arts & entertainment

Starring Seth

The guy who can do everything comes to the Berman.

I

Elizabeth Applebaum

Special to the Jewish News

H

e's a pianist, a comedian, a play-
wright, a TV and online star, an
author and a radio host.
Seth Rudetsky stars in Sirius Radio's On
Broadway and Seth Speaks; has played as
a pianist for more than a dozen Broadway
shows, including Ragtime, Phantom of the
Opera and Les Miserables; has appeared
on TV (Law & Order); is an author (his
most recent book is My Awesome/Awful
Popularity Plan); and writes a weekly col-
umn on Playbill.com — to name a few.
Now, at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 31,
Rudetsky will appear, with Broadway star
Patti LuPone, at the Berman Center for
the Performing Arts in West Bloomfield
as part of the Jewish Community Center
of Metropolitan Detroit's Stephen Gottlieb
Music Series.
Here, we catch up with Seth Rudetsky.

JN: Your first starring role was when you
were 9 years old and attending a Jewish
day camp. What was it about theater
that drew you in so quickly, and what is

Jews

it about theater that you love today?

SR: It's so much fun! It felt like play-
ing around when I was 9 years old, and it
still does. For years, no joke, I'd feel guilty
getting a check from a Broadway show
because I felt like it wasn't really work.

IN: How much of your work in programs
like your appearance with Patti LuPone
is scripted, and how much is spontane-
ous? If it's spontaneous, has anything
ever happened that totally caught you
off guard?
SR: Nothing is scripted. We keep it so
spontaneous to the point where Patti has
no idea what songs we're going to do. Not
until I start playing the intro will she real-
ize which one I've chosen for her. And all
the stuff we talk about between songs is
not planned. As for being caught off guard,
sometimes her bluntness is hilarious; I asked
about a certain star who also played Evita
and why it didn't sound as good as Patti's
version. Her response? "She can't sing!"

IN: Tell us about your Deconstructing on
SethTV.com. People must tell you all the
time how much they love watching you
sing along with Florence Henderson and
Barbra Streisand. How did that get started?
SR: I've always listened to music and
analyzed it. I make videos where I decon-
struct songs and point out exactly what's
brilliant about them and/or what is a split-
ting headache. People watch them all over
the place. I got recognized by an airport
worker in Frankfort, Germany, and Elton
John's former manager from London hired
me to put together Elton's 60th birthday
party — all because of SethTV.com.

IN: If you could interview anyone from
theater — any time and place, dead or
alive — who would it be and why?

IN: Who do you think is really funny?
SR: Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Martin
Short, Tina Fey, Andrea Martin.

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

At The Movies

The Landmark Main Art Theatre in
Royal Oak is presenting two spe-
cial screenings of a new produc-
tion of Driving Miss Daisy, at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, June 4, and at 11 a.m.
Sunday, June 8.
No, this isn't a rescreening of the
Oscar-winning 1989 film, based on
Alfred Uhry's 1987 play. Rather, it is
a filmed stage play
as it was presented
in Australia last year.
Angela Lansbury, now
88, stars as Daisy
Werthan, a proud
Southern Jewish
woman, with James
Uhry
Earl Jones, now 83,
co-starring as Hoke,
her compassionate chauffeur.
Seth McFarlane, the creator of Family
Guy, is the director, writer and star of A
Million Ways to Die in the West. The film
opens on Friday, May 30. McFarlane
plays Albert, a cowardly sheep farmer
whose girlfriend leaves him after he
chickens out of a gunfight.
When a mysterious and beautiful
woman (Charlize Theron) rides into
town, she helps him find his cour-

50 May 29 • 2014

SR: Oy! So many! In terms of people I
still have a chance with, Barbra Streisand
for sure. She's considered one of the great-
est singers of the 20th century and has
influenced so many singers who followed
her. I'd love to know how she created her
style and, quite frankly, why she got that
perm in the '70s.

age, and they begin to fall in love. But
Albert's moxie is tested when her
husband, a notorious outlaw (Liam
Neeson), comes to town seeking
revenge.
Some comic relief is provided by
Sarah Silverman, 43, who plays Ruth,
the fiancee of Albert's best friend,
Edward (Giovanni Ribisi). Ruth is a
prostitute, but she won't have sex
with Edward because, as Silverman
recently told David Letterman, "We're
Christians, and we're not married."
On another topic, Silverman told
Letterman that she recently found
her name in a definition of "offensive"
in a textbook. Tongue-in-cheek, she
added, "Hitler and Donald Sterling are
too likeable to be listed. [But] I am the
meaning of offensive."
Meanwhile, Theron is on the cover
of this month's Vogue, and inside she
opened up for the first time about her
romantic relationship, now about six
months old, with Sean Penn, 53.
The 38-year-old
actress said she
and Penn had been
good friends for 18
years before their
platonic relationship
became romantic. She
explains: "It just kind
Silverman
of naturally happened,

and before I knew it, I was in something
that was making my life better."
Penn, as you might have heard,
was honored on May 17 with a Jewish
Values Award. The awards were created
and are presented by Rabbi Shmuley
Boteach, 47.
The actor, who is far to the political
left of the rabbi, was honored for his
very much cloak-and-dagger role in
helping businessman Jacob Ostreicher
escape from a Bolivian jail last year.
In accepting the award, Penn noted
he did so not because his late father
was Jewish but because Ostreicher
had been unjustly jailed by a corrupt
regime.
Filmmaker James Gray has made
several films (Little Odessa, The Yards,
We Own the Night and Two Lovers) that
focus on the tension between ethnic-
ity and Americanism in the Russian-
Jewish and Jewish-American worlds of
contemporary Brooklyn and Queens.
But The Immigrant, which opened last
week, draws on stories his grandpar-
ents told him about life in New York in
the '20s.
In the film, Ewa (Marion Cotillard)
falls prey to a Jewish grafter, fixer,
pimp and strip-show emcee from the
Lower East Side of Manhattan, Bruno
Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix, 39), a charm-
ing but wicked man who takes her in

Seth Rudetsky

IN: You're on Sirius Radio, write for
Playbill.com, play piano for so many
stars, are a producer and author. How
do you find time for all of this, and
what's next?
SR: Everything I do happens in intense
spurts of a few hours or so, so it's easy for
me to find the time. As for what's next, I
co-wrote a show called Disaster!, which is
a 1970s disaster-movie musical. We had
a great run Off-Broadway with fantastic
reviews, and now we're supposed to move
to Broadway.

❑

Elizabeth Applebaum is marketing director at
the JCC of Metropolitan Detroit.

Patti Lupone and Seth Rudetsky
perform at 8 p.m. Saturday,
May 31, at the Berman Center
for the Performing Arts in West
Bloomfield. $62 JCC members/$67
nonmembers. (248) 661-1900;
theberman.org .

and forces her into prostitution. She
has only been able to get off of Ellis
Island because Bruno has greased the
palms of immigration officials, and she
wants to get enough money to rescue
her sister from the island's infirmary.
Ewa will become Bruno's obsession and
eventually his downfall.

Zeppelin Deflated?

It's possible that an injunction will be
issued to prevent the June 3 release of
a re-mastered version of Led Zeppelin
IV, which includes the band's iconic
tune "Stairway to Heaven."
Finally, the heirs of guitarist Randy
California (1951-1997) are bringing
a legal action to obtain royalties for
what has seemed obvious to many for
decades: that much of "Stairway's"
music was lifted from a 1968 tune that
California wrote and Zeppelin band
members heard every night for months
when they toured with California's
band, Spirit.
California, who
was born Randy
Wolfe, drowned while
saving his young son
from drowning. Spirit
is most famous for
the group's hit song,
"I Got a Line on
California
You."

❑