I just got back from Alaska and again I missed multiple natural disasters. Let me clarify: I don’t like any of the injuries or deaths from disasters, but ever since I was a kid, I’ve been obsessed with tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves (what we called tsunamis in the '70s), killer bees, etc. I would spend so much money calling the weather number (anyone remember that? 516-976-1616) because not only would it give me the barometric pressure (I was always hoping it was below 29, because that meant a storm was probably coming), it would also tell me the wave heights. I was always hoping there would be a high surf advisory…even though I didn’t live near the water. But just knowing there were high waves thrilled me!

Naturally, I saw all the disaster films of the '70s and, as you probably have guessed, that’s what led me to write Disaster! with my friend Jack Plotnick for Broadway. And instead of just one signature '70s disaster-film disaster, I put them all in: earthquakes, tidal waves, fires, rats, etc. Here’s one my favorite videos of us in the recording studio making the album. The video also includes footage from the actual Broadway show spliced in!

Anyhoo…when James and I were on our honeymoon in Portland, Maine, we went to a coffee shop. When we got back to our bed and breakfast, we were told there had been an earthquake—the first Portland earthquake in decades! We felt nothing at the coffee shop, but everyone at the bed and breakfast couldn’t stop telling us how it was shaking up a storm—two blocks away. I was furious! Then, when I was out of town recently, NYC had an earthquake and I had to deal with everyone on Facebook asking, “Did you feel that?” No, I did not. I was out of town!

Then, a week before my cruise to Alaska, there was a tsunami warning right where my boat was going to sail. Rude! And then, the week after my cruise, there was a major flood in Juneau. I missed everything by a week.

P.S. The one disaster I don’t want to be in is a plane crash. Terrifying. And, speaking of which, I will tell one of my favorite Jennifer Simard stories. As you know, she is the three-time Tony Award nominated Broadway star currently in Death Becomes Her (her first Tony nomination was from playing the Nun in Disaster!). But, before she went seamlessly from leading role to leading role, she was featured ensemble in Shrek. The whole cast was flying to their out-of-town tryout and, suddenly, there were major plane issues. The plane had to do an emergency landing, and, thankfully, everyone was fine. The most relieved was Jennifer. Not because she was thinking, “I have so much to live for,” per se, but more because she knew if there had been a major crash the headlines would have read “Sutton Foster and others die in plane crash.”

Yep, she admits that even during a near-death experience she is first and foremost thinking of billing.

Now to the present! I’ve found out that a lot of people don’t really know what #SethsBwayCruise is like. So, I thought I would use this column to give a day-by-day breakdown and share some highlights from our trips.

Day One: Seattle. Everyone boards the fabulous Celebrity cruise and finds their cabins. I immediately go to the gym and sign up for the high intensity workouts because I know my eating will be off the charts for the week and, by exercising every day, I will justify the relentless buffets at all hours. I’m basically Andrea Martin and Catherine O’Hara in this hilarious SCTV sketch.

One of my favorite lines comes after we see Andrea and Catherine’s characters not working out at all. Catherine weighs herself and asks, “Do muscles weigh more than fat?” When Andrea answers ‘yes’, Catherine says, “I gotta slow down.”

To fully appreciate the next part of the cruise, let me give you a little bit of backstory.

My Broadway Cruise in February 2023 had Judy Kuhn, Rachel Bay Jones, and Lilli Cooper as the stars. On the way to the pier, Judy was gabbing with Rachel and Lilli. Judy was regaling her fellow singers with the story of how she showed up at the airport for a Playbill Cruise that was bound for the Caribbean and realized she had her husband’s passport! She panicked until she realized that she was flying to Puerto Rico first. She didn’t need a passport since Puerto Rico is part of the United States, and the cruise wasn’t leaving from there for another day. So! Playbill’s very own Alex Birsh, who was taking a later flight, went to Judy’s apartment, got her passport and saved the day! Rachel and Lilli loved the story…and, of course, did a quick check of their passports just in case. Phew! Rachel had her own passport. And Lilli had…. her son’s passport. Ahh! The cruise was leaving in a few hours, and the next stop was not Puerto Rico…it was Honduras. There was no way they would let her on the cruise! Okay…we all joined forces and got her a hotel in Miami for the night. Her mom sent her passport via FedEx. It was set to arrive the next morning (Thursday) at 8AM. We got her a flight to Honduras for Friday at noon. Then she could meet us on the cruise. Yay! Well… there were crazy ice storms that month. That caused FedEx to be delayed, and her passport didn’t arrive Thursday at 8AM as scheduled.

Or Thursday afternoon.

Or Thursday night.

Or Friday morning.

It arrived Friday…at 12:30 PM! And, again, her flight was at noon. Without her on it. We realized it would have been easier for her to fly back to NYC, get her passport, and fly to Honduras. End of story: Lilli was able to join the cruise in Cozumel… the second to last day of the cruise! We told her we’d make it up with a fabulous cruise to Alaska.

So, now it’s about to be makeup cruise to Alaska and Lilli has her passport! We were on the same flight from NYC to Seattle and, because of engine trouble, it got cancelled. We got her a direct flight to Seattle, and I took a non-direct one through Minneapolis. Lilli waited all day for her flight…and then that one got cancelled! The next available flight to Seattle was from Philly so Playbill Travel got her an Amtrak train down there…and then that flight was cancelled. End of story, this time she missed the entire cruise. Now we have to makeup for the makeup cruise!

The good news is it looks like we’re cruising around beautiful Iceland in the summer of 2026, and I will put Lilli in my carry-on luggage to make sure she gets there!

Okay. Back to being onboard for the first day. This particular cruise began on a Friday, and I realized our welcome cocktail party could be combined with my weekly Broadway Shabbat service I do on Fridays at 6PM ET. I was able to broadcast it from the ship and, turns out, lots of my passengers are regular viewers so it was so fun to have them be in it! I had Adam B. Shapiro (who I first saw in the Yiddish Fiddler) do the blessings and Cantor Lizzie Weiss did the Mi Sheberach (the prayer for healing and good health). You can watch it all here!

And tune in for a new Broadway Shabbat every Friday at 6pm ET on the Jewish Broadway Alliance YouTube channel.

Right after the cocktail party was supposed to be Lilli Cooper’s show, so I broke the news to the passengers about her flight nightmares, and my guests were so understanding. I told them that instead of Lilli’s show, I would perform my new show Divas by the Decade. Thankfully, I brought along the brilliant David Katz as my tech guru. He can do anything. He had the show tech’d and ready to go in 30 minutes. I’ve only done it a few times, so it was so much to do on the cruise. The show is me describing all the amazing women who have made Broadway what it is.

Here is a photo of me doing the show on the cruise during the Betty Buckley section. David made every diva into a trading card a la 1970s baseball cards!

And here’s a little clip I did that shows one of my favorite divas: brilliant Betty Buckley! 

Day Two: We started rehearsals for the variety show. All week long, any passengers who want to can rehearse with me, learn harmony and “dances,” and then join each star onstage in our final show. I always choose a group number that each star has done on Broadway, and since Sebastian Arcelus was in Rent for years, we did the beautiful “Seasons of Love.” We all met by the piano and I plunked out harmony notes and people recorded their parts. It was so fun to see everyone helping each other! It was also so cool to have an actual Rent cast member there…except for when I would ask him to clarify a harmony and he would say, “I don’t remember doing that.” First, I was shocked, but later I was listening to the cast album of Forever Plaid, which I did for years in the '90s, and the whole time I was like, “That was a song in the show?” You know what they say, time heals everything… and also makes you forget everything.

We all had lunch, and then came back for Broadway Bingo. How does that work? Well, everyone has a blank bingo board, and they write the letters of the alphabet randomly on their board. Then, I tell them the shape they need to win. To tell them what letter I’m calling, I’m at the piano and say something like, “This is the 11 o’clock number in the show that starts with this letter.” I’ll start playing “There Are Worse Thing I Could Do,” from Grease. People will guess the song and then the show and that means it’s the letter G. It winds up also turning into a sing along when I would pick a fun song!

I always bring tons of prizes with me, so we played four rounds. I gave out lots of amazing Lights of Broadway Showcards.

And The Broadway Green Alliance had so many cool gifts that were green, so it fit right into our Stephanie J. Block Wicked theme.

That night, the wonderfully talented and sweet Sebastian Arcelus was in concert with me. His voice is so pretty. As a matter of fact, he said that the powers-that-be in Rent thought his voice was more Lez Miz than Rent. So, he proved it to us by singing a stunning version of “Bring Him Home.” Cast him as Jean Valjean stat!

Sebastian also told an incredible story I remembered about his first time in Rent. He was a swing, and he had to go on just a few days after beginning rehearsal. He told his mom, who took the train from Long Island and got a standing room ticket. Seb said that he began the show wearing layers of clothes because he had to change into different characters. At the beginning of the show, everyone is frozen, looking like Lower East Side hip people. Cool and relaxed. Well, he was decidedly not. He was so nervous that his mother, all the way in the back in standing room, could see his heart beating through three layers of clothing. That is one nervous swing!

I started asking Sebastian about meeting Stephanie. As soon as he began, Stephanie came up from the audience to tell the “real” version. It was hilarious and the story is so crazily romantic. The most rom-com moment was when they were not even dating yet, and they were chatting on the phone. Stephanie mentioned seeing a ring she wanted to buy but realized it looked too much like an engagement ring. Sebastian figured out what store she was in, hightailed it over, described Stephanie to the saleslady, and bought Stephanie’s engagement ring. Again, before they were dating!

They were both joined by their brilliant-adorable-super-talented daughter Vivi for an amazing solo by her with Steph and Seb on back-up. I’m telling you, Vivi is not just a cute kid who sings. She is so talented!

The next day we went to Ketchikan, which was beautiful! We always make sure we don’t plan anything when the ship is docked so people can get off the boat, sightsee, and go on excursions. I’m not saying I maxed out my credit buying touristy stuff, but please don’t access my bank account.

That night, everyone gathered to be part of my SiriusXM radio show. I showed them how it all comes together, and I broadcasted from the ship! I told everyone to wear a shirt from their favorite show, and if I was about to introduce a song from that show, I brought them up to the mic to chat about it. And it wasn’t just the passengers who joined. Sebastian and Stephanie each came up and told hilarious stories. At one point I was mentioning the late great Hal Prince, and that prompted Steph to come up the microphone and tell us that she auditioned for him and he wrote her a lovely (?) letter saying, “You are indeed a star…but not in any of my shows.” Yay… wait, what?

The next day was Juneau, and we had time before the ship docked so we did another rehearsal. This time we learned the final two numbers for the variety show. Because Stephanie had replaced Sutton Foster in Anything Goes on Broadway, I taught the harmonies to everyone so she could be featured as Reno. And because Lilli played Elphaba on Broadway in Wicked, we planned on doing “Defying Gravity.” Well, as every Wicked fan knows, Stephanie was the original Elphaba over the years the show was being developed, so she replaced Lilli in that number!

If you’ve never seen Stephanie tap and belt “Defying Gravity,” I had her do that for one of my Playbill Obsessed videos. I told her to begin by singing the fantastic song she debuted in Pirate Queen then immediately segue into a tap solo and end with the “Defying Gravity” war cry. And…she nailed it!

Speaking of Obsessed, I’m planning on bringing them back this fall. So stay tuned!

Here’s another “Best of” with an Elphaba. This time it's Eden Espinosa!

We were docked the whole day in Skagway and a bunch of us went biking (including my cousins Janet and Devlin Horton). I used it as my opportunity to prove I took years of ballet in college. Thank you to David Katz’s brother Andrew for filming.

That night, we sailed through the Inside Passage, which is so beautiful to watch that we didn’t do any Broadway-themed events.

P.S. Alaska is stunning in the summer, but the weather is not ideal for the beach. Here is a video from one of our previous cruises to Alaska where James and Rachel Bay Jones decided to go into the water near the glacier. I guess they didn’t know Alaska is cold?

The second-to-last day was “at sea,” meaning we sail the whole day. That meant there were a lot of activities for my passengers. Of course, we had a brush-up rehearsal, and this time added (light!) choreography to Anything Goes.

Then it was time for my master class. I think people think my master class will be like the show Master Class. I will walk around with a sweater around my neck while making scathing comments and never actually allowing anyone to sing. It is nothing like that. I never wear sweaters! Also, I love to help people get better! I take it from where they are and give them tips to sass up their performance.

Here are some of my signature tips!

What I love about doing these on my cruise is that my stars often join me. Here’s Beth Leavel giving her all during a class.

Sebastian was at the entire master class, and at one point, gave one of our passengers, Johanne Labrosse, the subtext to sing her song to her younger self. It wound up being very emotional for her and to help her get through it, sweet Sebastian got up and held her hands while she sang. It was so moving and incredible!

That night was my concert with Stephanie J. Block. Yes, the von Trapp-Block-Arcelus family singers joined in. Sebastian and Stephanie did an adorable version of “You’re the Top” from Anything Goes and Vivi joined Stephanie in “For Good.” Vivi was Glinda and Stephanie was Elphaba. And, holy cow, the harmony was perfect. The audience flipped out! Because Stephanie, Vivi, and Sebastian were at all the rehearsals, bingo games, and meals, everyone felt like they were part of their extended family.

The final day was the autograph session where every passenger got a poster. We each signed it for them. Lilli’s face stared at us in reproach from the poster, but we averted our eyes. Here’s the autographed poster from Sharla Herbert, from one of veteran passengers (8 cruises so far!).

We also had a trivia game where I gave out a ton of prizes and the questions were about all the fun Broadway stories that were told during the week. Like: What was Stephanie’s first role at Disney? During her concert, she told the story about her mom forging her birth certificate (!) so Stephanie would be old enough to work at Disney. Her older sister was already working there as a beautiful princess and Stephanie was so excited to join. She sang and danced. Throughout the day, her fellow auditioners get kept getting cast. Finally, she was cast as Fifer.

“Ooh,” she thought. “Who’s Princess Fifer?” She investigated and found out Fifer wasn’t exactly a princess.

So, the answer to, “What was Stephanie’s first role at Disney?” was “one of the three little pigs.”

We did a final rehearsal in “costume.” AKA, people wore green for “Defying Gravity,” nautical for “Anything Goes,” and cool East Village hipster for “Seasons of Love.” Then, we did our exciting final variety show. The show was filled with amazing duets like David Katz joining Sebastian on “Lily’s Eyes” as well as Stephanie on “Suddenly Seymour.”

Stephanie and Sebastian recreated their Baker and Baker’s Wife, which they did on Broadway and on tour.

Sebastian sang a stunning song in Spanish (his father was from Uraguay) and Stephanie belted out a Cher song. For the production numbers, my passengers came onstage to join the stars, but there were still people in the audience because everyone was allowed to invite the friends they made on the cruise!

We had such a great time and I’m so thrilled that we have another cruise coming up in October to the Canary Islands. In the winter of 2026, we’ll be headed to the Caribbean! The Canary Islands cruise is sold out, but join me in the Caribbean with Arielle Jacobs, Anika Larsen, and Lillias White!

Because it was just Lillias’ birthday, I will leave you with this amazing video!