I’m on dry land! I just got off my cruise to Bermuda, and my sun damage is ju-u-u-ust beginning to fade. The three stars of my cruise were Jennifer Simard, Christopher Sieber, and Julie Benko, and, boy, were they fabulous.
First of all, I’m so happy Julie has revealed on social media that she’s pregnant! She told everyone on the cruise, but we kept our traps shut because she wasn’t sure when or if she wanted to make an official announcement. Her main reasoning was she didn’t want people to make assumptions about her desire to work because of her pregnancy or being a new Mom like, “We shouldn’t have her audition because she’ll have her hands full with a new baby and she won’t want to commit to a show.”
Julie told us even she didn’t know what she’s going to want to do, so she didn’t want other people thinking for her. Julie and I have never done a Broadway show together, but she was featured in the incredible Shabbat on Broadway in January. Listen to her stunning vocals on this beautiful song:
Julie’s under-the-radar pregnancy made me think about Lillias White who, while on the national tour of Ain’t Misbehavin’, became pregnant. She didn’t want people to know she was pregnant because she was covering the role of Charlayne Woodard (which is a big, physical dance part…think walking backwards downstairs while high kicking). She thought the powers that be would make her leave the show. She kept mum about it, and the only ones who noticed anything were the costume people. Why? Because they had to keep letting out her dress every week! Lillias finally gave notice when she was around seven months pregnant. After she had the baby, she soon began performances in her first Broadway show, Barnum.
P.S. Did you ever hear her sing that song? So good!
In terms of letting out costumes, what’s interesting is that the late, great Chita Rivera told us that she was pregnant with her daughter, Lisa, while playing Anita in the London production of West Side Story. Chita did the show for months, and no one could tell she was pregnant. Her costumes pretty much stayed the same. However, she finally left the show at around seven months, and within days, her Anita figure completely ballooned out. It was like her body was holding it in throughout the run and once it was allowed to let it all hang out, it took full advantage!
Another pregnancy musical theatre story stars Liz Callaway, who auditioned for Miss Saigon while pregnant and figured there was no way they would cast her because she was due to give birth during rehearsals. Well, cast her they did, and she did indeed gave birth during rehearsals! She returned on the very first day of tech. She had had a c-section, and told me about the moment the tech crew pulled a joke on her. They told her she had to enter the hotel scene in Act Two by climbing a ladder backstage to get to the second floor of the set. Well, turns out they weren’t joking. She had to climb a ladder eight times a week, stabilizing herself with abdominal muscles, directly after a cesarean. Liz said she would begin the climb v-e-r-y early so she could go as slowly as possible. Her entrance via ladder wasn’t until Act Two, so I assume that the Act One overture would begin, and she’d gingerly put her foot on the first rung of the ladder.
Speaking of my Broadway cruise and Miss Saigon, here is Liz with me on my cruise to the Norwegian fjords, singing her big song. For some reason, throughout the entire song, I look like I’m sight reading or in a state of total and abject confusion or forgot my contact lenses (and I don’t wear contact lenses). But she sounds great!
Amazing news, Liz is joining me on my next Broadway cruise in January!
Back to my Bermuda cruise: Chris Sieber and I did a show together, and he talked about his Shrek Tony Awards performance. He had run the number a few times the day before, as well as on the morning of the telecast. However, after that rehearsal, someone decided that the castle he was in at the beginning of the song needed more stability, so they added some wood to the front of the door from which he enters. Not a bad idea, however, nobody told him!
P.S. If you don’t know, Chris' character, Lord Farquaad, is very short so Chris did the show on his knees. Well, when he made his entrance on the Tony Awards, his knee hit the new piece of wood. That’s the moment that is undisputed. His sense memory of the rest, however, is that he face-planted and basically ruined the whole number. He was so devastated afterwards that he didn’t watch it for years. Finally, he made himself look at the number and his horrific “fall” was a one-second trip that actually looks like a dance step. It’s so bizarre what our minds can do. For years, Chris thought he had humiliated himself in front of the audience with his horrific entrance but, in real life, it’s totally unnoticeable. Take a gander!
Another performer on my cruise was the amazing Jennifer Simard. We told everyone how we first met in the early 90s when she was doing Forbidden Broadway, and I coached her for auditions. Soon after meeting her, my comedy partner, Jack Plotnick, and I wrote a comedy show called An Evening with Joyce DeWitt. Jennifer joined the show (replacing the great Maria Bostick), not only playing Janet in our Three’s Company musical, but also adding her bizarre and amazing “Have A Penny, Need a Penny…” comedy bit. Watch here.
Years later, when Jack and I were getting ready to move our musical Disaster! to Off-Broadway, Jennifer was in my husband’s play, Unbroken Circle, that was playing in the same theatre. She had replaced Anika Larsen, who had left to do Beautiful. Anika was also the original Nun in Disaster!, and Jennifer had seen the run when it was at The Triad. She told James that she would love to have a chance to play the role. I, however, was looking for a “star” for that part and kept ignoring James when he would mention Jennifer. Finally, after asking other people to do the role and them not being available, I told Jennifer she could have the part. I knew she would be great, but I didn’t know how perfectly matched that role was for her. It's so hilarious to me now that I had the nerve to ask anyone else to play it!
The role of Sister Mary allowed her to brilliantly combine her understated comedy and her unbelievable vocal chops. During the Off-Broadway run, she received a Drama Desk nomination and all the reviews mentioned her hilarious version of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” That song took place when her character, who is a gambling addict desperately trying to abstain, comes across a slot machine and succumbs to her desire to gamble away the money she’s raised for orphans.
Well, around six weeks before we began rehearsals for Broadway, we found out we didn’t have the rights for her song! I had to call her (on Thanksgiving Day!) and tell her the news. However, I assured her that we would find a song that was just as good. A few hours later, she called me and told me that she was certain that, not only would we find a song that was just as good, but we would find one that’s better. I loved her Oprah “Secret” attitude. I searched the music charts from the '70s and decided that “Heaven Knows” (recorded by Donna Summer) would be a great replacement. The lyrics talk about how she is “never gonna leave ya” (aka stay addicted) and it keeps mentioning Heaven, which had that Nun connection. I found this video I made for her to show what we could do with it.
Well, my husband James, who was a producer on the show, kept looking for songs. I told him to quit it because I had already chosen one, but, nonetheless, he kept searching and, one day, he recommended “Never Can Say Goodbye.” I have always loved that song, and when I looked at the lyrics, I realized it was perfect. So much more perfect than “Heaven Knows.” Well, even after I agreed to his idea, James kept looking up versions of the song, and soon played me the Gloria Gaynor one. I had never heard it! It inspired me to combine the Jackson 5 laid-back vibe for the beginning of the song and then, at the chorus, go into the driving disco Gloria Gaynor one. Jennifer came over to our apartment and we worked on an arrangement where she could add her amazing crazy high notes and I put in stupid things like an ascending scale while she counteracts not being to say goodbye with “Hello, hello, hello, hello!”
Eventually, it turned out that Jennifer is '70s psychic Jeane Dixon. Her new song wasn’t just as good as her old one, it was better. In “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” the Nun just gave herself over to the slot machine. In “Never Can Say Goodbye,” Jennifer got to play with the tension of “I want to leave,” into “I can’t leave” into “I must!” and then back to “I can’t!” End of story, she got her first Tony nomination for that role.
Amazingly, Playbill got permission, for the first time ever, to film a final performance. This is Jenn in her last show bringing down the house, as she always did!
Jennifer is coming back to Broadway in Death Becomes Her alongside Chris, reuniting them from the 2021 Tony-winning revival of Company in which they played the hilarious married couple Harry and Sarah (and Jennifer got her second Tony nomination). Her nemesis in Death Becomes Her will be played by the brilliant Megan Hilty. I am so excited.
On my Broadway cruises, we always end the week with a variety show featuring the stars singing solos, duets, and trios, as well as doing three production numbers that feature passengers who rehearse all week. Usually, the stars do their signature songs. For example, Judy Kuhn sang Cosette in “One Day More” from Les Miz with all the passengers (including Adam Pascal as Marius), and the late great Chita Rivera recreated her Anita in the “Tonight Quintet” from West Side Story with my passengers as the Sharks and the Jets.
For my recent cruise, Chris Sieber sang “All I Care About Is Love” from Chicago, which he’d done many times on Broadway, and Julie Benko did “All That Jazz” from Chicago, which she’s never done, but I really wanted to hear her sing it. Jennifer chose “My Favorite Things” because it was the first song she ever performed as a child. Both “All That Jazz” and “All I Care About Is Love” have a final button and, when we were staging it, everyone was instructed to hit that last beat with a sexy pose. When we started staging Jennifer’s “My Favorite Things,” she asked if we could end her song the same way. It made no sense, but we all loved it. Watch the compilation here, ending with a Sound of Music sexy pose. Brigitta never looked so hawt!
P.S. I’m talking about my cruise a lot in this Playbill column because Playbill is now our partner. Yay! They’re the official travel agent of the upcoming #SethsBwayCruise in January to St. Kitts, the British Virgin Islands, and the Dominican Republic, as well as our June cruise to Alaska and our October cruise, which leaves from England and goes to the Portugal and the Canary Islands! Check out the cruise offerings or email me for more details.
Get tickets for both of our concerts here!
And, speaking of Audra, I’ll be with the future Mama Rose on Aug 4 in Provincetown. After that, I’ll be with her “Curtis” from our 2001 concert, Norm Lewis, August 17 at the White Plains Performing Arts Center. All tickets are available on my website.
Speaking of Norm, Audra, and Lillias, here’s an incredible clip I found of our 2001 dress rehearsal. OMG!
Right before my Norm Lewis concert, I’m with Mandy Gonzalez at the Bell Theater in Holmdel, New Jersey with my new concert series. Next up are Sierra Boggess, J. Harrison Ghee, Adam Pascal, and Krysta Rodriguez. And did you hear? Mandy is going to be the special guest Norma Desmond in select performances of Broadway’s upcoming Sunset Boulevard. I told her she had better sing it in Patti LuPone’s original keys! And speaking of Patti, here is Mandy singing one of Patti’s Evita classics with me at SiriusXM. Holy cow. Come see us at the Bell Theater.
As for a city near you, I have some very fun shows coming up. I’ll be in Chicago at the Studebaker Theater on Sunday July 27 with Norbert Leo Butz, and then Monday July 28 with Lillias White. Both are Tony Award winners, and both have played Effie! Yes. Lillias, of course, did it first as Jennifer Holliday’s stand-by in L.A. She then took over the role and brought it back to Broadway. She also performed as Effie in our 2001 Actors Fund concert. Norbert, though not a traditional Effie, did the entire fight scene from Dreamgirls into “And I Am Telling You” at MCC’s Miscast gala in 2017 (watch it here). You know I’m going to do those numbers in both of my Chicago shows!
Speaking of Dreamgirls, here is Lillias doing a TV appearance to promote our 2001 Concert (which raised $1,000,000 for the Actors Fund) with two unknown back-up singers, Heather Headley and Audra McDonald!
In conclusion, tickets for all my fun upcoming stuff are now available. Peace out! ✌️
