Disney Magic" (oy!), she clammed up… except to tell me that on opening night in Toronto, it malfunctioned. The orchestra, however, still played all that transformation music, so the Beast (Chuck Wagner) did what’s required when it malfunctions: he filled the time by doing a
modern interpretive dance
. Seriously! Kerry was filled with hilarity/mortified at the awkwardness… but then
doubly
mortified when the Isadora Duncan transformation ended and the audience applauded! Canada, have you no shame?

I told her how fierce I thought her roller skating is in
Xanadu
and she told me she's notoriously uncoordinated. She was Penny Pingleton in
Hairspray
and revealed that, after the Tony Awards, Marissa Jaret Winokur told her that she TiVo'd the Tonys and watched their performance of "You Can't Stop the Beat," and she loved how crazily klutzy Kerry looked. Kerry was horrified to admit that "You Can't Stop the Beat" was the one number in the show where she thought she was making Penny look like an amazing dancer. She thought Penny's journey in the show was from klutz to cool and culminated in her amazing dancing during the finale. Ouch. That may have been her
sub
text during the number, but her actual text was clankstress.

In terms of the roller skating in
Xanadu
, she flat out told the director (Chris Ashley) that she wouldn't be able to act ‘til the end of the rehearsal period. So much of her comedy is physical, and she said that she needed to spend her rehearsal time becoming comfortable with what her body was doing on those ‘80s skates. She told me that she'd come home from rehearsal almost every day and cry. Thank goodness Chris let her mark the first three weeks of rehearsal because I saw the show, and her skating is roller-disco perfect and her performance is hysterical.

On Thursday, Anthony Rapp came to the
Chatterbox
, fresh off the heels of his triumphant return to
Rent
. I asked him about all those
Rent
-heads out there and if there was any inappropriateness. He said that the only indecent proposals he ever got in fan mail were when he was on Broadway playing Charlie Brown. Disgusting? You decide. Actually, I will.
Yes
.

Of course, we had to talk about his teen film hit
Adventures in Babysitting
. He screen tested for it, but the producers felt that, due to the success of the Molly Ringwald teen films, his blond hair would remind audiences too much of Anthony Michael Hall. So he screen tested a
second
time, and this time they dyed his hair red… with permanent dye! If he hadn't gotten the film, I'm sure watching the red hair color grow out wouldn't be a devastating daily reminder of the film he didn't book.

I asked him how cool the premiere was and how popular he became in his high school because he was one of the stars of a Hollywood feature film. He told me that (a) nobody in his school cared, (b) there was no premiere and (c) he went to see it in his local Cineplex and had to buy his ticket. Ow, ow and yowtch.

This week I'm excited to see some Fringe shows (especially the laugh-out-loud Kelly Kinsella's
Life Under Broadway
, which I saw last year at Ars Nova and loved) and also slightly terrified to have my costume fitting for
The Ritz
at William Ivey Long's studio. I finally have to put on that revealing towel. Did they have love handles in the ‘70s?

A Robe, Please, for the
Ritz

August 21, 2007

Let me get my costume ordeal, I mean "fitting," out of the way.

Since
The Ritz
takes place in a 1970s bathhouse, I've been preparing myself for a skimpy costume. And by "preparing," I mean binge eating. Two weeks ago, I got the call for the fitting, and even though the costumes are by William Ivey Long, the fittings were at a sassy place in the garment district run by a lovely woman named Jennifer Love. I asked her how many people meet her and make references to a.) Jennifer Love Hewitt and b.) Jennifer Convertibles. She said often to "a" and never to "b." What? Jennifer Convertible Sofas were a staple of my childhood commercial watching alongside ads for the game Mousetrap and Gnip Gnop. Anybody?

So, even though I was joking around, I was also preparing myself for the depression of being squeezed into a towel and parading about. I was, however, not prepared for the pleasant surprise of seeing a long, white bathrobe hanging on the costume rack. Ah! I thought, I'd feel comfortable wearing that on Broadway. I could show a little chest and, if the audience is lucky, a little gam.

Unfortunately, my fantasy was short-lived because I was suddenly asked to try on a pair of underwear. "To wear under the bathrobe?" I asked. Oh, these costume people are such purists, I thought. Even though my underwear wouldn't be seen, they wanted to make sure I had on a nice, tight pair. I was informed that the underwear
might
be worn under the bathrobe, or it might simply be worn. By itself. With nothing else. Isn't that against Equity rules? Subjecting an actor to love handle viewing by a general audience? I slowly stripped off my clothes à la Coco from
Fame
and put on said underwear. The "good" news is that I could fit all of my fat over the top and sides of the underwear. Excellent. Surely this is the worst part, I thought. Then,
Flash!
That's right. Photos had to be taken front, side and back(fat), so that final decisions could be made on who in the cast should wear a towel, a bathrobe or just underwear. At least that's what I was told, but I know that those photos are going to be shown the next time there's a William Ivey Long dinner party. They'll be passed down a long line of costumers from a chortling Bob Crowley to a guffawing Willa Kim
.
P.S. Now as I read this I think I was probably ten pounds less than then I am now. I wanna see those pics!

This week I also had the pleasure of interviewing the two comic cut-ups from
Xanadu
, Mary Testa and Jackie Hoffman, at the
Chatterbox
. They're laugh riots singularly, but together they are a melting pot of hilarity. Mary talked about working with Bill Finn on the early Marvin Trilogy and walking home from Bill's apartment late at night. She and Alison Fraser would walk closely together because the West 80s in those days were not so safe. Around 1 AM, they passed by a hotel residence and an elderly man was having trouble working the door. Mary wanted to help, but Alison warned her about the rough element in the neighborhood. Mary told Alison to calm down. It was a very old man! What could happen? She approached gingerly and helped the man with the door. Ah. Good deed done. She then asked if he wanted anything else. "Yeah," he growled, "Gimme some P----!" They both ran away screaming!