I鈥檓 back in chilly NYC after being in the warm west!
A few months ago, I got a text from David Green, who was the high school theatre teacher for a lot of super-talented friends of mine from Orange County: Lindsay Mendez, Matt Morrison, Stephanie J. Block, and Krysta Rodriguez. He told me that he is teaching in a high school in Palm Springs and does high school musicals with a twist: He has Equity actors guest star. David asked if I wanted to play Edna in Hairspray. The Tony Award-winning role Harvey Fierstein created?! The final bow in the show?! My answer was, 鈥淣o.鈥�
Here鈥檚 the thing. I loved that show when I saw it, and thought Harvey Fierstein was brilliant. However, I didn鈥檛 watch it thinking, 鈥淚 want to do that part.鈥� I didn鈥檛 think of myself in any role in that show, except the time I was offered an audition around a year into the run. 鈥淥oh!鈥� I thought, when my agent called. It would be so fun to sing and dance in those songs on The Corny Collins Show. Sure, I wasn鈥檛 a teenager, but most of the leads were past teenager-hood, and I figured I #StillGotIt.
While my agent was talking, I was fantasizing about twisting and doing the mashed potato. Finally, I tuned back into the call to hear what role I was offered. Well, it wasn鈥檛 one of the 鈥渘icest kids in town." It was for Wilbur. The role Dick Latessa had originated. If you need a reminder, this was 23 years ago, and Dick was 70 at the time. I passed.
Back to Edna. I told David I wasn鈥檛 going to do it. In an interesting twist of fate, I went to SiriusXM that day to do my talk show, Seth Speaks, right after the phone call. Who were the guests? Kerry Butler, Laura Bell Bundy, and Marissa Jaret Winokur. Three of the original stars of Hairspray. I mentioned how David had offered me Edna and they all screamed that I had to do it. That鈥檚 a lot of belters yelling at me. Hmm. Then, I remembered David telling me they used a few Equity actors, and I suggested that my husband, James, play opposite me. David agreed. David then asked me to recommend a Velma. I suggested Beth Malone and she agreed. David asked his former student, Chad Doreck, from Altar Boys, to play Corny Collins and the adult cast was set!
I was excited, but even though I had around six weeks before rehearsals began, I made the bold choice not to look at the script until a few days before we were set to fly to California. It wound up being a terrifying, but fantastic, experience. But, again, terrifying. The kids began rehearsing a few weeks before we got there. The adults flew out and started rehearsing on a Sunday night. Our opening night was Friday. Six days later. And we were doing the full show. Not a junior version.
David got the sets from the national tour, which were fantastic, and the costume department went all out with amazing looks for everyone. Plus, there was a delicious big band! All of that put the pressure on us to, how do you say, 鈥渘ot suck.鈥� The 鈥渇un鈥� part was, because it was a high school, we couldn鈥檛 rehearse 鈥榯il after school! So, it wasn鈥檛 even a full 10 AM-6 PM rehearsal day. How does one learn a show that quickly? James and I were constantly walking or driving around Palm Springs singing the lyrics to our duet over and over again. I kind of knew it-ish from listening to the album for all these years, but completely didn鈥檛 know there was a reprise. I kept hoping David would cut it. But the next thing I knew, we were staging it.
Side note. A local actor was playing the role called, 鈥淢ale Authority Figure.鈥� A day before we started performances, this actor got sick and our director had to quickly recast. He asked local man, Joel Vig. Joel lives in Palm Springs, but he was a New Yorker for many years and, amazingly enough, originated that very role on Broadway! How crazy is that? It was so great to have him in the show alongside us. Talk about history!
Joel told us that he was the understudy for both Dick Latessa and Harvey Fierstein. On the first day of rehearsal, Harvey told Joel not to worry about going on because he never calls out. Joel said, 鈥淲ait. . . I thought when you did Torch Song Trilogy you missed some shows?鈥� Harvey told him that Torch Song was three acts which lasted more than three hours. He basically never left the stage. So, yes, he wound up missing some. However, he told Joel that Hairspray was much easier (it is???). Turns out, Harvey鈥檚 prediction was correct. He never called out.
But Joel did get to go on. Back in 2003, Broadway shows were experimenting with start times. Hairspray moved one show a week to a 7 PM curtain. Everyone would receive multiple reminders that it was not an 8 PM curtain. One week, a big reminder to the cast did not go out, and Dick Latessa forgot the show was starting an hour earlier. When he still wasn鈥檛 there 10 minutes before curtain, it wound up becoming the first night Joel went on for Wilbur!
P.S. Once, I was hired to be a stand-by conductor for a musical because of something like that. The show only had one conductor (no associate and no assistant) and the conductor had slept through the matinee! It was 鈥減laces鈥� and no one else was available to conduct it because no one else knew it. So they had to cancel the show. With an entire audience in their seats! After that, they hired me, and I had to call in every performance to see if I had to go on. But like Joel Vig as Edna, I never did.
Joel also talked about the original Link, the fabulous James Carpinello. James wound up getting a film, and he had to leave the show when it was out-of-town in Seattle. They bumped up ensemble member Matt Morrison to the role of Link for the run. Then, when the show was about to move to Broadway, the powers-that-be were looking at other people to play Link (including, I think, Joey McIntyre). Marissa Jaret Winokur, who was the original Tracy, basically informed them she would only do the Broadway run with Matt! She told them that he had proven how great he was in the role and there was no reason to get someone else to do the part. I love that she was so adamant! Her campaigning worked and Matt got the gig. Thus began his amazing career as a leading man.
Marissa also told me a hilarious story that relates to this. During the run, Marissa was offered a ton of money to perform at a bat mitzvah. She didn鈥檛 think she could sustain an entire show by herself, so she threw some of the cash at Matt so he would come along and perform as well. It was Matt鈥檚 first Broadway lead, so no one really knew who he was. Meanwhile, Marissa was a big deal. She had just won the Tony Award. Well, years went by, and Glee became a hit. Marissa claims that the bat mitzvah recipient now looks at her photo album and says, 鈥淟ook who sang at my bat mitzvah! Matt Morrison! . . . and some girl.鈥�
Meanwhile, I was too nervous to tell people about Hairspray in Palm Springs because I didn鈥檛 think I would be able to learn that part so quickly. I didn鈥檛 want anyone I knew to see me standing center stage and entering 鈥渢he white room鈥� as they say. But once rehearsals were going okay, I posted on Facebook.
It wound up being so fun to have friends in the audience. Jack Plotnick (who wrote Disaster! with me) came down from L.A. and filmed our very first performance. James and I don鈥檛 quite know all the lyrics, but we made it work somehow!
Here 鈥榯is!
Speaking of Jack Plotnick, Kerry Butler and James Carpinello. . . Jack is directing a super-fun parody of Grease that takes place nowadays. So naturally, instead of Grease, it鈥檚 called Vape. I saw the reading, which I helped cast, a few months ago. It was great, so now they鈥檙e doing a one-night-only concert version at The Town Hall. The cast is so fantastic, including the James as Danny and the Kerry as Sandy. They鈥檒l be joined by so many great performers, including another Hairspray alum: the hilarious Jackie Hoffman as Rizzo. on Tuesday March 11!
Over the last few weeks, I did two concerts with Adam Pascal. I have in Holmdel, New Jersey, on Saturday March 8.
Speaking of Adam, I recently came across an amazing video my friend Danny Blumenfeld filmed of the final run-through of the Chess concert we did in 2003 starring Adam as The American and Josh Groban as The Russian. The fun part of the story is that the concert was originally going to star pop star Lara Fabian as Florence and Julia Murney as Svetlana. Florence is a giant role. Svetlana basically just sings, 鈥淚 Know Him So Well.鈥� Well, Lara鈥檚 schedule got crazy, and she had to drop out. We asked Julia if she would learn Florence in a short amount of time. She was in Australia (!) at the time but said, 鈥淵es!鈥� Then, during intermission of Thoroughly Modern Millie, I ran to Sutton Foster鈥檚 dressing room (I was playing in the orchestra that night). I asked her to play Svetlana in the upcoming concert. She didn鈥檛 know the show, so that night her then-boyfriend Christian Borle acted out the entire show for her in their apartment and she said yes the next day!
Chess wound up being an amazing concert with not only those four amazing people, but also Jonathan Dokuchitz, Norm Lewis, and Raul Esparza starring. As for 鈥淚 Know Him So Well,鈥� I combined the original version with the sassed-out Whitney and Cissy Houston version. Yass!
Here they are in concert!
And, speaking of this song, here is the hilarious version by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The relentless coming in at the wrong time and then the silence when she is actually supposed to sing! I can鈥檛 tell you the amount of times I鈥檝e watched this.
And here is Adam in rehearsal for Chess sounding so good on multiple high Cs!
Watch and then .
And finally, you probably heard that the children鈥檚 musical, Finn, about a shark who wants to be colorful and sparkly, just had its two-year tour canceled. The show opened at the Kennedy Center to incredible reviews and was recently nominated for multiple Helen Hayes awards, including Outstanding New Play or Musical. The creators contacted me and James, and we鈥檙e going to do a star-studded concert version of it at The Town Hall on Monday March 17! Andrew Rannells will star as Finn. He鈥檒l be joined by Tony Award winners Bonnie Milligan (as his sister) and Nikki M. James (as his best friend). Also in the concert are Tony Award winners Lea Salonga, Jessie Mueller, and Kelli O'Hara and Broadway stars Jose Llana, Hennessy Winkler, as well as RuPaul's Drag Race favorite Nina West. More stars to be announced!
You can see the show in person or watch the livestream. .
And, finally, Andrea Martin threw a birthday party for me last week! We had a game night with a few friends and, because my birthday was on the 28th and Andr茅a Burns and Stephen Spadaro鈥檚 birthday was on the 22nd, we decided it would be a joint birthday party. When Andrea ordered the cake, she made sure everyone there was mentioned, but only the birthday people were highlighted.
Look! So meticulous and hilarious.
Peace out!
