Comedian reveals Walton Arts Center’s Broadway season with a twist

FAYETTEVILLE — Seth Rudetsky stood on a simple stage, framed by red curtains and spotlights, a grand piano at the ready.
 
Doing what has not been done before in the Walton Arts Center’s 20-year history, he took Broadway series subscribers on an insider's tour of the not-yet-revealed Broadway season for 2012-13, the 21st season. Rudetsky knows his stuff, as the host of a daily broadcast on the Broadway channel on Sirius/XM satellite radio and a regular columnist for Playbill.com.

Historically, the Walton Arts Center has announced the Broadway series first, through a direct mailing to subscribers, and later revealed that series and the remaining lineup of plays, dance, music, children's shows and other events to the public.

This year, officials invited current Broadway series ticket holders to the Fayetteville arts center Saturday afternoon (March 3) for the first-ever Broadway series preview. Several hundred of them showed up, eager to see what was in store.

They were in for a treat, as Rudetsky deconstructed the series, revealing the shows one at a time, with lots of hints, drama and behind-the-scenes stories. Speaking briskly and with much animation, he presented this whirlwind tour, often showing samples of the shows via video.

"Imagine me as a child of 12," he hinted for the Tony award-winning Billy Elliot, based on the film, about a British boy who finds a talent for ballet rather than boxing. With a score by Elton John, the show ran away with 10 Tony awards in 2009, including best actor in a musical, which was handed to all three teenage boys who rotated the title role. Rudetsky talked about the difficulty of singing, dancing and acting, showing a television clip of the three young actors. He counted as one young man spun round and round: "28, 29, spin, spin, land."

He also showed footage of the cable used to suspend the actor playing Billy above the stage, allowing him to fly. "That's going to be on this stage. Isn't that cool?" he said, adding, "I hope the theater has insurance."

Rudetsky's sassy nature and self-deprecating humor kept this run-down of shows light and entertaining. As a pianist, he's played for more than 15 Broadway shows, including Ragtime, Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. On Saturday, he often lip-synced strong female vocalists, and sang and played snippets of tunes on the piano.

One of the shows, War Horse, is not a musical, but is “the biggest international hit of recent years.” It was a hit in New York and London, winning five 2011 Tony awards, including best play, before being made into a film. Amazing for its "theater magic" quality, the show uses unique puppets to put life-size horses on stage for this film about World War I.

The story also speaks eloquently about the human impact of wartime. "It's such a realistic depiction of it," Rudetsky said.

Rudetsky needed only mention actor Mike Myers to get the audience to guess that Shrek: The Musical was on its way. "You guys are so savvy," he told the crowd. The show won a 2009 Tony for best costume design of a musical. He showed a clip of Shrek and Princess Fiona flirting, while having a burping and farting contest. "And that makes them fall in love," Rudetsky said.

Catch Me If You Can, which he saw on Broadway, features the work of a "brilliant" composing and lyricist team — Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman (also the team for Hairspray, their first Broadway musical, for which they won a Tony). It was based on the film starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio. Norbert Leo Butz won a 2011 Tony for best leading actor for the role of the FBI agent, originally written for Nathan Lane.

As Rudetsky showed a clip of this “very, big Broadway spectacular,” he said it featured what he considers the best new song on Broadway last year: "Fly, Fly Away." He also showed a clip of him, caught on camera, watching actor Aaron Tveit sing while jealously starring, and glaring, at his 29-inch waist.

Rudetsky said he's still shocked that Memphis, which won four 2010 Tony awards, including best musical, was not nominated for its impressive choreography, which he showed in a clip.

An old-school Broadway musical, with plenty of great songs and tap dancing, Anything Goes is also part of next season. Rudetsky announced this one by bringing two audience members on stage to play “name that tune.” One of them had the advantage because she’d been involved with this show before; he called her “sassafras.” The Cole Porter musical won two 2011 Tony awards, for musical revival and lead actress.

In addition to the six Broadway series shows, subscribers also get first option for tickets to three other 2012-13 season shows: Hair, Stomp and American Idiot.

Rudetsky's first experience watching a Broadway show was at Hair, "one of the few Broadway shows where every song is amazing." He served as artistic producer/music director for the first five annual Actors Fund Fall Concerts, which included doing Hair with Jennifer Hudson. Hudson sang a song from Hair when she auditioned for the movie Dreamgirls, for which she won an Oscar.

"I'm not saying that she owes me her Oscar, but she does," Rudetsky said.

Stomp, which has been on the Walton Arts Center stage before, is an fascinating display of the music and rhythm of sounds created in unusual ways — a symphony of metal cigarette lighters, 55-gallon metal barrels used for stilts, and corrugated tubes smacked on the stage.

And American Idiot, which sprung from the Green Day album of the same name, is a high-energy show that is perfect for one’s “16-year-old hostile child.” It’s directed by Michael Mayer, who also directed Spring Awakening, which has been to the Walton Arts Center and was more about depressed adolescents.

“This show is about lots of cranky, young people,” Rudetsky said.

Afterward, audience members filled the lobby to renew their Broadway subscriptions. And Rudetsky stayed around for an evening performance of his acclaimed Seth's Big Fat Broadway Show, before returning to New York to perform Sunday (March 4) in Disaster, which he co-wrote.

 
Dates for the Broadway series subscription shows are:
• Shrek: The Musical — Oct. 30-Nov. 4
• Billy Elliot — Dec. 4-9
• Catch Me If You Can — Jan. 8-13
• Memphis — Feb. 5-10
• Anything Goes — April 9-14, 2013
• War Horse — May 22-26, 2013

Other show dates:
• Stomp — Sept. 7-9
• Hair — Feb. 22-23
• American Idiot — April 26-28, 2013

More information can be found at the Walton Arts Center’s website.