Broadway's Most Wanted (23 page)

First, Mike Rupert was a Broadway juvenile in musicals like 1968’s
The Happy Time.
In the ’80s, he became a Tony winner for
Sweet Charity
and the definitive “Marvin” in William Finn’s
Falsettos
trilogy. In 1984, he
wrote the music for the successful stand-up comedy musical
3 Guys Naked from the Waist Down
and the music for and starred in the 1988 Broadway flop
Mail,
about a man whose mail comes to life.

In addition to being a powerful filmmaker and actor
(Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song),
Melvin van Peebles wrote, directed, produced, and starred in a bunch of musicals, most interestingly
Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death,
a bitter, pointed inner city screed, and
Don’t Play Us Cheap!,
a hopeful counterpoint piece to
Natural Death.
That both these musicals were seen on Broadway in one season (1971-72) is testament to Melvin van Peebles’ gifts as a musical artist.

When it comes to the American musical, you name it and George M. Cohan did it. And probably did it more times than anyone else. From the 1901 musical
The Governor’s Son
to
Little Johnny Jones
a few years later, through
The Tavern
and
Little Nellie Kelly,
and ending with
I’d Rather Be Right
over thirty years later, George M. Cohan
was
the American musical, as author, composer, lyricist, director, actor, theater owner, and producer.

These two came as a package deal. In the tumultuous season of 1967-1968,
Hair
changed a lot of peoples’ minds about what musical theater could be, and James Rado and Gerome Ragni authored
Hair
(along with composer Galt MacDermot) and played soldier boy
Claude and hippie tribe leader Berger, respectively. Hair opened at the Public Theater off-Broadway, then hit Broadway’s Biltmore Theater by way of the Cheetah nightclub.

Gravel-voiced Fierstein is the current toast of Broadway for his cross-dressing performance in the smash musical
Hairspray.
Fierstein, the author of the Tony Award-winning play
Torch Song Trilogy,
also won a 1983 Tony for his book for the musical
La Cage aux Folles.
Flop collectors love him for his book for the 1988 mega-bomb
Legs Diamond.

Mitchell is another popular performer in both the musical and non-musical genres; his musical credits in New York include Broadway’s very conventional
The Secret Garden
and the more experimental
Hello Again
off-Broadway at Lincoln Center. But Mitchell’s biggest triumph has come as the author and star of the rock musical
Hedwig and The Angry Inch,
which he made into a popular film as well. Both theater and rock types look forward to his next move.

Long respected as a musical actor
(Merrily We Roll Along, Rags)
and director
(Juno
off-Broadway, the new
Urban Cowboy),
Lonny Price finally branched into musical authorship with
A Class Act
in 2001.
A Class Act,
for which Price also directed and starred, is the affectionate biography of the late Edward Kleban, a prolific songwriter best known as lyricist for
A Chorus Line.

One of Kleban’s collaborators on the groundbreaking
A Chorus Line,
former chorus dancer Nick Dante was present at the legendary taping sessions in 1974 which served as inspiration for the dance project that eventually evolved into the smash hit. His involvement with and commitment to the project was such that eventually Michael Bennett asked him to co-author the book to
A Chorus Line,
which won Dante the Pulitzer Prize and Tony award, as well as just about every other theater award imaginable.

Starting in 1971, with
Frank Merriwell,
Walter Bobbie was a reliable musical performer who created the role of Roger in the smash
Grease,
as well as Nicely-Nicely Johnson in the 1992 revival of
Guys and Dolls.
In 1994, he conceived and directed the Rodgers and Hammerstein revue
A Grand Night for Singing,
which led to his helming the long-running revival of
Chicago.
Most recently, in 1999, Bobbie co-adapted, with Dean Pitchford, and directed the movie musical
Footloose
for Broadway.

Once, a Broadway star would take New York by storm, then they’d be whisked away to Hollywood and the movies. Now, the quick riches and notoriety of TV are often the big lure. Some good, some bad below.

Funnyman Nathan Lane was given his shot at sitcom stardom with this 1998 NBC offering, about an opera singer who loses his voice, then returns home to his family’s Napa Valley wine orchards to begin his life anew. Most pegged this one as a winner. Then the cameras started rolling.

Troubled from the start,
Encore! Encore!
hit the airwaves in the fall of 1998 with very little network support and unwisely featured Lane playing
Frasier-type
high comedy instead of his trademark comic desperation. It was one of the high-profile disasters of the season. Lane got a second chance with a new sitcom about a gay actor who runs for Congress, which was also unsuccessful.

Pint-sized tornado Kristin Chenoweth made a big hit on Broadway in
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,
for which she won a 1999 Tony. Her squeaky-voiced portrayal of Sally Brown eventually led her fortunes to NBC, who spent a year and a half putting
Kristen
on the air.

The dreadful summer 2001 replacement show featured Chenoweth as Kristin Yancey, typical plucky aide to your typical idiotic corporate blowhole. The squeaky voice was still there, but, like everything in this stupid sitcom turkey, was misguided. It worked on Broadway because she played a
four-year-old,
fellas.

After his Tony-winning stint in 1998’s
Little Me,
the comic genius Martin Short waded into the risky waters of the TV talk show. Perhaps Short was hoping to snag some of Rosie O’Donnell’s Broadway-happy audience, but his eponymous show went the way of approximately 99.95 percent of all talk shows.

Short’s chameleonesque aptitude for creating sketch characters gave the show its one saving grace: the grotesquely comic Hollywood columnist Jiminy Glick, who now has his own show on Comedy Central
(Primetime Glick).
As of this writing, Short is knocking ’em dead in Los Angeles in
The Producers.

One of the most popular sitcoms of all time,
Seinfeld
was built around observational stand-up comic Jerry Seinfeld, but boasted an eclectic supporting cast. Julia Louis-Dreyfus (galpal Elaine) hailed from Chicago’s Second City school of improv comedy, Michael Richards
(Kramer) was a Los Angeles-based sketch comedy and commercials guy, and Jason Alexander (pathetic George) was a New York musical theater guy.

Alexander won his Tony in 1989 for
Jerome Robbins’ Broadway
(he was also in the legendary flop
Merrily We Roll Along
in 1981; no Tony), then headed west and hooked up with the
Seinfeld
crew and the rest is history. And lots of money. He starred with the aforementioned Martin Short in
The Producers
in La-La Land.

Two-time Tony winner Donna Murphy
(Passion, The King and I)
is gorgeous, funny, and a phenomenal singer and song stylist. So it’s no surprise to anybody that she’s been badly used by the suits in Hollywood.

Following her triumph as Fosca in Stephen Sondheim’s
Passion
in 1994, she guested as Francesca Cross on the thriller
Murder One
on ABC starting in 1995. Many uninspiring (and, naturally, non-musical) movies followed, broken up by another Tony for
The King and I
in 1996, until the sitcom misfire
What About Joan
in 2001. (At least she got to sing in one episode, and she ripped it up.) She now plays Heather Olshansky on CBS’s wildly implausible cop-turned-cabbie series
Hack.

An obvious attempt to cash in on the “DC cred” of
The West Wing,
the 2002-2003 NBC series
Mister Sterling
gave the viewer a dashing young senator who speaks his mind and plays it his way, dammit. Lucky for those who watch, it also gives the viewer Audra McDonald as his chief of staff, Jackie Brock.

McDonald is a fiery performer with three Tony Awards to her name, and a growing reputation as a
cabaret performer and recording artist. The gig on the cancelled
Mister Sterling
was an attempt for this talented lady to reach the mass audience she deserves.

Gee, what do you suppose this one was about? A blatant attempt to do for firemen what
ER
did for doctors and
Baywatch
did for lifeguards,
L.A. Firefighters
is looked back upon with absolutely no fondness from anyone. It’s particularly unfortunate for musical fans because it cost New York one of its prime hunks, Jarrod Emick.

Emick, a handsome, stocky athletic leading man, won a Tony at age age 25 for his Joe Hardy in the 1994
Damn Yankees
revival. Unfortunately, his agents whispered in his ear, and two years later, he was cashing Fox Television’s checks in the aforementioned
L.A. Firefighters.
Three more bad TV series followed before Emick made it back to New York, as an ideal Brad Majors in
The Rocky Horror Show.
He’s slated to play the lover of Peter Allen (Hugh Jackman) in
The Boy From Oz
in late 2003.

The pneumatic (and actually talented) beauty Nikki Cox was given her own sitcom on the WB network in 2000. The surprisingly-titled
Nikki
was a standard-issue dumb sitcom with one interesting twist: Nikki, our heroine, was a Las Vegas nightclub dancer, and we actually saw at least one production number each episode.

The dancer stuff was the only watchable part of the show, and it was made bearable by the presence of the marvelous Susan Egan as Nikki’s randy friend and fellow showgirl, Mary. Egan, a Broadway pro from her days in
Beauty and the Beast
(Tony nomination) and
Triumph of Love
(as well as the superb studio recording of
Drat! The
Cat!),
then
Cabaret,
at least provided some spark to the flop-sweat proceedings. Egan has a lucrative career as a voice-over artist for Japanese
animé
as well.

Debbie Allen made a blazing impression on Broadway in the 1980 revival of
West Side Story,
winning a Tony nomination in the process. Alan Parker’s semi-documentary
Fame
followed, in which she played a pitiless dance teacher at the New York High School for the Performing Arts. She played the same role, chomping scenery all the way, in the TV version of the movie as well.

Following that was a Tony nomination for the 1986 revival of
Sweet
Charity. The reality TV craze brought Allen and
Fame
back, this time as a bald-faced “talent show” attempt to clone the success of
American Idol.
Allen rides herd on her young charges and pumps them up, shamelessly playing both Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.

A Tony winner for his thrilling Ché in
Evita,
Broadway favorite Mandy Patinkin has gotten a reputation in recent years as something of an oddity as a performer; indeed, his
Dress Casual
concerts place his singularly committed performances front and center. What’s often lost is how truly remarkable an actor he is when he’s not the whole damn show.

Following a hilarious, Emmy-nominated cameo as himself on
The Larry Sanders Show,
Patinkin played Dr. Jeffrey Geiger (and won an Emmy) on the CBS medical drama
Chicago Hope.
He now plays Rube, the Grim Reaper—or, more specifically, the father figure to a group of Reapers, soul collectors—on Showtime’s offbeat drama
Dead Like Me.

Broadway musicals usually celebrate the union of spoken word, song, and dance. But in some shows the book and songs go out the window, letting the audience feast primarily on the hoofing. Here are ten shows that gotta dance.

Bob Fosse eliminated both book and score altogether in this 1978 tribute to the dancers he so dearly loved.
Dancin’
was literally wall-to-wall choreography, saluting ballet, tap, modern dance, jazz dance, and good old Broadway-style hoofing, set to music by artists as diverse as J.S. Bach, Benny Goodman, and Cat Stevens.

Director-choreographer Susan Stroman and author John Weidman collaborated on this evening of three dance pieces off-Broadway in 1999. Performed to prerecorded tracks and featuring no live or original music,
Contact
nevertheless won the Tony Award for Best Musical
when it moved to Broadway in 2000. The show was at its best in the third piece, “Contact,” which told the tale of a suicidal executive who longs to connect, through dance, with the elusive Girl in the Yellow Dress he sees at a nightclub. The need for communication, for contact, both physical and spiritual, as expressed through dance, is at the heart of this superbly executed dance show.

The creative and producing team of Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli brought
Tango Argentino to
Broadway in 1985, after playing a hit engagement in Paris. Another plotless dance evening, it nevertheless caused a minor stir due to the sheer physicality and sexiness of the tango dancing on display. Segovia and Orezzoli collaborated on another evening of Hispanic dance,
Flamenco Pura,
and a hit blues revue,
Black and Blue,
in 1989, which won them a Tony for costume design. Choreographer Luis Bravo brought the tango back to Broadway in 1997 with his own evening of Argentine music and dance,
Forever Tango,
and the original show returned to Broadway in 1999.