THE PROM GOES HOLLYWOOD

 

With a little tea and just a hint of shade, I am truly excited that the NETFLIX adaptation of the (beloved but short lived) Broadway show, THE PROM, is almost here. Because the bottom line in Hollywood has always been dollars before any of our artistic feelings, stage to screen adaptations have always been risky.  There are many theater loving people who cannot make it to New York City to see a show, and the movie musical is their only ticket to that experience.  Many of us of a certain generation will also include Original Broadway Cast  (OBC) recordings and film soundtracks as our FIRST gateway to musical theater. I worry about what happens to the theater after this pandemic. 

YouTube has changed this for all of us, and outlets like Broadway HD and Netflix have stepped up the availability and quality of the content.  Of course, there are so many rumblings among the hard working members of the theatrical community about how THE PROM’s adaptation gives no real love to the original Broadway artisans who for 8 shows a week brought literal joy to us all. But remember, it’s dollars before your artistic feelings. 

From Top L to R: Caitlin Kinnunen, Christopher Sieber. Bottom L to R: Michael Potts, me, Beth Leavel 

Many fans of the show who had the great fortune of seeing the original cast, will not deny Beth Leavel, Brooks Ashmanskas, Christopher Seiber, Angie Schworer, and in her breakout, leading lady role, Caitlin Kinnunen their due.  Get the cast recording and see what I mean. I do not mean to begrudge or shade the celebrity casting, because they have all tread the boards at various points in their careers, and some to Tony Award© nominations and wins.  However, to those who have worked consistently as stage artists to the ceiling of notoriety and salary caps that only a Broadway career can comfortably provide, a starring role in a project this huge could make the difference of one of those hard working thespians to have THAT moment.

In the supporting roles in the film, Ariana Debose ( from Broadway’s HAMILTON, A BRONX TALE, SUMMER, Anita in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film remake of WEST SIDE STORY), Andrew Rannells ( Broadway’s HAIRSPRAY, BOOK OF MORMON, FALSETTOS, BOYS IN THE BAND- Broadway and Netflix film, and plenty of TV credits), and Kevin Chamberlin (Broadway’s DISASTER, WICKED, SEUSSICAL, THE RITZ and consistent and varied TV credits ,  the dream is coming true for these hardworking stage actors, as well.  

The 50’s and 60’s are years of cinematic precedent of OBC members getting screwed out of the roles in the transfer to screen for bigger names, Ethel Merman for Rosalind Russell in GYPSY,  Barbara Cook for Shirley Jones in THE MUSIC MAN, Chita Rivera for Rita Moreno in WEST SIDE STORY, Chita Rivera for Janet Leigh in BYE BYE BIRDIE , Julie Andrews for Audrey Hepburn in MY FAIR LADY, Mary Martin for Julie Andrews in SOUND OF MUSIC, Gwen Verdon for Shirley MacClaine in SWEET CHARITY, Carol Channing for Barbra Streisand  in HELLO DOLLY.  

From L to R: Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Ted Ross (only one from OBC), and Nipsey Russell.

From the more contemporary musicals, Stephanie Mills for Diana Ross in THE WIZ (some black folks are STILL mad about that one), Cady Huffman for Uma Thurman in THE PRODUCERS, Bebe Neuwirth and Catherine Zeta Jones in CHICAGO, are all divas denied the ultimate reward of recording their creation from stage to cinematic glory.  Most people do not think about the men as deeply, but Robert Alda for Marlon Brando in GUYS AND DOLLS, and Harvey Fierstein for John Travolta in HAIRSPRAY, come to my mind quickly. Yul Brynner kept THE KING AND I, and Joel Grey kept CABARET, but at least Harvey got to do the Live TV version on NBC.

Now before I get catty, I would like to thank Ryan Murphy. GLEE captured the inner angst of so many teens, both gay and straight. He moved a whole new generation with choreography and a song in their heart.  He single-handedly restored honor and self-esteem to the high school band fags, drama queens, and choir geeks everywhere, in a way that not even FAME did for my generation. (Oops, I am giving away my age.) There is not a gay man that has not had a private moment with themselves to many of the shows helmed by this mogul.  I have 2 words for you, NIP/TUCK. Okay? His numerous TV projects have kept many noted stage thespians working, like Patti LuPone, Billy Porter, Sarah Paulson, Cheyenne Jackson, and Jessica Lange, to name a few.  So he has certainly opened the door and brought visibility to many theater notables.  

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What Ryan Murphy did by bringing BOYS IN THE BAND to Netflix with the original Broadway cast was inspired. Among the cast are some pretty high profile folks like Zachary Quinto, Jim Parsons, Andrew Rannells, Tuc Watkins, and Matt Bomer.  All of whom have super high Q ratings compared to their other supporting castmates, Michael Benjamin Washington, Charlie Carver, Brian Hutchison and Robin De Jesus,  but it was Robin De Jesus who garnered the Tony Award© nomination for the production. It was actually his third nomination. Now there are just that many more people that know who he is. My inner catty queen tells me that if Ricky Martin had expressed interest in De Jesus’ role, there might have been a dust up for sure. In any case, Ryan Murphy in one move went from not only being a godsend to television, but a new champion of theater.  

                                                 Me with 3x Tony Award© Nominee, Robin De Jesus

The streaming service, Broadway HD,  has a large library of live recordings of theatrical shows from both Broadway and The West End.  They also have a library of movie musicals, as well. Netflix, along with Ryan Murphy, has managed to add that cinematic “je ne sais quoi” that brings new dimensions to the original storytelling. 

THE PROM did not get any of that De Jesus magic for Beth Leavel, Brooks Ashmanskas, Christopher Seiber, nor Angie Schworer. Meryl Streep will be adopting Leavel’s Broadway baby, Dee Dee,  and putting her stamp on it. Nicole Kidman put the kibosh on Schworer’s Zazz. 2x Tony Award nominee, Andrew Rannells, takes the role from 2x Tony Award nominee, Christopher Sieber.  Brooks’ Barry character gets appropriated by James Corden, and word on the street is very shady about the performance.  Corden does respond to the backlash, but when you look at the list of people replaced, perhaps that role could have been given to Nathan Lane, if not the stage originator? Even after making her debut to the world with a same sex kiss on TV, along with her Broadway debut, Caitlin Kinnunen was taken out by another newcomer, Jo Ellen Pellman. Murphy could have thrown Caitlin a bone.

Top from L to R: Courtenay Collins, Josh Lamon, Christopher Sieber, Caitlin Kinnunen, Angie Schworer, and Beth Leavel 

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          From L to R: Andrew Rannells, Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman 

I have my theories about casting, and I am always Team Beth Leavel. She does have to admit that when your agent tells you that you’ve lost your role to Meryl Streep, you can only get so angry. Let’s face it. It’s Meryl Streep. She can steal your husbands, use them, and send them back to you because she is Meryl Streep.  The universe did Miss Beth a solid favor by casting her in the upcoming musical adaptation of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA karmically in the Meryl Streep role. Angie Schworer can get only so mad when Nicole Kidman wants your role.  Sorry Ange, but she’s got the legs and the Hollywood clout to get whatever she wants.  

Andrew Rannells already had a previous relationship with Ryan Murphy with BOYS IN THE BAND, so I could see how Christopher Sieber got the boot.  For the theater lovers out there, imagine Brooks Ashmanskas’ mannerisms and talents being shared with Netflix audiences, alongside these well-known and respected performers.  The world will never know now.  

 

Emmy Award winning producer, actress, Kerry Washington

They decided to open up the casting by putting in someone not known for her musical prowess as the seemingly intolerant, Mrs. Green. Emmy Award©  winning producer, actress, and television bad ass, Kerry Washington , has tread the boards of Broadway in David Mamet’s RACE.  She also has a relationship with Netflix after they turned her last moment on Broadway, AMERICAN SON,  into a multi-camera teleplay. However, I am sure Ms. Washington was called by Mr. Murphy when he couldn’t secure 6x Tony Award© winner, Audra McDonald, right?

The message of THE PROM is truly so beautiful that if Ryan Murphy would have kept the original cast and filled in the rest with Broadway extras, it would still be just as highly anticipated as it is now with the star casting.  The story of how Ryan Murphy kept the production whole, like with BOYS IN THE BAND, would have made it legendary. 

On John Fugelsang’s Tell Me Everything, SiriusXM Progress, Channel 127

©Keith Price 2020

QUARANTINED MEMORIES #2: MY FIRST DREAMGIRL

So as the YouTube spiral continues during these quarantine times, another video has me in a nostalgic mood connecting threads of my theater loving life. I recently saw the clip from the Tony Awards© with Jennifer Holliday and the cast of Dreamgirls.   

I remember seeing it on TV at the time, processing its fabulosity, while the signature song from the show, And I’m Tellin’ You I'm Not Going, climbs the charts. It made Texas native, Jennifer Holliday, a breakout star.  While living in P.Y.T. Texas (Pre You Tube) , my theater experiences were very limited.  It wasn’t until I moved to Austin from Galveston that I felt comfortable enough to see and participate in more theater locally.  Since my Texas days, I have had many opportunities to meet and interview legends of the American theater and see their work on stage.  However, there are great performances that happen in places other than the Great White Way. They are just as compelling, riveting, and memorable, as if you were walking out of the Imperial Theater on a chilly winter night in 1982. 

For me, it was a Sunday matinee performance of DREAMGIRLS at the Zachary Scott Theater, Spring 1995. I, along with one of my dearest friends, Len, were volunteering as ushers so we could see the show. Another one of my dearest friends, Ms. Treens, was also the stage manager for the show and kept saying to me, “you are not gonna believe how good this show is!”  She also said “black folks are gonna lose their minds when they see this show.” She was right, because I did not know what was going to happen.   For a community theater, we were living with only having The Wiz, Bubblin’ Brown Sugar,  and Ain’t Misbehavin’ to fall back on as black musical theater performance options.  Once On This Island was performed in the previous seasons, but it was still new to us. It had not earned its current status in black musical theater history just yet. 

From the moment the house lights went down and those voices and music turned up, I lost my ever loving mind. Chile, Dave Steakley directed the *ish out of that show.  The gowns, the wigs, and the moving sets turned me OUT! Seeing people of color just sassing it up while singing their faces off was amazing, but I can not forget the performance of the actress who embodied my First Effie White, B. Iden Payne© Award Winner, Jacqui Cross. Honey, I had never seen anyone like her.  At that performance baby, she SLAYED!! She blew the roof off of that house.

With Emmy Award© Winning, Loretta Devine

 In that climactic moment near the end of Act One when everyone gangs up on Effie about her size, missing shows, etc., and Deena is acting all innocent knowing full well she’s been sleeping with Curtis right behind Effie’s back, stealing her place as lead, all while being careful enough to not get pregnant in her quest for fame.  As that scene started, I felt goosebumps because my empathy for Effie was growing. By the time the bells chimed in to start that famous anthem, I was a wreck. It was the first time that I cried in a live performance.

At that time, I was winding down my days in Austin, as I prepared to take the big leap and move to NYC.  I have always been in the battle of the bulge my entire adult life, and this quarantine is not helping. I knew then that moving to New York was the right thing to do. However on that day, the only questions marinating for me: where was Jacqui Cross in that moment, and who did she channel to find the character? Why? Because an angel came out of those vocal chords that day.  The lights came up, and there was not a dry eye in the house, except for my friend, Len. Not that he wasn’t moved, but theater is not his jam like that. I have never forgotten that moment. Don't even get me started with her costume change DURING the I'M CHANGING number. In the audience at that same show was one of Austin’s premier cabaret/piano bar goddesses and local celebrity, Margaret Wright, and even she was doing the Oprah ugly cry at her seat.

Tony© and Drama Desk© Award Nominee, Author, Activist, Sheryl Lee Ralph

At different times during my radio career, I have met and interviewed the 3 Original Dreamgirls, Tony© and Drama Desk© Award Nominee, Sheryl Lee Ralph (Deena), Emmy© Award Winning Loretta Devine (Lorel), and Tony© and Grammy© Award winning Jennifer Holiday (Effie). Each and every one of them could not have been kinder, more generous, and funnier. These sisters are still working on a screen or stage near you.

Tony© and Grammy© Award Winning, Jennifer Holliday

Looking back, I now know that I needed to experience that performance as a boost for my love of theater. It also reminds me that for every diva that I have seen grace a Broadway stage, there is a Jacqui Cross in their hometown bringing folks to tears, too.  Being blessed to see so many AMAZING performers and shows, I will never forget my first Dreamgirl. FYI, Ms. Cross is still turning it out in Austin, Texas. She still stays very active on the theater and music scene.  Her talent is a testament that great theater performances anywhere will stay with you forever.  Now go wash your hands.

©2020 Keith Price

QUARANTINED MEMORIES #1: SWEET CHARITY

During this pandemic madness and the awaited return of Broadway shows,   I am doing what every theater geek is doing: spending endless hours on You Tube, watching clips of every damn version of every damn thing that we have ever heard, seen, or done, multiplied by 1000.   If you are a theater enthusiast having lived in NYC long enough, in addition to Broadway and Off Broadway, then you know that there is something so amazing and so unique happening on a regular basis, especially with organizations like Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and The Actors Fund, (which, by the way, are both raising funds to help the many whose profession is the basis of many of our favorite moments. If you have a spare fiver to donate,  and know others who can, collectively you will be helping). Back to me.  

In my spiral, I ran across this clip from the Actors Fund production of SWEET CHARITY in 1997, featuring three Tony Award© winning legends, Chita Rivera, Bebe Neuwirth, and Donna McKechnie, in one of my favorite numbers, There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This

I immediately flashed back to actually being in that audience that night. I had been in NYC for about 2 years, and my survival job at the time was being a bouncer/dj/emcee/janitor/house mother and sometimes choreographer at a strip club. 

Yes, I know it might be hard to believe, but at that time many of the older comedians that I admired had worked in a strip club in the early days of their careers.  I felt like I was following a tradition. Not to mention, who would you trust hanging out with female strippers? Lecherous straight guy or fabulous gay guy who can fight, too?

Anyway, after seeing the big event postcards in the rack (remember those?)  at a coffee shop near the strip club, I went back to the club and immediately called the Actor’s Fund and asked for ticket prices.  Cheapest ticket was $150 in the Mezzanine, but Orchestra seats started at $250, so I waited because I had to think about it, because I barely had enough for a mezz seat.  I told one of the “exotic” dancers how bummed I was, because I wanted to go as close to full out fab as I could. That dancer went back to the dressing room and told the other girls. At closing, they ALL went out of their way to tip me extra so I could afford an orchestra seat.  

When I called back the next day to order the ticket, I told the woman on the phone my whole life journey from Texas, and how much I LOVED the movie, and how I was a comedian who worked at a strip club, and how lap dancers were the modern day Taxi Dancers, including the story about the ladies and the generous tips. I know that I exhausted her.  I went to pick up the ticket and pay for it with my stripper tips because I did not have a credit card. That fabulous woman gave me a front row center seat, which was misleading, because it was Row AA. In my mind I thought it was the 27th row, after passing through the alphabet once. Imagine my surprise that night at Lincoln Center almost like Cher in MOONSTRUCK?  

Cy Coleman came out to play the overture.  The ladies from THE LIFE were singing Big Spender with Chita and Bebe.  Theater Goddess, Gwen Verdon, made her final stage appearance that night. She also fell while smoking a cigarette and hiding in Vitorio’s closet.  Dom Deluise and Charles Nelson Reilly were among the other stars on stage. Debbie Allen’s off book moment cracked up the house. Hearing someone scream, “You better work that ponytail, gurl!” as that young dancer made her entrance for the RICH MAN FRUG number.  Looking back some 23 years later, it still feels amazing.

Because I did not know where my life was taking me after that night, I marvel about how many connections to that night continued so many years later.  At that time, I had been in NYC for about 2 years still trying to figure it out. It was before 9/11, social media, and the beginning of the flip phones. After making my way around NYC as a comedian and a hospital clerk for about 10 years from that magical night, I landed a dream job of working in radio.  One of my first BIG assignments was to cover the book launch party of…..Donna McKechnie. 

Tony Award© Winning, Donna McKechnie's Memoir, TIME STEPS: My Musical Comedy Life

Guess who else was at that party? Bebe Neuwirth.  I know right?  It was right before they were to announce that Bebe was to return to the cast of CHICAGO in the role of Roxie Hart. Later on in my career, I also got the chance to connect with the great Chita Rivera.

Chatting with the amazing 2x Tony Award© Winner, Bebe Neuwirth.

Stage door with Chita Rivera at The Dancer's Life in 2005 holding the pic from the 1997 SWEET CHARITY

2019 Chita Rivera Award Nominee Reception with Chita Rivera

As magical as that night was, it came up again in the most unlikely of places.  My first big relationship lasted shy of 7 years, and began with a few theater conversations.  Upon spending my first night with him at his place, I saw this awesome display on his wall. It was a signed poster from that same SWEET CHARITY concert along with pics of him with some of the stars of that same night.  It was such a sweet moment to realize that we were at the very same event meeting people and possibly passed each other and not even knowing it. No matter how the relationship ended, I will never deny that theater was one of the things that made our relationship fun, and we both can admit it was a good run, and yes, we are still friends.  As this quarantine continues, it seems that I will have plenty of time to remember some really great moments involving the theatre, and I think that I will. In the meantime, do the same and if you can, please check out Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and The Actors Fund.
Please enjoy some memories from that magical night, too.

Meeting Emmy Award© Winning Debbie Allen after 1997 SWEET CHARITY

The Original Pic from 1997 SWEET CHARTY with 2x Tony Award© Winning Chita Rivera

Dom Deluise (center), My Friend Bruce and His "friend" 1997 SWEET CHARITY

3X Tony Award© Winner, Hinton Battle, at 1997 SWEET CHARITY