Seth Rudetsky Lunches With The Ladies of “The Addams Family”

On a recent Thursday, actor, writer, music director and Chatterbox host Seth Rudetsky had the pleasure (so it seems) of lunching with the ladies of The Addams Family.  He shares that experience in his February 1 Playbill.com article ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunched:

“…On Thursday I had lunch at delicious 44×10 with Bebe Neuwirth, Krysta Rodriguez, Carolee Carmello and Jackie Hoffman, who are the four leading ladies from the The Addams Family musical.  I’m writing a feature on them for the March Playbill, and we had a great/delicious time.  If you’ve seen Jackie’s Joe’s Pub shows, you’d know that she’s always complaining about not getting gigs. One of her biggest laments is about not even being able to get an audition for Fiddler on the Roof. Well, true to form, as soon as we sat down, she noticed that her bread plate was empty and she quipped, “Look! It’s just like Broadway.  I didn’t get a roll.”   Brava on the double meaning.  I bit into my delicious roll and asked her what the audition was like for the role of Grandma.  She remembered that she looked at the scene and noticed there was a little salty language in it, so she figured she could do one of her original songs.  The language in her act is more than a little salty, and this particular song is about her resenting being asked to do non-stop benefits.  It begins with:  “F*** you for asking me to do a show for free!” and then repeats that theme many times.  When the song was over, she received a sea of blank faces… and no call back.  However, that was for the initial workshop, and later on she was asked to go in again…this time for the Chicago-to-Broadway production.   She was slated to do the Doug Cohen/Douglas Carter Beane musical Big Time, which would mean that she’d have to choose between the two if she got cast as Grandma.  She knew she couldn’t sing the same song she sang before (non-stop cursing = blank British faces), so she decided to sing one of her songs from Big Time because it was fabulous and always brought down the house.  She told me that she “had the chutzpah” to call the composer and ask for a copy of the music…but not tell him she was using it to audition for a show that would prevent her doing his show!  He got the sheet music to her, she auditioned and got Addams Family and subsequently chose to leave Big Time.  Doug Cohen, the composer, called her a few days later and warily asked, “Jackie, did you use my song for your Addams Family audition?”  Jackie admitted she did.  She told me that she then literally heard a wail emanate from the phone.  The good news is Big Time was postponed, so hopefully she can eventually do both shows!

Speaking of auditions, Carolee was starring in Mamma Mia! when she was asked to come in for the reading of Addams Family.  She looked over the monologue and was surprised that there were all of these great Broadway ladies at the audition. S he then found out that the audition wasn’t for the reading, it was for the Broadway production!  She frantically took out the monologue and this time gave it more than a once over.  Apparently, she sassed her audition because she got the role of Alice Beineke.  She and Terrence Mann (the original Rum Tum Tugger in Cats) play a couple who are visiting the Addams family manse.  She told me that she and “Terry” have a completely different style of acting in a show eight times a week.  Carolee loves to figure out how something should be played and then lock it in.  Terry, who plays Mal Beineke, likes to make different choices each night.  And, I mean different.  Bebe said that there’s one entrance he does that has a totally new take each night.  At one performance it was sultry and seductive, and Bebe whispered to Nathan (Lane), “Here comes Barry White.”  The next night it was high energy and rock n’ roll-ish, and Nathan whispered, “Look.  It’s Rum Tum Mal.”
The ladies were all telling me that Jackie has a section of the show where she gets to improv, and I asked for an example.  Bebe told her to tell me about the Dec. 31 line.  Apparently, on that night, Grandma croaked out, “It’s New Year’s Eve.  I’m going to go up to my room for some Dick.  (long pause).  Clark.”

We were all talking about Jerry Zaks, who is coming in to oversee the production, and Bebe mentioned that he was in the original cast of Fiddler on the Roof. I nodded, but then said I thought it was the national tour.  She was adamant that it was the Broadway production because he knew a family friend of hers who played the Constable.  I then said that the Grease tour was his first big credit, and that happened in the 70’s and Fiddler was more of a 60’s show.  I mentioned that maybe the Constable did the tour as well.  I could tell the whole table was annoyed at my obsession with minutiae, so I decided to get to the bottom of it.  I whipped out my cell phone and texted Jerry.  Of course Jackie yelled, “You have his cell phone number?  I don’t have his cell phone number!”  I ignored her and typed away.  I wrote that I needed to know whether he did Fiddler on Broadway or on tour.  Lunch ended before I heard back from him, but as I walked up Ninth Avenue I got his text:  ”Alas.  Only on tour.”  HA! I don’t want to say, “I told you so, Bebe,”…so I’ll write it:  I told you so, Bebe…”

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