Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 1 (26 page)

Anyhoo, Carol Lawrence then came on to sing "I Feel Pretty" with some current gypsy ladies. I'm obsessed with the fact that dance training never goes away. Carol Lawrence is in her seventies, but she did ballet moves across the stage with such grace. After "I Feel Pretty," Chita Rivera stormed the stage and launched into "A Boy Like That." When she sang "One of your own kind, stick to your own ki-i-i-i-ind," she added her signature vibrato, and the audience literally applauded! James and Juli saw it with me and later on James told her what a momentous event she had witnessed. She's only seven and I realized it would have been like me seeing a 50-year-reunion of the original
Show Boat
. All right, let's be honest age-wise; the original
Mikado
.

The whole number ended with everyone singing the "Tonight" quintet and, yet again, tears streamed down my face as I thought that these were the people who actually sang this song eight times a week. And they were
still
selling it to the balcony, old-school!

I wrote the Gypsy of the Year sketch for
The Ritz
, and it was essentially a lesson for the young gypsies on Broadway. The other cast members and I acted out signature Gypsy lore that has been around forever. The kind of stories that have been passed along for so many years, no one even knows if they're true, but they're classics nonetheless. We acted out
Wait Until Dark
, where the leading lady plays a blind woman being pursued by a murderer. During the final scene, he stalks her in her apartment, she turns off all the lights, opens up a kitchen drawer, pulls out a knife and stabs him. The Gypsy lore is that during one performance, no one had pre-set her knife, so the drawer was empty. Since she was supposed to be blind, she couldn't really run around the kitchen looking for a knife, but she had to kill the murderer or the play wouldn't end! She was panicking and opened the nearby fridge, hoping for something she could kill him with. Unfortunately, the only thing there was a bowl. She had no option but to take it out and scream "Poison Jello" as she wiped the fake contents on the murderer's face. End of scene… and career.

The biggest laugh happened during our
West Side Story
segment. In the show, after Tony is killed, Maria confronts the Sharks and the Jets while brandishing a gun. "How many bullets are left in this gun, Chino? Enough for you? You? All of you?" Well, one night, a Maria brandished her gun as usual. "How many bullets are left in this gun, Chino? Enough for you?" And the gun went off. There was an awkward silence until Chino realized the audience saw/heard what happened, and he had to act like he was shot. He looked around at the other cast members who didn't know what to do, and finally he realized he had to die. He slowly crumbled to the ground as Maria looked uncomfortable. So, now there was Tony's body on the ground, killed by Chino, and Chino's body next to him. Killed by Maria. The show ended with the gangs carrying off Tony's body as usual, but nobody knew what to do with Chino's. Finally, everyone just stepped over him and left him there.

At the end of Gypsy of the Year,
The Ritz
won the award for raising the most money of any play: $139,514! Then we found out that our sketch tied for first runner-up! We tied with
Xanadu
, who combined with
Stomp
(calling themselves
Stompadu
) and did a phenomenal a cappella song led by Annie Golden and put together by Marty Thomas. I was so thrilled we got two awards! I was backstage with Jeffrey Thomas from
The Ritz
and told him that I've done a lot of Gypsy sketches but never won. By the third time I said how excited I was to win, he reminded me that we actually came in as the runner up.
And
that we tied. Hmph. Jeffrey has a way with a stick pin. Then we went out to Starbucks with my friend Tim Cross. I checked my messages, and my agent told me to call her about
Lend Me a Tenor
for which I had auditioned the day before. I told Tim and Jeffrey that I must have gotten a callback. I called my agent, and she told me that I was cast! I hung up and told Tim and Jeffrey that I got the gig. Tim looked at me sadly and said, "No callback? I’m sorry." Hilarious!

I told my agent I'm taking the part. The good news is, it's a brand new theatre. The bad news is, it's in Northport, Long Island. The good news is, it's Patti LuPone's hometown. The bad news is, it's an hour-and-a-half commute. But it's a great director (BT McNichol), a funny part (the bellhop), and I'll get insurance weeks! And comic genius Michele Ragusa is in it, too! I'm so excited! I start rehearsals Jan. 2. It's so fun to be on vacation and have a job to look forward to! Speaking of vacation, let's go to the Texas part of my week.

James, Juli and I flew down on Wednesday, and the next day we drove to Dallas to visit James' grandma. We left Juli with James' mom and drove to Ft. Worth to hang out with Betty Buckley. For those of you who don't know, around five years ago, Betty sold her Upper West Side apartment and bought an enormous ranch back where she grew up. I've been inspired by her move and have decided to leave the comforts of the West 70s and move back to my hometown on Long Island where I can enjoy the local mall, a non-stop stream of my mother's "helpful" advice and various taunts from local teenagers. Just kidding.

Anyhoo, Betty (or Betty Lynn as she's known by her friends) met us for dinner with her mom, whose name is Betty
Bob
! We had delicious Tex-Mex at a restaurant that Betty has been going to since she was a girl. Betty Lynn said that her mom used to be a singer, but stopped 50 years ago (she's now in her eighties!). At a recent concert, she surprised her mom by bringing her onstage to sing "It Had to Be You." Her mother was a nervous wreck, but Betty had all the lyrics printed and laid out, and worked out the key with her band beforehand. Her mom begged Betty to begin the song, and soon Betty Bob joined in. Her mom said that she didn't want the audience to be bored, so she realized she had to "give it a little something." Betty Lynn said that Betty Bob suddenly started pulsating her shoulder to the rhythm and the crowd loved it. I wish I had been there!

Then we all went to see the film of
Sweeney Todd
. I liked that they kept so many songs from the show in the movie and I'm so thankful that movie musicals are being made again, but I was annoyed to read Sondheim's quote to the
Times
that he prefers actors to singers. Why doesn't he prefer people who can do
both
? I don't understand why there is still the notion that you can either have an actor or a singer. There seems to be a pervading attitude that if you do a musical and sing badly, it's because you're a great actor. Isn't it just called you have a thin voice? Have we all forgotten Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Angela Lansbury, Betty Buckley? Are they not wonderful actors
and
singers?

Speaking of Betty, James and I then drove (with her leading the way in her new Prius) to Betty's ranch. She now not only does her concert and theatre work, but she competes as a horse cutter. Seriously! She rides a horse in a stadium with a bunch of cattle and tries to separate one cow from the herd. She showed us pictures of herself in the competition, and her face is so full of concentration, it's amazing. You only have two and a half minutes and your goal is to separate up to three cows. She's been doing phenomenally well and said that the prize she won in her last competition paid for her new horse! She introduced us to her two horses, Scat Cat and Wild Bill. She offered us a chance to ride and when I found out it wouldn't be like the birthday party donkeys I remembered from my youth, I politely declined. Of course, James fell in love with Scat Cat and now wants a horse. I said "perhaps later, dear," my signature condescending husband answer. We slept in Betty's fabulous guest house and bid her
adieu
. She was on her way to a riding lesson, and we were headed back to Houston. For those of you that are nervous she's given up performing, rest assured she has plenty of concerts coming up and she has a great role in the upcoming M. Night Shyamalan film.

All right, I'm gearing up for a Texan Christmas. A holiday I don’t celebrate in a state I’m scared to enter. Have a great holiday, everyone, and I'll write next week from the Big Apple instead of the Lone Star state!

The Old Year Passes

December 31, 2007

Last week began in Texas with the second half of my visit to James' family. I have a total block against driving, and even though I have a license, I haven't driven in almost ten years. Literally, the last time I remember being behind the wheel was when I was working on
The Rosie O'Donnell Show
, and we were spending sweeps month in L.A. That was the beginning of '98. So, of course, whenever James and I go anywhere, I make him drive… even the six-hour trip to Provincetown. He can't understand why I have such a fear of driving and is constantly asking me to give it a try. So, finally, on the way from Betty Buckley's ranch near Dallas/Ft. Worth to Houston, he convinced me to give it a try. The traffic was so light that it seemed like a perfect place to re-enter the driving world.

We pulled off the road to get food, and he told me that he'd drive me to the entrance of the highway, and then I could take over. I tentatively pulled onto the right lane of the highway and kept going. It was nerve-wracking, but I was doing it! He had been driving for three hours already since we left Dallas and we had two more to go before Houston. James was so appreciative of me giving him a much-needed break from driving. Suddenly, after twenty minutes he abruptly yelled "What the-!" I managed to not crash the car and asked him what was going on. Turns out he had just seen a sign that said "TO DALLAS." That's right… I was going back the way we came! It was actually his fault because he brought me to the wrong entrance, and he apologized, but I refused to keep driving because my anxiety was now back to sky-high. So, because he now had to double back, my version of "giving him a break from driving" was in actuality giving him another 40 minutes of driving. My work was done
.
P.S. It’s now 6 years later… still haven’t driven!

He could never fathom where my fear of driving came from… until later that day. I called my Mom and started to tell her the story. As soon as I said, "James wanted me to drive a little today," she interrupted with "
Please
don't! It's
so
dangerous!" I assumed she thought I was driving for hours on a busy six-lane highway, so I offered a "But there was no traffic" and was met with a "
Please
don't!" Then I followed with, "I only for drove for 20 minutes," and got an "It's
very
dangerous!" Essentially whatever came out of my mouth was cut off with a stream of pleading, fear and foreboding. And the anxiety source material was found.

I spent Christmas with James’ family and received so many gifts from them that James and I literally were asked to pay extra money when we were boarding the plane because our suitcases weighed so much! We were too cheap, so we transferred tons of stuff into our carry-on bags and we now share a delicious bout of sciatica.

Anyhoo, back in New York, I got to interview nine-time Tony Award-winner Tommy Tune for my Sirius radio show. He told me that the first day he arrived in New York from Texas, he auditioned for a Broadway show (
Irma La Douce
) and got it! I told him that it was very Betty Buckley (the first day she arrived, also from Texas, she booked
1776
). I recalled that I arrived from Texas the day before and only had lower back pain to show for it. During the '60s, he went from show to show and in the process met Michael Bennett who choreographed him in
A Joyful Noise
. That was the beginning of a long friendship/working relationship, and, according to the Bennett biographies, rivalry.

Tommy got cast as Ambrose in the
Hello, Dolly!
movie, and I immediately asked him for a Barbra story. Here it is: during the scene where he elopes with Ermengarde, he had to climb up a ladder with Barbra. Before they shot the scene, director Gene Kelly told him, "Hold on to Barbra as tight as you can… do
not
let her fall!" Barbra arrived on the set dressed in her enormous period dress, hat and gloves, Gene yelled "Action," and they began ascending the ladder. Tommy had his hands gripped around Barbra as tight as he could and suddenly she began yelling. He gripped harder, and she suddenly screamed "Cut!! CUT!!" Turns out, he wasn't gripping her fingers, he was gripping her signature Streisand fingernails! Production stopped, and she was rushed to her trailer. She finally came back, and Tommy ran up to her and apologized and asked how her nails were. She paused. She spoke. "They're damaged."

He went to Europe in the early '70s and was subletting from Michael Bennett, who was out of town in Detroit. Tommy said he arrived from the airport and when he walked into Michael's apartment, the phone was ringing. This was before answering machines, so he picked up to take a message. It was Michael. "Don't unpack. I'm doctoring a show and I need you. Fly to Detroit now." Tommy flew there and got to the theatre to watch
Seesaw
, a show about an unlucky-in-love dancer. He asked Michael why he was doing a show that seemed so hopeless, but Michael said he thought that it could be saved. Michael fired Lainie Kazan who was playing the lead (she didn’t look like a dancer) and put Michele Lee in the role, rehearsing her during the day while Lainie played it at night. I'm sure it wasn't awkward at all when Michele and Lainie would pass each other in the hotel they
both stayed at
! Then he put Tommy in the role of Michele Lee's best friend… and Tommy was devastated to be replacing someone whose wedding he attended
and
whose sister played Ermengarde opposite him in the
Hello, Dolly!
movie! Michael Bennett was ruthless when it came to people's feelings sometimes. But he knew how to fix a show… and give people complexes for years.