Being an Ann Reinking Super Fan Got Jim Borstelmann a Role in Chicago

It was my birthday. It is my birthday. I am re-purposing Charles Dickens', “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” to be about my insistence that my birthday last for weeks. I prefer elongating the day because I hate the pressure of making one day super special. One of my best friends, Andréa Burns, has a birthday near mine and we always go out to brunch one week past our birthdays to celebrate. That way, I don’t have the depressive plunge after my birthday is over. I always have something look forward to. As a matter of fact, I still haven’t finished opening my presents! It’s a total call-back to the devastation I’d feel as a kid after vacation and having to return to school. I like to know I can extend something positive for as long I want. I’m not saying I’m still trapped in the trauma of my youth…but let’s just say my therapist says I am.

Anyhoo…I had so much fun on my (first) birthday weekend. On the Friday, I had a game night with a bunch of pals including the multi-talented Priscilla Lopez. Let me just say, if you had told me as a kid when I obsessively listened to the Chorus Line and A Day in Hollywood… cast albums that I would one day be hanging with her at my birthday party, I’d have passed out on my shag rug.

At my birthday game night, I had Priscilla tell my friends what she did when she was backstage at Company in the early ‘70s. Actually, before I write about that, let me first give some insight into how she got backstage at Company in the first place.

Priscilla was just on my Broadway cruise, so the story is fresh in my mind. During our concert, she talked about her audition for Follies which was the catalyst for the Company story. For her audition, she picked the song “War Babies” from The Me Nobody Knows. If you don’t know the song, I will first say that it has an odd melody and some metaphorical lyrics about abandoned children with “no faces.” I love it, but it is definitely strange!

When Priscilla told people what her audition song was going to be, they told her it was completely wrong for Follies. She knowingly said, “But you see, I’m not auditioning for Follies. I’m auditioning for Michael Bennett!” Priscilla had worked with him in the late ‘60s when she was a swing in Henry, Sweet Henry. She thought he was brilliant. Here she is when the cast performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in a number starring the late, great Alice Playten, who was Tony nominated for her role. For the TV appearance, Michael Bennett wanted more dancers, so he decided to use the swings! Priscilla comes out near the end. At 3:50, the ensemble appears in three lines. If you’re looking at the screen, she is on the top right!

So! After Henry, Sweet Henry, Priscilla stopped performing in the ensemble and began to get roles like the lead in the national tour of The Boyfriend as well as being in the small Off-Broadway revue What’s A Nice Country Like You Doing In A State Like This? (also starring Betty Buckley!). Priscilla wanted Michael to know that she wasn’t just a dancer, she could act!

Therefore, this was her Follies audition song. Listen!

After she made that odd choice, Michael asked her to come back for a dance audition. Hm. She was nervous that he wanted her to dance in the ensemble, but she still showed up. However, she hadn’t been dancing a lot in the past few years, so she wasn’t quite getting the steps quickly. Well, immediately, Michael asked her to come offstage and sit with him in the house. They watched the dance audition together and, afterwards, he asked if she wanted to join the cast of the already-running Company and cover the role (yes, a role!) of Kathy, played by Donna McKechnie. In other words, her ploy worked! Instead of casting her in the ensemble of Follies, he realized she could play a featured role and put her in Company. She wound up taking over the role after Donna left to perform it in London. 

That brings me to the story she hauled out at my party. One night, Priscilla was walking past the pit of the Alvin Theater (now the Neil Simon) where Company was playing and saw a really handsome man in the orchestra. She had to know who he was! Well, she approached, as she said, one of the women in the cast whom she felt would not be competition in the romance department (I’m assuming it was Elaine Stritch) and asked her to investigate the dark, handsome stranger. The woman returned with the news that his name was Vinnie and he was a trombone player…but he was a sub. Uh-oh! Priscilla knew that meant she’d have to work fast. She walked back to the pit and approached the nearby Coke machine. She took time perusing what soda to choose for which she simply had to bend down. Which meant her very well-formed behind was facing the pit. Directly in Vinnie’s line of vision. Talk about bend and snap!

That was part one of the plan. Part two happened during an intermission a few days later. When said trombonist came out of the pit to use the phone, which happened to be right next to her dressing room door, Priscilla used that moment to decide to change her stockings. You know, like we all do, by sticking one of her shapely gams in the air.

End of story: Priscilla and Vinnie Fanuele have been married for 55 years and have two amazing children.

Here she is on the beach in Cozumel with her daughter, Gabriella, who came on the cruise with us. Priscilla was concerned about getting too much sun, so she is in a very fashionable full-body bathing suit.

Back to my non-stop birthday! I had so many fun people come over to visit and have delish cake. Jim Borstelmann was there and I asked him to tell me about his first audition for Chicago. Not the one on Broadway, but the one in the early ‘90s. People may not remember, but before it went to Encores and then to Broadway, there was a West Coast production at the Long Beach Civic Light Opera starring Bebe Neuwirth as Velma and Juliet Prowse as Roxie. Jim found out that this production was going to be choreographed by Ann Reinking and he flipped out. He worshipped her. He told me he was warming up before the audition, and a dancer approached him and told him how wonderful he was in Jerome Robbins Broadway. Jim was polite but firm: “I’d love to talk but I have to focus. You don’t understand. Ann Reinking is here!”

Well, the dancer walked away and Jim finally went into the room to audition. Yes, Ann Reinking was there…but so was that dancer who complimented Jim. Sitting right next to her! Yes, the person Jim told he didn’t have time to chat wasn’t a fellow dancer auditioning. He was the director, Rob Marshall! Thankfully, Rob loved how reverential Jim was about Ann Reinking and Jim got the job. And, when Walter Bobbie directed Chicago for Encores and Broadway, Jim got cast in the show again…this time onstage with Ann Reinking who not only choreographed but also played Roxie! Here she is doing her big number. When the boys come in, Jim is on the right of your screen. He is so fantastic (as is Ann Reinking)!

Last weekend, I performed with current Death Becomes Her star Jennifer Simard at the White Plains Performing Arts Center. 

The 10th anniversary of Disaster! opening on Broadway happened a few days ago. Disaster! is the musical I co-wrote with Jack Plotnick and is the one that earned Jennifer her first Tony nomination. Here is the story of how she got her scene-stealing song (along with my deconstruction of her amazingness)!

This Saturday, March 21, I’ll be at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center with Tony Award winner Jessie Mueller. Here is a little video we made during my birthday game night promoting our show!

And finally, I was very honored that I was asked to be one of the people to announce the nominees for the new Broadway Ensemble Awards.

Make sure you get tickets to the event which is on April 6!

Here I am alongside my pals from my February cruise.

P.S. Right after we read the nominations, I naturally had to make Lillias White segue into the end of Act One fight scene from Dreamgirls. Watch her immediately launch into Effie and then peace out!