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Attention readers, my new young adult book is finally available! Ah! So exciting! It's called "My Amazing/Awful Popularity Plan," and it doesn't come out until January, but you can buy the hardcover in advance online. And, because I'm so 2012, you can also get it on Kindle. Go to http://www.amazon.com/My-Awesome-Awful-Popularity-Plan/dp/0375869158/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1322239726&sr=8-3.
Now to the more mundane. I have eight more hours on this train. That's right, I'm in hour three of my 11-hour train trip to Canada. I was asked by Jack Latulippe to do a master class in Montreal. He's had people like Shoshana Bean and Stephen Schwartz up to teach, and his goal is to bring lots of Broadway people and shows to Montreal. He has an amazing Broadway blog called Master a Montreal (http://masterclassamontreal.com), and I was so excited when he asked me to come to visiter. When I asked James and Juli to come with me, James thought it would be a fun "adventure" if we all took the train up and back together. The nice part is it goes up along the Hudson, and the scenery is beautiful. The not nice part is there are eight more hours of scenery ahead. Anyhoo, I'm going to make the best of it and get some writing done.
photo by Robb Johnston |
Megan Mullally was up for the role of Karen and when the final network audition came, she was the only one scheduled. If you don't know, during the network audition, there's always another actor, just for variety, even if there's a definite frontrunner. Regardless, when her name was called to audition, she wasn't there. She literally didn't show up. Max thinks she didn't want to be the sassy sidekick, she wanted to be the leading lady. Right before her "Will and Grace" final audition, she had almost gotten the Leah Remini part on "King of Queens," and Max thinks she was waiting for another part like that to come along. He called her at home and told her she had to come to the final audition. She told him she had just made eggs and wanted to eat them (!). Well, Max somehow convinced her to move away from the plate and audition because she did show up and then won two Emmy Awards! And, speaking of leading lady roles, Megan had actually auditioned for the role of Grace months before but didn't make an impression til her Karen audition. And, by "didn't make an impression," Max said they had no memory of her audition. I know the feeling. Over dinner, I told Max that I had auditioned a few year ago for the sitcom he wrote based on his relationship with Eric. He stared. Then I said I auditioned for the part based on him. Staring. I told him I had my audition in New York. Stare. I clarified that my audition was filmed and sent to L.A. He's still staring.
photo by Robb Johnston |
Speaking of aight-stra, I also recently interviewed the out recording artist, Matt Zarley, whom I met in the 90's when we did the A Chorus Line tour through Europe. He was Mike in Europe, but on Broadway he played Mark. However, at one performance he almost had to go on for another character because he was the only one who could sing high enough. Who was the character? Richie. That's right, the one who sings "Gimme the ball, gimme the ball, gimme the ball." And, quite frankly, the one character who has an actual line clarifying that he's black! Normally, if a white guy understudies the part he changes Richie's description of himself from "…and I'm black." To "…and I'm straight." Unfortunately, when the guy playing Richie injured himself, it was after he made it clear to the audience that he was black. It's sort of a racial spin on the Mary Ingalls character on "Little House on the Prairie." Remember? She was on for years and suddenly her character went blind. Well, Richie was in "A Chorus Line" for an hour and suddenly his character became white. Of course, the actor playing Richie was able to finish the show, so the non-traditional production never happened. But I asked Matt for more musical theatre mishaps, and he told us that once when doing Cats, the dance captain was walking around backstage and tripped over a wire. Simply a wire. Well, it not only caused all of the sound system to cut out, it also caused a complete blackout in the theatre. I don't quite understand how one wire controlled everything, but I love it! It's so house of cards. Matt has a new CD out, and you can get it and hear clips at http://mattzarley.com/. Brava!
On Saturday night, we begged Jack to take us to an authentic Montreal restaurant. Unfortunately, he did. It was a very hip and popular restaurant that served Italian food with a Montreal spin, meaning the menu was full of "delicious" items like tripe, rabbit and wild boar. Despite the horrifying majority of food choices, the dinner actually wound up being delicious (I got fish, James pumpkin ravioli and Juli meatballs) and afterwards, Jack took us out to a dessert place that's an entire restaurant dedicated to chocolate. It was mind-bogglingly good. The next morning, however, there was a call back to the time in England when James got the black pudding thinking it was chocolate or something else delicious and discovered it actually consisted of intestines. This time I got a bagel at a buffet and saw little plastic cups with some kind of cream cheese inside. Just to clarify, I asked what kind of cream cheese it was and discovered it wasn't cream cheese at all. It looked like cream cheese but was instead a "Montreal specialty": ground up beef and pork. And coupe!
Next Monday and Tuesday is the Gypsy of the Year, and I'm hosting for the fourth time. It's one of my favorite things to do, and I can't wait to stand in the wings and watch all the acts! You can get tickets at www.BroadwayCares.org. Before Gypsy of the Year, I'm heading up to the Art House in Provincetown to do Andrea Martin's show Dec. 4-5 (tix at www.PtownArtHouse.com). Alors, au revoir, mes amis….a la semaine que prochaine! (Seth Rudetsky has played piano in the pits of many Broadway shows including Ragtime, Grease and The Phantom of the Opera. He was the artistic producer/conductor for the first five Actors Fund concerts including Dreamgirls and Hair, which were both recorded. As a performer, he appeared on Broadway in The Ritz and on TV in "All My Children," "Law and Order C.I." and on MTV's "Made" and "Legally Blonde: The Search for the Next Elle Woods." He has written the books "The Q Guide to Broadway" and "Broadway Nights," which was recorded as an audio book on Audible.com. He is currently the afternoon Broadway host on Sirius/XM radio and tours the country doing his comedy show, "Deconstructing Broadway." He can be contacted at his website SethRudetsky.com, where he has posted many video deconstructions.)