I am writing this mid-NYC blizzard. I love the snow, if I don’t have to drive or fly anywhere. Or leave my apartment, quite frankly. This is an Instagram post I made of me walking to the gym. It begins with me saying, “It’s not cold or windy.” Literally 10 seconds later it got incredibly cold and windy and I had to shield my face or be blinded.
Hilariously, it’s exactly what happened to me when I was performing in London and an end-stage hurricane was passing through. I was complaining that there was no wind whatsoever and was immediately caught in a cyclone.
The fondest memory I have of snowstorms was when I was still in elementary school. There was one in January and then, around two weeks later, another one came in February. The first one in January resulted in school being cancelled. I was at the age where that had never happened before, and I couldn’t believe that something so fun could result in something even more fun! A few weeks later there was a bigger snowstorm. School wasn’t just closed for the day, it was closed for the week. I feel bad saying that week was my favorite school memory, but I feel even worse that it is my favorite school memory.
P.S. That big snowstorm is related to a fantastic Broadway story. Patti LuPone told me that after she auditioned for Evita, she got cast in the Stephen Spielberg film 1941. While she was filming in Los Angeles, she found out she had a final callback for Evita.
She asked the powers-that-be if she could fly to NYC for the callback since she wasn’t called to do any scene work on set. The assistant director told her that they had recently let another actor leave on a day when he wasn’t needed, but then the schedule changed and they couldn’t get him to come back in time to film. He informed her that a new rule was therefore instituted stating that no one could leave town, whether or not they were called to set. Patti explained how important the audition was and he basically told her to do what she wanted but, “If you wind up not making it in back time to film, your career in Hollywood is over.” Although it was a scary threat, Patti was more excited that he thought she had a career in Hollywood. Yay!
Anyhoo, she flew to NYC and her audition wound up being right after the blizzard. The audition was on the stage of the Shubert Theater, and she trod through multiple snowdrifts while she was walking there, resulting in her showing up with her pants soaking wet. She was so stressed out from the wet pants and from thinking she wouldn’t get a flight back that everything became annoying to her. She walked out from the wings to start her audition and saw a line across the stage. She glared, thinking, “Oh, yeah? They want me to stand behind that line? Forget it! I’m going to brazenly step over that line to sing!” Turns out, the line wasn’t there for her to stand behind. It was simply there because it was part of the set. At the time, the show playing at the Shubert was A Chorus Line and, in retrospect, Patti was furious at the title character.
After she sang up a storm, Patti headed to the airport, hoping her flight would leave on time. Turns out, it was cancelled. She waited for the airline to rebook her and when she finally checked, she found out that she was supposed to rebook herself! So, no flight back to L.A. at all. She knew by the time she got one, it would land after she had to film her next scene and her so-called career in Hollywood would indeed be over.
Lo and behold, she suddenly saw someone she knew in the airport. It was her Juilliard classmate, Christopher Reeve! He asked her why she looked forlorn and she told him her tale of woe. Well, off he went and soon came back brandishing a first class ticket that he told her suddenly became available. He made it sound as though the airline gave it to her to replace her cancelled flight, but she realized later that he bought it for her! End of story: Patti got back to L.A. with plenty of time and when people asked how she made it across country so quickly, she would smile and say, “Superman!”
Oh! Also, she got the role and won the Tony Award for Evita. Here’s one of my deconstructions from that brilliant show!
Back to snow: I’m obsessed with blizzards, tornados, hurricanes, and all kinds of natural disasters. As a matter of fact, that is one of the categories I submitted to the podcast, Go Fact Yourself. They reached out to me and asked me to be one of the two guests during their filming in NYC on January 26. The show is hosted by Helen Hong and moderated by J. Keith Van Straaten. The format consists of two “opponents” who are quizzed in areas they claim they are experts in that aren’t part of their professional field. When they asked me for possible categories, I wracked my brain. I only know Broadway!
Finally, I chose natural disasters (I wanted to be a weather forecaster when I was a kid and had my very own working weather station), Carly Simon songs (grew up obsessively listening to her 70s albums), and The Brady Bunch and/or Brady Bunch Variety Hour. I know I have an entire comedy show about the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, but it’s not like I have a degree in '70s variety shows, so I decided it wasn’t exactly my field. The “fun” part is, the podcast doesn’t tell you which category they are going to pick. I haven’t been this panicked since before my SATs. And yes, I still remember my score (1220). And yes, I got higher in English than in math which merited bragging rights amongst my snobby friends
My opponent in the podcast is Difficult People creator and star Julie Klausner, and her category options are John Waters Movies, Jewish Celebrities, and cats. And I’m not joking, I don’t know if she means the species or the musical.
To promote our upcoming podcast episode, I had Julie and J. Keith on Seth Speaks, my SiriusXM talk show. I asked J. Keith what category he would choose if he were a contestant on his own show. Turns out, he’s an expert on Next to Normal. He’s seen productions Off-Broadway, on Broadway, and in D.C., L.A., and South America. He even flew to Spain to see the immersive production.
Julie told us she has a joke informing people that the immersive version of Next to Normal is actually Rosh Hashana at her house. Hilar! If you want to see us do the podcast in person or listen later, get thee here!
Speaking of Next to Normal, here is a fabulous parody by Andrew Byrne sung by my friend Marya Grandy (currently one of the stars of the Suffs national tour) about a tourist wanting to see Mamma Mia!, but seeing Next to Normal instead. To make it a little more niche, it’s sung to the tune of “The Baseball Game” from Falsettoland.
P.S. Speaking of 1970s TV shows, Mary’s dad is Fred Grandy, AKA Gopher from The Love Boat. Watch!
Every Friday, I do a livestream called Broadway Shabbat (sponsored by The Jewish Broadway Alliance) where I get theatre folks from around the country to do the Shabbat prayers. We also have people send in names of folks who need healing, one of my guests sings the “Mi Sheiberach” (the prayer for healing), and we recite all the names. We tell some fun Shabbat or Bar Mitzvah stories and we end with a live song!
Well, a few days after Seth Speaks, I realized that Tom Kitt was booked for my Shabbat, so I invited J. Keith to join because of his Next to Normal obsession. It was so fun! Tom and I asked J. Keith Next to Normal questions, which he nailed (like what song was cut from the Off-Broadway production. Answer: the number in Costco). But Tom stumped him when he asked who the two stars were in the Cutting Room concert. Turns out, that version starred Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott. Holy cow, get me a recording stat!
Here’s the entire Shabbat, which concluded with Tom singing a beautiful James Taylor song he used to do in piano bar and which is the fave of Brian Yorkey (his Next to Normal collaborator).
Tune in every Friday on the Jewish Broadway Alliance YouTube channel!
Back to snowstorms! A big fat snowstorm hit NYC in 1996 and almost every Broadway show cancelled. However, the show I was working on, the revival of Grease, performed as usual. Because there were very few other options, we were sold out that night. Of course, it was a nachtmare for us to get there and back in the crazy snow, and we joked about it in our Easter Bonnet number from that year. Backstory: The Easter Bonnet Competition is like The Red Bucket Follies and comes in the spring after the six weeks of BCEFA fundraising. It’s basically a big variety show.
So, the number that the cast sang that year had parody lyrics to “The Telephone Hour” from Bye Bye Birdie. When we got to the lyric, “When you gotta go, then you gotta go!” Everyone instead sang, “Twenty feet of snow, we still had a show!” The audience loved it!
Well, I had written a lot of parodies for these events, but I didn’t write that one. My good friend Paul Castree did. But because of my past oeuvre, everyone assumed I had written it. Paul and I joke about it all the time. As a matter of fact, Marissa Jaret Winokur, who was playing Jan in the cast at the time, posted this just the other day. It’s a photo commemorating that big snowstorm.
I texted it to Paul and told him I was still getting credited, 30 years later!
If people bring it up, I always reveal I didn’t write it, except for this one time. Back in the late ‘90s, Rosie O'Donnell started her TV talk show and, after a few months, asked me to write parody production numbers during Sweeps Week. She told me to base them on the ones I did for the Broadway Cares events. I remembered that she was in the audience when I wrote our first Grease parody, at what was then called The Gypsy of The Year competition. It featured me as Fran Weissler and Barry Weissler played by then-Frenchie—now current day brilliant Broadway director (Kimberly Akimbo, Water For Elephants, Encores Blithe Spirit)—Jessica Stone! The number focused on the Weisslers trying to figure out who should replace Rosie as Rizzo once Maureen McCormick (her temporary replacement) left.
The whole song ended with the actual replacement coming onstage, Brooke Shields! I now realized one of the jokes is a bit ironic. When Brooke is being pitched Jessie (as Barry) asks, “Can she sing?” Everyone answers, “Yes!”
“Can she dance?” Yes!
“Is she quite beautiful?” Yes!
“Did she go to an Ivy League school?” Yes!
“Is she world famous?” Yes!
“Is she dating a world-famous tennis star?” Yes!
And then, as Fran, I ask, “Does she have her Equity Card?”
Silence!
Of course, the twist is that she went from not having her Equity card to being our current president.
Anyhoo, I wrote that parody with Paul and it was a big hit. I continued to write them with him or alone. One I did by myself was, “Come Look at the Freaks,” which I adapted from Side Show. It parodied all the stars we had traipsing in and out of Grease every other week. Here is a truncated list: Joe Piscopo, Donny Most, Cousin Brucie, Chubby Checker, Domique Dawes, Jody Watley, Sheena Easton, Sally Struthers, JoAnn Worley and so many more.
Come look at the freaks
Perform for two weeks
Casting choices will mystify you
They'll terrify you
You'll slap your cheeks.
On Broadway it reeks
Come look at the freaks!
Later in the song, we had two girls step forward that looked like Daisy and Violet Hilton, and instead of singing, “I'm Daisy, I'm Violet, we're nothing alike!” They sang:
I'm profit
I'm artistic integrity.
We're nothing alike!
Besides the Grease parodies, I also wrote many of the opening numbers for Gypsy of the Year and Easter Bonnet. I remember Rosie sitting right behind me when I was conducting the very first one I penned, choreographed by Kathleen Marshall and focusing on all the Bonnets that were coming. Instead of “Food, Glorious Food,” it was called “Hats, Glorious Hats,” and it ended with a surprise appearance by Elaine Stritch walking out and asking her age-old question, “Does anyone…still wear…a hat?”
Anyhoo, when Rosie hired me to work on her show, she praised me for all the parodies I had written. I sat there, proudly knowing I deserved the gig because of my years of brilliant writing. Then, the only lyric she quoted to me, because of how much she loved it, was, “Twenty feet of snow. We still had a show!”
I wanted to say, “Wait. I didn’t write that one. You need to fire me!” Instead, I smiled and nodded, silently, which was my way of conveying, “That is a hilarious lyric. Would I had written it.”
In the long run, my silence paid off. If I had been fired on the spot and replaced by Paul, he never would have been available to do his next Broadway show, The Scarlet Pimpernel, which led into his brilliant triple-threat turn in Saturday Night Fever.
And I never would've had an amazing time writing those parodies featuring original Broadway casts. Ooh! I literally just remembered. When I got the job, I had never seen The Rosie O’Donnell Show even though it had been on for around eight months. I don’t really watch TV and definitely not daytime TV. So, because this was way before on-demand streaming, I sat in the offices at 30 Rock and watched tons of old episodes, making lists of references that her fans would appreciate.
For instance, apparently, she liked Tom Cruise. Anyhoo, here’s one I did with the cast of The Life where I mention her obsession with an extra-long chin hair as well as her depression following the cancelation of something called The Magic Ball. I don’t know what that is now, and I didn’t know what it was then. Regardless, I haven’t seen this number in so long and it’s so fun to watch. It features amazing future friends like Sharon Wilkins, Judine Summerville, Felicia Finley, Katy Grenfel (who did Grease with me and Rosie), and Lillias White (who won a Tony for that show).
P.S. Lillias is coming on #SethsBwayCruise next month. I am definitely going to show this during my concert with her! I barely remember it and I know she won’t remember either. We put it together in like two days and camera blocked it at 7:30 AM in the morning.
P.P.S. Rosie wanted me to do every aspect of these production numbers myself. I told her I would music direct, play in the band and write the lyrics, but I wanted someone else to stage it. I hired (soon to be a multi-Tony Award winner) Jerry Mitchell to choreograph the numbers, and, when he finally couldn’t do anymore, I brought in (soon to be multi-Tony Award winner) Chris Gatelli. If you’re keeping track, I have 0 (zero) Tony Awards. It’s all good because it was all so much fun!
Watch this throwback to November 1997 and peace out!
