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ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Singing Along in Times Square Before Avenue Q's Last Broadway Night
By Seth Rudetsky
14 Sep 2009
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Shayna Steele
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A week in the life of actor, musician and Chatterbox host Seth Rudetsky.
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Hi, everyone! It's a gorgeous day and I'm sitting in my backyard looking at the garden that James planted and I take credit for. Essentially, I'll have people over at the apartment, bring them to the backyard and say, "We had to replace all the dirt" or "We decided to plant the tomatoes over there" and James will overhear and barge in with, "And by we he means me." Hmph. Stealing credit is a time-honored Broadway tradition. And I'm old-school. Anyhoo, we just got back from Broadway on Broadway [on Sept. 13] which is this big, annual Broadway concert held in Times Square. All the shows that performed came off great but I especially loved seeing "96,000" from In the Heights. And I loved Chad Kimball's crazy high notes at the end of his song from Memphis. I ran into David Bryan (from Bon Jovi), who's the composer, and he told me Chad was hitting a C sharp! David told me he thinks it's the highest guy note on Broadway. I added a qualification of "right now" to myself because there were two D sharps in Little Mermaid sung by Tituss Burgess and Eddie Korbich respectively. I'm just saying.
Speaking of high notes, Shayna Steele was the guest star in the Broadway on Broadway segment that I did. I was asked to lead something that's never been done before during the show: a sing-along. At first I was terrified because that's the kind of thing that could leave me with a full omelet on my face, but I thought if it was done right, it could be great. Alex Lacamoire (conductor/Tony Award-winning co-orchestrator of In the Heights) told me that the two song suggestions were "Cabaret" or "Seasons of Love." I told him that the fun part of the sing-along would be having some of it in harmony and there ain't none in "Cabaret." Then I added that if the audience sounds clanky on the song, a good safeguard to have would be a soloist to sass it up. So, I called the fantastic Shayna Steele who sang the middle "Seasons of Love" solo section during the run of Rent, and she agreed to do it.
When it was time for the song, I walked onstage and was overwhelmed by how many people were there. I looked out and it was a sea of shapes that seemed to go all the uptown and not stop. I taught the harmony quickly, then brought out Shayna and told everyone the story she had told me a few years ago. One night on Broadway, she was doing the solo in "Seasons of Love" and someone told her backstage that Pavarotti was in the audience. She knew he'd be listening to her high note and when she got to it, she clanked. Ever since then, she's done an optional note because it traumatized her. I then told the audience she would be now be attempting the high note again for the first time. The song started and the audience actually sounded sassy…and did their harmony. Shayna started singing and sounded amazing and then nailed the high note! It was a brava. If you've never seen me deconstruct Shayna, click here.
On Wednesday I interviewed John Cudia who is the current Broadway Phantom. I'm obsessed with mishaps that can happen in shows. For instance, normally, the Phantom is supposed to sit in a chair, cover himself with a sheet and then Meg, the ballet girl, comes onstage, rips off the sheet and discovers he's gone…except for his mask, which she picks up. John said that he's had trouble working the mechanism in the chair that helps him disappear, and often Meg would come out and have to stall because she'd hear him muttering, "Dagnab it! UH! Just…one….second!" Eventually, she'd let John out of his misery by just reaching under the sheet and taking out the mask. At least she left him his dignity as opposed to a former Meg who was doing the last scene and tiptoe-ing to the chair where the Phantom was — with John not able to get the disappearance device to work. Because he knew Meg was gettting close to his chair, he loudly whispered "No! No! No!" to stall her, but she thought he was saying "Go! Go! Go!" so she ripped off the sheet and revealed him to the audience, awkwardly sitting. I'm sure the audience was like, "Hmm. I guess that ending is terrifying. Look. The Phantom is sitting. Scary."
Speaking of scary, one night John was playing the Phantom out of town and right before the show began, they told him they didn't have a boat! For some reason, the boat didn't work in the theatre they were performing in so they told John to wing it. What the — ? How is supposed to take Christine to his subterranean hideaway that's surrounded by an underground lake? It's a good thing Andrew Lloyd Webber also wrote Jesus Christ Superstar because that night John gave that show a tip o' the hat when he took Christine to his lair by walking on water. I'm sure when Christine later told Raoul she was visited by the "angel of music" the audience was like, "Yeah, she was. We saw it." Continued...
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