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ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: The Gypsy in Their Souls
By Seth Rudetsky
05 May 2008
Speaking of auditions, Alison didn't have to audition for Gypsy. Arthur Laurents saw her at the Bay Street Theatre last year, took her out to dinner and offered her Tessie Tura. She regrets dropping out of college and has decided to finish her degree! She's going to John Jay and studying every night. Literally. The strippers don't enter 'til the middle of Act Two, so they have a lot of time on their hands. Alison was supposed to read "The Odyssey," but it was hard to take in, so she started reading it out loud. Marilyn heard her and asked if she could play one of the parts. Soon they read the whole thing, as well as "The Iliad," and Marilyn spends the beginning of the show testing Alison's knowledge of those classic snoozefests…I mean, masterpieces. Marilyn brought her notes on Thursday and tested the audience at the Chatterbox. For every question that the audience got before Alison did, they donated $20 to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Turns out the audience knew everything, and they gave a donation of $160! I was onstage the whole time and found out after that Alison was giving the audience the answers as Marilyn was reading! Pret-ty sneaky, sis.
Marilyn grew up in Utah and studied voice in college and then went to ACT in San Francisco. She played Cunegonde in a production of Candide at the Arena Stage in DC, but had very little money when she got to New York, where she had moved. She was on a bus going uptown and saw someone she had just done Candide with. She was mortified because she had just come from a temp job as a secretary and saw her former castmate, was now in Phantom, get on the bus. Marilyn tried to hide, but the woman came over. And, it's a good thing she did, because she told Marilyn that she was gonna try to get her an audition for Phantom! Marilyn said that she moved mountains to make it happen, and it finally did. She got an audition for Carlotta and prepared the managers' scene (which goes to a high E!) and the speech that Carlotta says when something almost falls on her head in the first scene and she storms out. ("These-a things do happen? Well, until you stop these-a things from happening, this thing does not happen!") She inhaled to start the speech, and Hal Prince yelled, "Stop! This is not a comic monologue…She takes this very seriously. Her life was just threatened." I agree with him, but how did he know she was going to have a comic take on it from one inhale? Was her inhale hilarious? How do you inhale and make it funny? I'd ask Bill Clinton, but we all know he didn't inhale! That's right, now that it's election year, expect a string of numbingly unfunny jokes from me.
Marilyn said that she spent a year visualizing herself in that part: imagining how it felt coming to the theatre, seeing her name in the Playbill, having her picture outside. It was "The Secret" back when "Secret" just meant a deodorant strong enough for a man, but made for a woman. She had five auditions and was told that she had to go to Trump Tower to give her final audition for Sir Andrew (The Lordship came later). She had borrowed a pair of shoes for the audition that were too small, and they messed up her whole back. She remembers riding the bus home, leaning against the window and weeping because her sciatic nerve was flaring up so badly. When she got home, she got a call saying that she didn't need to do the next audition…she got it! Se-cret! I mean, creative visualization!
She also covered the role of Norma Desmond in the Toronto production of Sunset Boulevard. The role was being played by Diahann Carroll (who, you remember, was the first black female star of a TV series, "Julia"), and Marilyn said that there were certain performances where she (a red-headed white girl) would go on for the second act. My Chatterbox audience gasped, and Marilyn said, "That was pretty much the reaction of the audience up there." I remember doing Forever Plaid in Toronto and running into Marilyn. She made me laugh so hard because, as the standby, none of the front-of-house staff knew who she was because she was always backstage. So when she was scheduled to first go on, she heard one usher tell another, "Marilyn Caskey is playing Norma tonight." Marilyn walked up and said, "I hear she's fan-tastic! I drove from Florida to Toronto to see her." Marilyn said to me, "Rumors are going to happen, why not start them yourself!"
Both she and Alison said that Patti is at the top of her game in the show, and her voice is flawless. Marilyn said that Patti was really sick one night, but went on. She sounded fantastic onstage and then offstage would cough her lungs out. They love working with her, and Alison said that she's never heard an audience reaction that can compare with what Patti gets for "Rose's Turn." Brava!
Last Monday I started recording the audio version of my novel, "Broadway Nights," for Audible.com. The good news is that the LOGO television website is going to promote it as their book for June. The bad news is that we were supposed to have this long, leisurely time to record it, but the whole thing has to be done by this Friday. I'm playing the lead character, and I have a ton of actors coming to play all the others. Audible felt that in case an actor suddenly cancels out at the last minute, I should first record the entire book! It's more than 350 pages!! I did the whole thing in four days and have the nodes to prove it. Now that I've recorded everything, I'm going to keep the narration parts, and I just started bringing in Broadway people to play the other roles. Last week I had Ann Harada come out and play the cheap, nightmarish producer character, Bettina Geisenshlaag. Ann was fantastic and was joined by Kristin Chenoweth, who played Francoise, my assistant music director who is obsessed with the harpsichord...or, as she says, the "harp-see-chord," which is the way she claims it was originally pronounced. We all took the train home from Newark and were exhausted slash devastated we were not in amazing car service. I put a photo on the side of the column to show our bad attitudes. I also put some video footage of the recording sessions on my website, www.sethrudetsky.com.
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Seth Rudetsky with Kristin Chenoweth and Ann Harada
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On a side note, I did Grease years ago with Marissa Jaret Winokur, and I am super proud that she's on "Dancing With the Stars." Well, cut to, she's desperate to stay on that show and just sent me an email asking me to beg my friends to vote for her tonight! Just call (800) 868-3409 between 8:30 and 10 PM in your time zone. The best part is, you don't even have to watch the show! You can listen to your CD of Hairspray and just keep your finger on the re-dial button.
All right, everyone, this week I finish recording the book, see South Pacific and celebrate my mom's birthday. And I got an invite to the opening of Glory Days, the last show before the Tony cutoffs. I feel like such an insider — if an insider has to wait a complete theatre season to finally get an invitation to an opening night. Anybody? Nobody. Stay tuned for some more "I'd Do Anything" recaps!
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(Seth Rudetsky is the host of "Seth's Big Fat Broadway" on SIRIUS Satellite Radio and the author of "The Q Guide to Broadway" and the novel "Broadway Nights." He has played piano in the orchestras of 15 Broadway musicals and hosts the BC/EFA benefit weekly interview show Seth's Broadway Chatterbox at Don't Tell Mama every Thursday at 6 PM. He can be contacted by visiting www.sethsbroadwaychatterbox.com.)
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Ann Harada, Seth Rudetsky and Kristin Chenoweth.
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