It’s summer! I will always love these months because it reminds me of the joy I felt getting the hell out of school when I was a kid. Delicious!

What summer plans do I have, you ask?

Well, I have some fun trips coming up! First, I’ll be performing at Barrington Stage in Massachusetts for the very first time. I’m doing a concert with Jessie Mueller on July 7 and, yes, you can get tickets here.

The very next day, my husband, James Wesley, and I are flying to Lisbon to do three concerts with Liz Callaway and Santino Fontana.

Speaking of Liz Callaway, my sister Nancy found this incredible video of Liz singing “Story Goes On” from when she starred in Baby.

Nancy texted the video to Liz and me and told Liz how amazing she is. (If you don’t know, Liz calls me “The brother [she] never wanted.”) So, I added to the text that Nancy thinks of me as “the brother she’s ALWAYS wanted.”

Liz responded, “Are you sure, Seth?”

She’s still got that sass!

Back to Lisbon! Keala Settle connected us with a great producer named Martim Galamba who is bringing musical theatre to Portugal. He has already hosted events with Bernadette Peters, Will Swenson, Rob McClure, Audra McDonald and more! If you don’t have the cash (or miles) to fly to Portugal, the good news is, we’ll be broadcasting the show on Stars in the House on Saturday, July 12!

When I come back, I’ll be doing my new show Divas by the Decade at the White Plains Performing Arts Center. I’ll be deconstructing the women who have shaped Broadway since the 1950s. I’d like to highlight one of the women in my show because she recently celebrated a birthday. . . Betty Buckley! 

Here she is at age 21, bringing belted Ds to Broadway!

Come see me in White Plains!

Then, I’ll be sailing on Seth’s Broadway Cruise to Alaska! I think the boat is sold out, but you can still join my cruise to Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands in October or my Caribbean Cruise in February. Get thee to my website for tickets! 

Now, onto Pride! Stars In The House just broadcasted a Pride concert that I hosted and music directed. 

Check it out here!

The concert starred Lauren Patten, who won a Tony Award for Jagged Little Pill. In terms of Lauren's Pride journey, she told us that she didn’t realize she was queer until she was an adult performing in Fun Home. Whereas, Zachary Noah Piser, who also performed in the concert, knew at around age 10. 

I was even younger and knew around age 5 because I had a crush on my babysitter’s son. And, I will add, it was an unrequited crush. Even back then! No wonder I recommended this song to Craig Mazin when he needed a heartbreaking tearjerker for HBO's The Last of Us.

My other star was Gay Willis, who I always say was my favorite Christine In Phantom of the Opera. Here she is with fabulous Phantom alum Rebecca Eichenberger who played both Carlotta and Madame Giry. 

I brought them to perform for the residents of the Actors Fund Home and spontaneously asked them to do a duet version of “Think of Me.” Even though Rebecca has never played Christine, she nailed it. An amazing high C. Gay decided to do a harmony line that went up to a High E and then an F. It was amazing. 

Watch!

So, during the Pride concert, I told people I had to use Gay Willis because her first name was so appropriate (#DadJoke?). Near the end of our show, I asked her if she wanted to explain why her presence was extremely apropos. For the first time, Gay spoke publicly about her transgender daughter. 

Gay talked about playing Magnolia in the national tour of Hal Prince’s Showboat and being pregnant for the first time. She was certain it was a girl. She just knew it. However, the ultrasound showed otherwise. After the baby was born, Gay told us she would take the baby out to the mall in a baby Bjorn. Everyone thought the baby was a girl. As her child got older, she had problems fitting in and wound up being bullied in school. Gay broke my heart talking about meeting her child for lunch every day so there would be at least one time during the day where she could feel safe and loved. 

Finally, in her 20s, their daughter told her parents that she was transgender. For the past few years, Gay and her husband have been supporting their child's transition. They started referring to her with she/her pronouns. 

Gay asked if her daughter wanted to be referred to by a different name other than the one she'd been given at birth. They kept using that name until our Concert for America in January 2025. Gay told us that her daughter texted her while she was backstage, announcing that her preferred name is Astra! 

I love that it happened during an event James and I put together. It was so beautiful to see Gay talk about how painful it was to her see Astra struggling and how happy she is that Astra is comfortable enough to reveal her true nature. Gay then sang a song for us that she told us reminded her of Astra, Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors.” It was a perfect song to express what she feels, and I was so proud of her!

The very next night, James and I went to see Dionne Warwick in concert. Holy cow.

First of all, the sassiness! I don’t know if you’ve read her amazing tweets, but she is just as quick and sassisfied in person.

Second of all, the voice! She is still so musical and, as soon as you hear her, you remember all of her amazing hit songs. Her voice has such a signature sound. I got invited to the show because I interviewed her on Seth Speaks, my SiriusXM radio show. I loved interviewing her, and one of the most amazing parts for me was when she talked about her AIDS activism. 

Dionne told me during our interview that she had friends who were dying of AIDS in the early '80s. She knew she had to get involved. Of course, basically everyone in show business knew people who were dying in the early '80s, but most were afraid to get involved. There was such a stigma about AIDS in those days. If you did get involved, people assumed it was because you had the disease. And if you had it, most people were too scared to be around you. There are countless stories about hospital personnel leaving meals outside a patient’s room because they didn’t know how risky it was to enter. My friend, Dick Scanlan who wrote Thoroughly Modern Millie (among many other shows), told me that he remembers his friends thinking it was spread through sweat when people were dancing at clubs. What a scary time!

Back to Dionne, she was actively trying to help and to understand the disease. She told me she was constantly calling Dr. Anthony Fauci and asking him for updates. During this time, she heard the song “That's What Friends Are For,” sung by Rod Stewart during the end credits of the film Night Shift, and found out it was written Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager. She told Carole she loved the song. Carole said, “Wow! Now four people know it!” Dionne asked her to explain, and Carole joked, “Me, Burt, Rod, and now you!”

Her point was that the song was decidedly not a hit. Well, Dionne asked if she could record it with some of her friends. When Elizabeth Taylor heard about it, she thought it could be a fundraising recording for AMFAR, the American Medical Foundation for AIDS Research. Elizabeth asked Dionne if a portion of the proceeds could be donated to AMFAR. Just kidding! She asked Dionne if all of the proceeds could be donated to AMFAR.

Amazingly, Dionne immediately said yes! The song has since raised over $3,000,000. Dionne ended her concert singing it and both of her sons joined in. OMG. The talent was off-the-charts!

Here she is, back in the day, singing live with her super-talented and generous friends.

Dionne had so many fantastic stories, but since it’s the end of Pride, I have to share one more about her AIDS activism. Back in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan named her the first (and only) Ambassador of Health. Dionne was able to fly all over the world and see what treatments were working, bringing them back for more research. She joked during her concert that when customs would see her deplaning they’d ask what she was declaring. She’d simply say, “Drugs.”

Yas on the honesty!

Dionne and so many others were devastated that, as more and more Americans died of AIDS, President Reagan had never said the word AIDS in public. It had been years since AIDS was first discovered, and thousands of Americans had died, but there was still silence from him. Dionne had had it! So, when there was a press conference announcing that Dionne was the Ambassador of Health, she pointedly said to the then-President, “And what disease will I be focusing on?”

Uh-oh! Reagan was caught. She told us that if looks could kill, she would have been dead. But Reagan was cornered, and announced that she would be focusing on AIDS treatments. He finally said the word. 

Brava Dionne!

And my final Pride story is as follows! Last week, James and I were part of a Pride event that was the brainchild of five Democratic senators. The senators rented one of the smaller venues at The Kennedy Center and asked Jeffrey Seller to put together a concert for Pride. Jeffrey saw our five-year anniversary of Stars in the House, where we did a concert version of Finn (the musical that had a financially-successful and critically-acclaimed run at the Kennedy Center but had its tour cancelled). He called us and told us his idea for a Pride concert. James and I got on the horn (aka the cell phone) to start texting our performing pals.

We wound up with a great mélange of people representing the LGBTQIA+ community and the concert was fantastic. Andrew Lippa opened the show with “I Am Here” from his musical Harveyland about Harvey Milk. And, in a wonderful twist, he was backed by members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of D.C. (which also had their appearance at The Kennedy Center cancelled)!

Next was Jelani Remy, who honored Judy Garland and Pride, sounding wonderful on a mash-up of “Over The Rainbow” and “Rainbow Connection.” He was followed by Brandon Uranowitz who used his amazing (fast!) vibrato on “What More Can I Say” from Falsettoland. Yes, he played Mendel on Broadway, but he’d be so wonderful as Marvin!

I was also impressed that Jelani did the event considering he had to fly to St. Louis the very next day to star in Frozen at the Muny. 

However, I was even more impressed with our next singer, Beth Malone. Beth is in the middle of rehearsing the new musical about Dolly Parton in Nashville! Beth flew to D.C. from Nashville that afternoon and had to be back at rehearsal the next morning at 10 AM. Also, I was awed by her bravery. She sang “An Old-Fashioned Love Story” from The Wild Party by Andrew Lippa in front of Andrew Lippa. The amazing part is, she made him laugh! I’m sure he knows the lyrics very well (since he literally wrote them), but she still got him to break. Brava!

Here she is when she sang it at Best in Shows, the wonderful event Bill and Dorothy Berloni produce to help The Humane Society of NYC.

Back to the Kennedy Center. We had John Cameron Mitchell come onstage and recreate his amazing performance as Hedwig with “Origin Of Love.” Not only was the audience rapt, but it was also so fantastic to see the stars in the front row flipping out. The word “iconic” is overused, but he literally is an icon.

Next up was Brandi Chavonne Massey and Kathryn Gallagher who sassed with “Take Me or Leave Me.” It ended up being the final moment used on the Rachel Maddow piece about the event!

I always say that Brandi Massey was the first Black Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway. Brandi always explains that she was the understudy, but the wonderful Saycon Sengbloh was the standby, so she feels that Saycon was the first. But then I explain that Brandi performed the role first so she is indeed the first Black Elphaba!

Here she is!

Another actor in rehearsal came down to D.C. to partake, the wonderful Javier Muñoz. He didn’t have as far to travel as Beth Malone, but his train from NYC was severely delayed. Javier didn’t get a chance to practice his song, which he had never performed before. And I didn’t know if he was going to make the concert because he got in so late. But it worked out amazing and he sang from Hamilton. No, not his regular part as Hamilton, which he’s done many times. Javier sang “Satisfied” and nailed it!

Next, the Gay Men’s Chorus of D.C. took to the stage and did a song that confirmed we were there for Pride, “Dancing Queen!” Talk about #YasQueen!

I then brought up Hennessy Winkler, who is a trans man and had starred at The Kennedy Center as Will Parker in the national tour of Oklahoma! It was wonderful to welcome him back because, as he said, due to what has been happening in the Capitol, he didn’t think he’d be back quite so soon. Here he is when he was doing the tour.

Then, in a grand red dress, Alexis Michelle took the stage. The RuPaul’s Drag Race star spoke about waking up over the past few months and feeling helpless. Then, she shared how performing in this event was a way to do something positive and spread Pride. Alexis sang “I Am What I Am.” Of course, I don’t sound exactly like a full orchestra, but this is kind of what it sounded like.

To bring it all back to Finn, which is when we were first aware of what was happening in D.C., we had the wonderful Dylan Toms (the original Finn) reprise his role and sing the fantastic “Sparkle and Shine.” This is the song where Finn sings about not wanting to just be grey, but to be colorful!

The available recording has Zachary Noah Piser singing. It is so great!

Finally, the whole show ended with the cast singing the version of “One Day More” that Lisa Kron re-wrote with the name “One GAY More.” It specifically focused on the fact that the current President loves Les Misérables. My favorite section was the part that usually goes like this!

Eponine: “One more day all on my own!”

Cosette/Marius: “Will we ever meet again?”

Instead, it went like this!

“Why is this his favorite show?”

“Does he think Javert’s the lead?”

Brava!

You can watch a reunion of these performers with videos of the songs they did on our recent Stars In The House! Until then, peace out!