Review: Toasting The Tony Awards, BACKSTAGE BABBLE Gives 54 Below An Award-Worthy Night

A few short blocks from the nightclub 54 Below, there’s a new musical with a plot involving a young guy who amazingly travels back a few decades in time, with the help of a strange scientist and an even stranger automobile that serves as a flying time machine.  (Pretty cool!)  Meanwhile, with no need for a collaborating scientist or zooming car (advantages at the Winter Garden Theatre’s Back to the Future), the young guy hosting the terrific event at 54 Below steered his audience into show business’s past. His guests were star performers recalling and recreating their musical theatre triumphs for fans here in 2023. (Oh, and HIS parents were present in the present, too, sitting with his grandparents amid a rapt, packed crowd.)  

The producing emcee in question was the affable Charles Kirsch, with a splendid variety show combining songs and talk, an outgrowth of his “Backstage Babble” podcast of celebrity interviews that often concentrates on veterans from Broadway’s golden age, such as the man seen on the left with him in our lead photo: Austin Pendleton.  

Palpable was the affection felt for that actor/director who does regular cabaret work these days, too.  He regaled the spectators with not only a glowing rendition of the song he introduced in Fiddler on the Roof, “Miracle of Miracles,” a late addition to the score. With charm and humor, Mr. Pendleton shared recollections of how the production got negative reviews in its pre-Broadway run and seemed destined for a short life. He told us how Jerome Robbins tweaked and rethought things bit by bit, performance by performance, until—- wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, with perseverance and new hope (and Austin's new solo), Fiddler became a smash hit. 

The theme of the night was the Tony Awards and the program included some who’d been nominees (such as Mr. Pendleton, getting the nod for directing).  Another actor/director, Lee Roy Reams, is certainly no stranger to this venue, and was back on its 54th Street stage to address 42nd Street. He spoke fondly of a friendship forged with Ruby Keeler, who’d starred in the iconic 1933 same-named film and gently sang “I Only Have Eyes for You” which was added to later stage mountings of 42nd Street (borrowed from another show-bizzy movie musical, Dames). The jovial side of returnee Reams came through when he (who’d just had another birthday a few days before) joked with the decades-younger host by saying the latter should keep a pad and pencil handy to jot down any unfamiliar vocabulary he might be about to hear. (It’s a line borrowed from Mame, a musical which – like 42nd Street and a revival of Fiddler on the Roof – played at the aforementioned Winter Garden Theatre). 

Opening in the same year as 42nd Street (1980) was a revival of Brigadoon, represented by its male lead, Martin Vidnovic.  (The Lerner & Loewe classic was originally seen in the first year of the Tony Awards presentations, 1947 – Isn’t it time for another revival? It feels like Brigadoon hasn’t reappeared for 100 years).  Mr. Vidnovic offered a moving performance of the score’s “From This Day On” and was amusing in his own kind of backstage babble about Dom DeLuise coming backstage with advice about incorporating a gesture of pointing towards the audience (or was it just “pointed advice” he punnily claimed to confuse that with) and being assured that a certain other show would not be taking over the theatre —and then seeing someone from that production brandishing a measuring tape and checking out the stage dimensions! 

A winner from the Tonys' early years was the original production of South Pacific. Something from that score helped make August 28 an enchanted evening, but it wasn’t planned. When two announced participants —Jill O’Hara and Anita Gillette— had to suddenly cancel for reasons beyond their control, Charles called on someone who’d been in his July Backstage Babble – Live at the club.  Lori Tan Chinn jumped in and beguiled with South Pacific’s “Bali Ha’i,” which she’d done in the 2001 TV movie version of the Rodgers & Hammerstein landmark. 

Another Rodgers & Hammerstein gem was presented on video, with a sample of one year’s Tony Awards broadcasts, from back in 1977, with Damon Evans’s striking and stirring “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Then Mr. Evans walked alone onto the 54 Below stage. He revealed that he got the dream-come-true assignment by hand-delivering a written request to be involved somehow, accompanied by a video of him singing and later sending flowers. Next, he held the stunned crowd in thrall after saying he wanted to open up, then and there, about a devastating incident he’d been private about for decades. We learned of his frightening experience being physically attacked by a castmate during a live performance — and the personal and professional aftermath. 

There were funny stories, too. In fact, some of the biggest laughs came via a video sent by Daisy Eagan, self-deprecatingly recalling the night she, as a child, won the Tony for her role in The Secret Garden, misunderstanding the directions given to her, then later stepping in for a week as the male child in Les Misérables, smashing up her arm and having to rush to the hospital, but not wanting to arrive there in her costume of rags. She’s wry and hilarious.

 The “Backstage Babble” creator doesn’t babble.  Instead, Charles Kirsch’s economic commentary, introductions, and segues were smooth and gracious.  He carries it off without carrying a script (hooray!), and the talk is without tangents.  There are no pesky pauses with “um… uh…” and his zest makes it impossible for him to ever sound robotic. In full evidence were his respect and affection for performers, their history, and the audience. However, I missed the singing side of his talent, which had been on display in his previous outing, that had him opening with not just the little self-written theme song for his podcast — but also a duet with one of that evening’s artists. Some of the August 28 performers just sang, some talked a little, and some talked quite a bit. I would have liked more mini-interview Q&A interaction resembling his podcastery (Is that a word?). He’s clearly devoured Broadway lore and could hold the stage for longer segments with his internalized database and refreshingly sunny personality. Very present, he appears to be hanging on every word in his guests’ reminiscences, although it’s likely that some incidents are old news to him. 

I also like that he introduced the man at the keyboard right away.  Too many cabaret shows don’t introduce the musician(s) until the end, almost as if they’re taken for granted, invisible in the dimmer upstage light. And sometimes, if you don’t know in advance who it is, but think you know (or wish you did), it can be a nagging distraction.  In this case, it’s a name well worth knowing and remembering. It’s Alex Rybeck. His piano work throughout was spot on, rich with theatrical glow in each style. He’s been an asset to many a cabaret show and singer for years. It’s no wonder they stick with him. 

The first song of night had first sailed onto Broadway in The Night Boat, but “Left All Alone Again Blues” wasn’t chosen to honor the birthdate this same week of its lyricist and to bring out a birthday cake.  No, Anne Caldwell died back in 1936 and this grousing item, introduced 16 years earlier, was the set’s oldest souvenir. A collaboration with Jerome Kern, it reappeared more than half a century later when interpolated into the revival of another musical with Kern’s melodies, Very Good Eddie. And it was a very good idea to have Virginia Seidel on hand to talk first-hand about that company and how they had fun at the Tony ceremony, although they predicted, correctly, that they didn’t stand a chance of turning nominations to wins because the massive hit A Chorus Line was sure to dominate,  Her personality, good spirits, and smile seemed fitting for someone cast as a lady named Mrs. Darling!  She didn’t sing, but the antique number was rendered by Elena Bennett, strikingly dressed.  Alas, she struggled with the lengthy lament for a minute or two, and then opted to stop and start over from the top, this time apologetically looking at the words. It happens. But she redeemed herself with a full-throated, non-bumpy “Take 2” and a clever off-the-cuff reply right after, when courteous curator Kirsch inquired about her approach to the character piece, asking “How did you find your interpretation?” She quipped, “I didn’t!” – saying it was, instead, “lost” somewhere between the step up to the stage and the piano. 

And that stage was blessed with variety as things moved on.  Willy Falk, effectively dramatic, reprised the plaintive “Why God Why?” he’d introduced in Miss Saigon, while Jane Summerhays deliciously brought spunk and a wink to the ultimate British stiff-upper-lip tip for muddling through, “Take It on the Chin” from the score of Me and My Girl. Her time in that show cued her entertaining tales of a wardrobe malfunction and the Tony trap: the pitfalls of being pitted in competition with someone playing the most sympathetic character imaginable (Eponine in Les Misérables, played by Frances Ruffelle).  John-Andrew Morrison, supporting actor nominee from this past year for A Strange Loop, opted to do something quite different from its modern style, going for a classic with a nicely understated and romantic “Star Dust,” enhanced by atmospheric “twilight time” lighting effects. A much-recorded standard born in the late 1920s, it found its way to the Great White Way six decades later in a revue that shared its title.    

The finale was a fierce, fiery, focused “One Halloween” with the trick and treat of Penny Fuller encoring her big number from Applause, garnering (you guessed it!) much applause. It was an exciting way to end a trip to the past one didn’t want to end.  

The legacy of Broadway, live on stage with the people who lived it and love it—- it’s a good thing to be in a room with.  

More on Charles Kirsch in our two-part profile HERE and HERE.  Hear him talk to Broadway notables on his notable Backstage Babble podcast HERE, now with over 160 interviews.  

See www.54below.org for the venue's calendar.

Photos by Bobby Patrick

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