Forbidden Broadway: Behind the Mylar Curtain by Gerard Alessandrini, Michael Portantiere Read Free Book Online Page A

physical comedy, and we were a
bit apprehensive about doing the number in someone's
apartment.
    On the appointed day, we all met at the theatre to get
into costume and pick up my twin. Hailing a cab on West 72nd Street when we were dressed like that, with a matching blow-up doll in our group,
was perhaps the silliest situation I've ever been in. But at Mr. Adler's apartment on
the East Side, the mood was serious. A grand piano dominated the living room, with
two leather-bound scores on top: The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees. Mr. Adler
pulled up a chair and we began. As he listened to the lyrics, he began to smile, and by
the end, he was laughing and grinning broadly. He loved it, and he invited us to stay
all afternoon. We had gotten his blessing.

    Years later, when I was appearing in a revival of Damn Yankees on Broadway, Mr.
Adler came in as a consultant. I asked him if he remembered me, and with a twinkle
in his eye he said, "How could I forget?!"

     

In 1986-87, we were still playing at Palsson's, and it became apparent that there was
less and less on Broadway to make fun of. There just weren't many new musicals, due
in part to the AIDS crisis in the industry. For a while, we started our show by saying,
And now, Forbidden Broadway spoofs the hits of the 1985-86 season." The lights would
come up on an empty stage, and then go down again.
    In 1985, Quilters had gotten a Tony nomination for Best Musical, and Big Riverwon
the award. That's not an inferior show; it's a very nice musical of Huckleberry Finn,
but it never really caught the public's imagination. This was also true of Edwin Drood,
but that show was great fodder for us. We were able to spoof the idea of the audience
voting for who the murderer was by having our audience vote on which star we would
murder. Almost every night, they wanted to see our version of Linda Ronstadt in La
Boheme as she sang to the tune of "Musetta's Waltz":

    'I'o give you an idea of how inactive Broadway was at the time, we had to look to a revival
of The Music Man that Dick Van Dyke did at City Center. So I wrote a number called "Ya
Got Trouble in New York City," about the lack of exciting entertainment on Broadway.
    More and more theatre was being imported from London to fill in the void. The
Royal Shakespeare Company bought over several excellent productions that were the
talk of the town. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to steal
some more songs from My Fair Lady. We turned "The Ascot Gavotte" on its ear by dancing "The RSC Gavotte." I've always found
it a joy to parody Lerner and Loewe songs, because the lyrics are
so sharp and witty, and Alan Jay Lerner clearly lays out where the
punch-lines should be. As for Frederick Loewe's music, it's heady
and infectious to say the least, and it even sounds headier with
silly parody lyrics.
    Ron Bohmer as "The Music Man" in 1986.
    Our cast performed the gavotte absolutely deadpan, and ten
times snobbier than any Anglophile. I enjoyed that numberespecially the night when Mr. Lerner himself attended the show
and laughed and laughed. About six weeks later, I heard that he
had died from cancer, and I realized what a great compliment
he had paid us: Forbidden Broadway must have been one of the
last shows he chose to attend.
    Although it was a very quiet time on Broadway, the Upper
West Side was gentrifying, and our show was doing very well.
When we did a new edition, we'd get a huge amount of attention
from the press, partly because there was almost nothing else going on. We couldn't really spoof shows like Quilters or Starmites,
because they didn't run long enough for people to get to know
the music.

    Left: Gerard at a rehearsal in the mid-'80s. "These boots are made for walkin' over people's careers!"
Right: Craig Wells, Nora Mae Lyng, and John Vandertholen do the "RSC Gavotte."
    Artistically, Broadway was hanging on by two threads: Jerry Herman and Stephen
Sondheim, giants from the golden age who