Judy Kaye Rings Some Bells

For Tony-winner Judy Kaye, the Encores! revival of Bells Are Ringing running at City Center this weekend is a sort of homecoming. "This was the first musical I ever did," she recalls. "I was in high school, and they staged this musical for me before I went off to college. So it's got wonderful memories for me."

This weekend, she is taking on the role of Sue, heroine Ella Peterson's Kelli O'Hara's boss who has professional and personal issues of her own. "It's very wistful, having done it so long ago, and having done a different part. Now I'm a grown-up," she muses before adding, "and it's delightful, all at once." While the show may not be her favorite Comden and Green musical for obvious reasons, she picks On The Twentieth Century for that honor, she feels a certain connection to the show.

When she was understudying Madeline Kahn in On The Twentieth Century, she went to the gym during the day before a performance. Like most actors at the time, she used an answering service much like Susanswerphone, but wasn't able to check in for several hours. When she arrived at the theater for her call time, she learned that the theater management had been leaving messages for her all day: Kahn would not be going on, and she would be playing the lead role of Lily Garland in just a few hours. "In the age of the cell phone, this wouldn't happen," she says with amusement. Just about everybody involved in the show was there, she remembers, including Betty Comden and Adolph Green. "I got a standing ovation at the end of the show and an armload of yellow roses, and I stood there, crying, thinking about the last time this had happened to me--and it was high school, doing Bells Are Ringing-- another Comden and Green masterpiece." 

In creating the character of Sue, she says, she keeps hearing Jean Stapleton's voice, even though she never saw the originator's take on the character. "She's all over the character, so I can't say I'm channeling her, but every now and then I feel her invading my body." She calls her performance an "homage" to Stapleton, even though she doesn't do any kind of impression. "I'm just saying what's written on the page, and you can tell that it was written [for] her. You always owe a debt of gratitude--all of us, who do revivals--to the people who originated the parts, because the writers wrote so much for them, especially back in the day."

The best moment at rehearsal, she says, was the first run-through with the orchestra playing Jule Styne's score. "Hearing that downbeat--the orchestra racing into the music--Jule Styne! Oh, man! It's pretty great! And then you get onstage and they do it again to you! I think it's probably the thing that makes actors want to do musicals. It's the orchestra. Take that away, and it might be interesting, but anybody who thinks they can put a machine in pit [that can] play for a live orchestra must be out of their minds." She acknowledges that smaller orchestras have their place, especially in a down economy, but is grateful that a venue exists that uses a full orchestra and full chorus like in the Golden Age of Broadway, even for only five performances. "You don't get to see that anymore," she says. "It's a very rare event."