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Exclusive: Backstage with the Company of FORBIDDEN BROADWAY
Oct 1, 2024
In this exclusive video, watch as we check in with all four stars (Chris Collins-Pisano, Danny Hayward, Nicole Vanessa Ortiz and Jenny Lee Stern) along with Alessandrini and music director Fred Barton to find out more about the show's enduring legacy, which actors are the easiest and hardest to parody, and so much more!
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We're going to find out where Broadway went right
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Was in Matilda? Or that singing King Kong. Great stop, Marty. That was a monster floor
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. Gerard Allison Dreeny's Forbidden Broadway has been a staple for theater lovers around the world for decades
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Well, now he is back in New York with his latest edition called Merely We Stole a Song
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here at Theater 555, where I caught up with the company on opening night
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Well, I was here this weekend. The audience fell madly in love with this show
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Some had seen many incarnations of Forbidden Barbie before. There were many first-timers who were like
0:42
they cannot wait to come back. What is the biggest joy for both of you
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with being back now with this beautiful new version of Forbidden Broadway
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Well, that's what I actually just said it. It's, I love that the alumni come back and love it
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but I love it when people that have never seen it before see it. and it's new to them
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So it is like the original Forbidden Buddy. And they get all excited, you know, the costume changes and everything
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And I just love that when we find new fans and do it for people that have never seen
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this type of show before, which is, I must say, speaking of time travel
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is not particularly updated. It's up to date, but the form is from upstairs
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at the downstairs, from the 50s, or probably even further back than that. You know, it's a tried and true old review form
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Well, one of the things that was always true of forbidden Broadway, which sometimes people don't necessarily focus on
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it is that it is the ultimate showcase for performers. I mean, you talk to our performers, and there is no show that I know of, and I know a lot
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and I done a lot that allows performers to do so much and show so much talent and in so many ways And especially in today Broadway world I mean we no longer in the Star Age when
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Cole Porter wrote Ethel Merman a show when he wasn't doing anything else and capitalized on
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her talent. Jipsy was specifically written around the very exact talent and abilities of Ethel Merman
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Well, I think that's true here, too. I mean, you heard the actor talk about that we changed things in rehearsals and previous. And what that actually was
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we are doing is I've got all this material, a lot more material than we're actually using the show
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And then I bring them, it's like a tailor. I bring all this material in. We put it on them. We fit it
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We cut, we paste, we pin. No, not that jacket. That color's not right for them, not this, just like a
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tailor. And then what we can do is really hone in on their particular talents and make it a showcase
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for them. Well, let's talk about you. You do so many different people and stars on stage
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who are the easiest for you, who are the most challenging? Oh, man. I mean, most, most
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I know you have a couple of people you want to go through. Some of them are easier because they're bigger swings, right
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Like, you know, the emcees through the, I do, you know, Joel Gray, I do Alan Cumming, I do Eddie Redmayne kind of in sequence like that
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They're all so unbelievably different, physically, vocally. There's really, really easy things to hook onto
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But then someone like Jeremy Jordan, who's like objectively a fantastic singer just has like a few, you know, vocal styling
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You know, I have to like really, really get in there, listen to a ton of Jeremy
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Jordan and say, okay, how do I make it so that it's recognizable
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He still sounds good, but it's funny. I'm not like skewer. You know, it's, there's an interesting, so like a Jeremy Jordan was really, that was
3:36
that was hard for me. Yeah. For me I not sure if it was hard or if it was a hybrid of hard and challenging artistically because when I got into the Forbidden Broadway show at the time that I did this particular number wasn in the show yet until we started you know culminating things
3:53
And so when our director Gerard decided to put an Audra in Gypsy installment and kind of create a relationship between Audra trying to live up to the standard of excellence that Ethel Merman had from her interpretation of Gypsy, I thought, oh gosh, these are two
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entirely different women. So not only am I bringing Audra to the role of Gypsy, but I'm also trying
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to fight with the idea of Ethel Merman through that vocal. I'm like, okay, this is interesting
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And I think we kind of just have to go with our impulses more so than over intellectualize the
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moment because it's funny by nature. She's a soprano. Ethel's like a broad alto
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me, let's play with those areas. So for me, working with Fred Barton on it, he did such a great
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job on workshopping it with me because he had so much wisdom. and information about the show
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and then also about how people are expecting Audra to look and sound with it
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So when we brought those two women together, it was just comic genius
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It really was, especially when we put in some of those dialogue moments with the, you know, like
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oh my God, there's Merman. And we're like kind of fighting with the ghost of Merman who might not be approving
4:58
of whether or not Audrey's in the role or not. But that's just the joke of it all
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And I think that plays well with the audience because it gets a response every night
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And I think it's probably one of the most joyful parts of the show for me to get to
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Crazy same has happened backstage for one of you during a costume change or something
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Tell a story. Oh, Lord. That list would be like somebody trying to like thank somebody at the Oscars
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It's like forever in a day long. Yeah, it's forever in it. I'm trying to think. Like last, I feel like on Tuesday night
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I tried to page a curtain for you to take that mic after Patti Lepone and I almost like backhanded you in the face
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I don't even know. I think some of them we just like block out of our minds because it so traumatic I mean I will say let give anything away We do a cat jellicle ball parody That true Okay I been around a minute
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Okay. Three kids like, coming down from that number, the hardest thing I've ever done in my career
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up until this point physically on stage is the Skiertso in West Side Story
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What is it four minutes or three minutes? And it's like you can't breathe afterwards
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This is now the hardest. Yeah. It's so hard. You really have to kind of know, you know, how much time you have in between something
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and you're like, okay, I have to change, but I also need, like, 15 seconds. To just, like, stand in a wide stance and lean over and just like
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and just get the oxygen back into your body. But, I mean, it's funny, because I feel like that stuff really starts to happen at the beginning
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and then once we all get to know each other, we all know each other's paths and spaces
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it becomes more of a funny thing. And you're like, you're fine, but then you see someone's hat off, and you're like, here's your hat
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Let me put that there for you. You know, it becomes like, it's an age-old joke
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It's a completely different show. It's just not like a regular book show where a regular book show is sort of written in this arc for your voice, for the people to have a chance to rest and this and that
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And this is just 11 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 11 o'clock. Yeah, we start the number with an 11 o'clock with the show with an 11 o'clock number
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Yeah. And then when you're not doing your 11 o'clock number, you're frantically changing you have two minutes to like do whatever you have to do
6:57
It's kind of good. It keeps that adrenaline up the whole time. Yeah, keep it going
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