BWW INTERVIEWS: BIRDIE's Dee Hoty

Theater message boards became very busy places on September 10, 2009. The curtain had hardly wrung down when theatergoers reached for their blackberries to post their opinions about the first preview of BYE BYE BIRDIE. In fact, there were a few who posted their comments during intermission. Everyone and their grandparents wanted to express their opinions about the 39 year old musical that was being revived by The Roundabout Theatre. At times the chatter became quite acrimonious and the discussions went on for days. It seems that these people forgot that the show had just given its first preview and the house was filled with an audience that had stood on line during one of the hottest days in the summer to get ten dollar tickets for this one performance. Perhaps that's why they felt they had a right to be so vocal about their opinions.

One aspect of the show that everyone seemed to agree on was the sterling performance that Dee Hoty was giving as Doris McAfee, the mother of the teenager who had been randomly selected to receive "one last kiss" from teen idol Conrad Birdie before he was inducted into the Army. Hoty captures the essence of the quintessential 50's mother, who embodies every attribute of Donna Reed, Barbara Billingsly, Harriett Nelson and even a bit of Gracie Allen. The performance comes gloriously gift wrapped in 50's couture and probably has more crinolines beneath it than any woman ever wore at a single time during the era. Hoty acts, sings and changes costumes on stage to the delight of the audiences who were vociferous with their approval when she took her bows. There was a standing ovation for the whole cast and cheers galore.

After the performance, the BIRDIE-mania continued as hundreds of people rushed to the stage door to prolong their cheering as stars John Stamos, Gina Gershon, Bill Irwin, Nolan Gerard Funk and Dee Hoty left Henry Miller's Theatre. To someone who has spent more than a few New Year's Eves in Times Square, it seemed as though 2010 had arrived early this year. Hoty agrees, saying, "I've seen my share of crowds at a stage door, too (not for me, but for whomever) and it was pretty overwhelming! I thought, "Really? For Uncle Jesse?!' And I mean no disrespect by that, only in regard to the absolute power of TV, and what I call 'the American Idolization' of Broadway."

Chatting by phone on a recent afternoon, Dee Hoty is a pleasure to converse with. She's perceptive, loquacious, humorous and earthy all at the same time. In other words, she's an absolute dream for a journalist. A mere question about how she became involved in show business opens a vivid account of what inspired her to become a constant presence on the theatre scene: "I didn't know you did this for a living because I didn't have any experience f it. I didn't connect the people on TV or the movies with doing it for a living. I had a cousin Tony, who sadly passed away a year ago in March. He majored in theatre in college.-very much to his family's consternation. Please know that our fathers were of first-generation Greek descent. You know, the Old World people who had real employment. I was always good performing. I was a singer who sang in both the church choir and the school choir. I was the soloist here, the soloist there, blah, blah, you get the idea. I discovered theater in high school. More specifically, I discovered musical theater. I had a friend in my brother's class who Audobon--which is where I wound up going to college-he came home and said, ‘Dee, if you're really interested in theater, I should look into this school.' I ended up going there and the short story is that I did summer theater for my college and got PAID. A big $300 for the whole summer!"

Eventually Dee Hoty discovered what auditioning was and she auditioned for other theaters and began to work during her summers until she was graduated. She thought, "Well, this is fun! I'll do this until no one hires me!" The rest is history. Actually, Hoty's mother wanted her to get a teaching certificate because, as with most parents, she wanted her daughter to have something to fall back on. Hoty felt differently, thinking "Oh, if I have it to fall back on I will!" so she never got it. "In hindsight," she adds with a laugh, "I wouldn't be able to go back to school now and get it updated!"

The show that audiences will first remember Hoty doing was CITY OF ANGELS. "It was the first time I created a role on Broadway," she explains. "Before that I was in ME AND MY GIRL. I'd replaced Jane Summerhays. I had also been in BIG RIVER (the original one) and a bunch of things that didn't run very long. Things like THE FIVE O'CLOCK GIRL and Shakespeare's Cabaret. I also toured in BARNUM with Stacey Keach while Jim Dale was still doing it on Broadway. Actually, I created the role in FIVE O'CLOCK GIRL but it ran three weeks and then they tore down the theater. (For the record, FIVE O'CLOCK GIRL played at the old Helen Hayes Theatre which was demolished to make room for what is now the Marquis Theatre.)

Creating a role on Broadway is certainly daunting but Hoty says it's also "thrilling and a huge responsibility. I always feel that I've been given a huge gift that I have to honor. It's sort of an homage to all who have come before and all who will come after. It's something that has to be earned. For sure, no one ever handed me anything. So I know when they ask me or audition me to do a part, I feel very honored and I don't mean to sound corny about it.

Recalling CITY OF ANGELS, Hoty remembers that it went into twenty years earlier, almost to the exact date. "I was talking to Randi Graff last week and we were both bitchin' ourselves about that. I can wrap my brain around ten years, but TWENTY? Oh my God, how did that happen?" regarding the show itself, Hoty says, "We thought we were really onto something. We thought it was pretty cool, but no one had ever heard of Michael Blakemore. They knew who Larry Gelbart was, along with Cy Coleman and Robin Wagner. We thought it was pretty cool and felt that people would either like it or they wouldn't. Thanks to Frank Rich and others, they liked us. They really liked us."

As excellent as CITY OF ANGELS was, Hoty left it to do THE Will Rogers FOLLIES. I stayed with CITY OF ANGELS a year. I did WILL for about a year, leaving that following May but toured with the show for about a year.

What was it like going from one show and right into another? "I had a bigger role in Will Rogers and I had more songs than I did in ANGELS, Actually, in ANGELS I was only in one number and that was the tennis song with Jim Naughton, as well as the opening and closing numbers. In Will Rogers I had four, five, six numbers, especially ‘No Man Left For Me' that Cy wrote for me. I guess it was a different kind of mantle with a little more to do. It's not that it was more important because it's all important. There was certainly more pressure on me in WILL and I felt that I had learned to pay better attention at that point. it was more a case of ‘Alright Missy, you better have all your ducks in a row here!' " the singer says with a hearty laugh.

After THE Will Rogers FOLLIES, Dee Hoty starred in THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE GOES PUBLIC. To some theater-goers, that was one of the most ignominious flops in recent times. "I was really driving the bus in that one," Hoty adds, and isn't he least bit reluctant to discuss it. "I don't really read reviews anymore. I learned a long time ago that if you're gonna believe the good ones, that means you've gotta believe the bad. And if you're gonna let somebody tell you that you suck and believe that, then you're not very long for this world. In any sense, we're all subject to criticism every day. Actually, it's all kind of relative. After WHOREHOUSE I took comfort in knowing that I'd done the best I could and that a lot of it I wasn't responsible for because I didn't have anything to do with the writing or the organizing and the overview. I could only go in every day and do the best I was capable of. That's what I always try to do. Sometimes it's rough."

The mention of Hoty's performance in the Papermill Playhouse's production of FOLLIES brings a sigh of happiness from her. "That show and that whole experience, and the CD that was done by the cast is very dear to my heart. I'm very proud of that." In a note of irony, Hoty muses that she's presently working for the Roundabout Theatre which mounted the so-called "rival" production of FOLLIES.
When Hoty began rehearsals for BYE BYE BIRDIE, she felt a certain oddness in the rehearsal space she was working because it was the same place where she auditioned for their production of FOLLIES. "I didn't get the role but I'm not bitter. I'm not being funny. I did the production that I was meant to be in. Sadly for our company, it couldn't go forward for whatever reason; political or not. I was happy that I had another job to go to after that and it was FOOTLOOSE,: THE MUSICAL" Those familiar with FOOTLOOSE know that it was a musical about a townful of teenagers led by a rebel newcomer. Now Hoty is in another show with a largely teenaged cast. How dis she become involved in BYE BYE BIRDIE?

"I got a call asking whether I was interested and was I available and would I go meet with them? And I did." Bobby Longbottom's an old friend. We did ME AND MY GIRL together. Honestly, as a woman of a certain age, there aren't many roles available for me anymore. Oh, I did MAMMA MIA for three and a half years which was great. I drove the bus again and I loved doing it. I had a great time. When that ended I felt that I'd worked four or five years. I wasn't on Broadway, but I did MAME a couple of times and last year I did Walnut Street (in Philadelphia) and not every role can be a name-above-the-title thing." The role of Doris McAfee may not be the largest Hoty has played but she makes it memorable.

She mentions Tommy Tune with whom she toured in the musical DR DOOLITTLE. He had called her a week earlier. He told her, "I just want you to know that you're in a hot show and things are going well. You're plying your craft. You never know who you're making happy out in the dark. There's a reason for everything and whether it's a means to an end or a way for you to have your days free so you can accomplish the next project on your docket-and get paid for it." She recalls how dear it was of him to say that to her. In her mind it was like a random act of kindness. It was a great reminder and she quotes the famous line from THE FANTASTICKS: "There are no small actors, only small parts."

How much research did Hoty do to capture the very essence of a 1960's stay-at-home-mother in BIRDIE? Did she stay at home watching videos of Donna Reed for a week? "No, I lived it. I lived through the 60's. My mother wore those kinds of dresses, although not with so many crinolines. She worse seamed stockings. I LIVED through those sitcoms. I wanted to be MrS. Anderson and all the rest of those women. I've played my share of mothers now but not ever in the era of BYE BYE BIRDIE. This has been a lot of fun because I got to go down Memory Lane with Bill Irwin. We'd look at each other during rehearsals and say, ‘Do you remember doing this?' It's like in the prologue, where we sit down to watch ‘The Ed Sullivan Show' and the teenaged daughter comes in and changes the channel It's like we'll never see this show again. If you missed it, it's gone. There were no Tivos and no VCR's. We had whole discussions about when the phone rang it was a big deal. If it was long-distance, it was a really big deal because that was expensive. And people couldn't get through, there was no call-waiting or any of the things we take for granted in today's world. I remember the operator breaking through to tell us that we had a long-distance call coming through from Uncle Charlie in Chicago."

"We did a lot of talking about revisiting the era as we rehearsed," explains Hoty. "I love that kind of stuff. It's my meat and potatoes. It's my actor's training. You know I did lots of regional theater and that's kind of my wheel house there. Layered on that is the fact that I'm a good singer. That's why it irks me when people think that musical people can't act. It's one of my pet peeves. It's changing somewhat but it's always been more difficult for women than men."

In one sequence in BYE BYE BIRDIE, Dee Hoty and the other actors who play her family have a series of rapid-fire costume changes that are performed right in front of the paying audience. Does it bother her in any way? "Oh, they warned me that that was going to happen. I was told that they'd make me a nice slip and it's worked out fine. It was hard work, though because all that stuff had to be rigged. We must have teched that scene for two days! For hours, in-and-out-and-in-and-out until we finally got the right fasteners. Every once in a while we still have a glitch and I'm standing there with my zipper undone but it's supposed to be live TV, just like it's live theatre. You just go with it."

Dee Hoty is nothing short of amazed by the audiences' reactions to this show. "When I really got into this I thought it was clunky, it has a story to tell and it's an old-fashioned-style musical but it makes people so happy. Right now we're collecting for Broadway Cares and going out into the theatre to take up the collections. The people are always telling us that they had a great time and they thank us over and over. They mean it. I've had people call me and want eight tickets because Aunt Fanny's coming in for Thanksgiving and they want to being the whole family to see BYE BYE BIRDIE. Everybody knows this show on some level: they've done it in high school, their kid was in it in high school, they loved the movie, they love the score. And it's 90-year old grandma-proof and it's granddaughter proof. This is pretty much pure entertainment, although you do get to see some of the characters grow up a little bit."

The cast of BIRDIE wins plenty of encomiums from Hoty. She has high praise for John Stamos and Gina Gershon. "They're lovely people and they've been very generous. I don't want to slight Nolan Funk either because he has quite a following from Nickelodeon. Certainly Bill Irwin has fans galore and is a pleasure to work with." All of this accounts for the large masses of people at the stage door after each performance. "It does not seem to have abated in any way, (well, maybe a little) especially since there is room in our 'alley' for so many people, unlike other, more traditional 'out-in-the-street-or-alley' older Broadway theatres. We are lucky that way. AND, it's covered over, so never a weather issue, either."

With large crowds both in the seats and out on the streets, BIRDIE seems to be holding up well after all these years. The message board chatter about this one had simmered down and moved onto the next incoming musical. Still, BIRDIE continues to charm its throngs and there is ample opportunity for people to become acquainted or re-acquainted with this show. Moreover, there is an opportunity to savor the delectable performance that Dee Hoty gives in it.

To order tickets for BYE BYE BIRDIE, go to: www.roundabouttheatre.org

To visit Dee Hoty's website, go to www.DeeHoty.com