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the housekeeper of the Frankenstein family castle in Transylvania, a role created on stage by Andrea Martin.  She had our correspondent Ben Pesner in stitches one afternoon last month when he telephoned her with questions for the Broadway Fan Club.

Ben Pesner:  So you’re back on Broadway playing Frau Blucher.

I’m glad you did that--it’s a great running gag from the film that gets lots of laughs in the show.

It’s customary when a show opens on Broadway that the Broadway community sends them a “break a leg” greeting, wishing them a great opening night. Equus opens tonight--and I spent ten minutes yesterday trying to figure out how to spell “NAAAYHHHHH!!!” I can’t miss an opportunity to send something like that to Equus.

How does playing Frau Blucher rate on your personal fun-o-meter?

Oh my gosh, it’s ridiculous! First because it’s a Mel Brooks musical, the bar is so low--and high--when it comes to the comedy. It’s fun to have permission to go full-out with your comedy self. And to wear a mole on my face! Every time I go by the mirror backstage I say, “Is this really what I look like?!” It’s been a while since I’ve looked so ‘attractive.’ But that’s also part of the fun about it. All the other roles I’ve been playing as long as I can remember were so glamorous, and I always had to stand there and look pretty. This is the antithesis! I’ve had to retrain my body not to feel like I have to look pretty.

What’s your favorite part of doing the role?

Doing “He Vas My Boyfriend.” It’s such a great song and it comes out of the blue. She starts out kind of slow and creepy, and then when she talks about Victor she breaks out with this very untraditional, passionate love song.

You’re following in Andrea Martin’s footsteps.

I stole everything I possibly could from Andrea.  She was fantastic.  There is one thing that had to be adjusted: I am 5’8” and she is 5’2”.  I didn’t realize I didn’t fit into the castle door until my opening night. I had to learn how to do a limbo-back-bend thing into the door carrying a candelabra and hopefully the audience doesn’t know that I don’t fit through the door.

You won your Tony Award for playing the title role in The Drowsy Chaperone.  Do you have a thing about title roles now?  Were you angling for the title role of Young Frankenstein?

Actually I cover Roger Bart [laughs]. You know, I would really like to play the role of Igor. We’d just change the name of the show to Igor! The Musical [laughs].

It’s nice not having the pressure of playing the title role. With Drowsy, I was always having to explain it. “What’s ‘The Droopy Chardonnay’?” “It’s ‘The Drowsy Chaperone.’” And then I would have to explain who I played.  It was very complicated. Young Frankenstein is pretty easy. My mother came up and saw the musical, and she had never seen the movie. She was like, “Why are there horses nayhhhing every time they say your name?”

Did your mother enjoy the show?

She did.  She said, “It certainly was different and funny—who wrote it?” [laughs]  “A man named Mel Brooks, he’s a legend.” So we had a little lesson. I think she’d rather see me as the pretty girl. 

Like Donna Murphy in the Sondheim musical Passion, you are a very beautiful woman who wears lots of ugly makeup in the show in order to look kind of grotesque. 

It really is freeing to not worry about that aspect of your ego on stage. You just have to release it and be truthful to the character and find her beauty and her passion in her mole and her whole get-up. That’s who she is.

Talk about that mole:  Where does it live when it’s not on your face?  What do you feed it?

We have a relationship, and it goes home with me every night. [laughs]  What’s really sad and gross is that in my dressing room, I have a jar full of moles.  Ewwww!  They are mass-produced by my makeup artist. She makes them out of rubber, so they look like raisins.  Ick!  They have to be very flat on the bottom and we use this ridiculous glue to stick them on my face.

My second or third performance I still didn’t understanding the technical aspects of a mole and how it works. In the last scene I hugged Christopher Fitzgerald [“Igor”] and I felt my mole get stuck on his hat.  I look and it went plop! down on the floor.  I couldn’t laugh but the rest of the cast just about died. I felt naked, completely naked, from then on. Now I’ve learned how to keep that mole on. I have spare moles located on stage right and stage left. My dresser carries extra moles and glue with him in his apron, ‘cause I’m not going on without that mole!

Between Drowsy and Young Frankenstein you have been busy with a couple of shows that might be headed to Broadway.

I went to San Diego to do Dancing in the Dark, which has now been renamed The Band Wagon [the title of the 1953 movie the show is based on].  We’re trying to figure out what life that’s going to have. The other show I’m highly interested in is Minsky’s, which includes a lot of the creative team from Drowsy.  It is written by Bob Martin and directed by Casey Nicholaw. And Charles Strouse wrote the music.  Keep your fingers crossed.  It’s a fantastic role and I really, really, really want to do it.

You have been so generous with your time at the Broadway Flea Market and other events where you get to meet fans one-on-one.   What’s that like from your point of view?

It’s a blast. I get letters and messages and stuff, but to actually put a name with a face is really fantastic.  The fans of my work are so supportive of me and they respect me, and they just unconditionally buoy my soul. It’s really nice to give them a hug and take a picture with them and thank them.

I have this image of you as a normal, suburban housewife out in New Jersey by day, and then at night you become this Broadway personality.

Well, right now my 13-year-old is home with a sinus infection and my dogs are looking at me like “I have to poop.”  But really, I have the best of both worlds.  When I drive home at night I pull into my driveway and my “normal” life begins.  It’s quiet and I sit on the front porch and look at the moon.  Then I go back the next day and put my Broadway hat on. I’m probably the luckiest person I know.

Get tickets for The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein
Get Beth Leavel’s Broadway Credits

by Eric B. Olmscheid

Editor’s note: Iowa’s Civic Center of Greater Des Moines recently had the opportunity to host the first stop on a new national Broadway tour.  Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon depicts the determination, conviction, and cunning of two men --

Richard Nixon (played by Stacy Keach) and talk-show host David Frost (played by Alan Cox) -- as they square off in one of the most monumental television interviews of all time.  We asked Eric Olmscheid, the Civic Center’s education manager, to give us an insider’s perspective on the birth of a new tour.

Kicking off a new season is always exciting--even more so when your season premiere is also the launch of a national tour. With one of the most important presidential elections of our time only a few weeks away, it is an amazing coincidence--or perhaps a strategic alignment--that the national tour launch of Frost/Nixon took place in Des Moines, a political spotlight for presidential caucuses. As a new resident of Des Moines, it is clear to me that Iowans take their Broadway as seriously as their presidential politics.

Mr. Keach's golf score even made the business section of the daily newspaper. Several company members were also invited to participate in community programs designed to provide our audience with a deeper understanding of the show and its content including pre-performance lectures, post-show discussions, and a master class with Alan Cox.

Launching a national tour is exciting and an honor.  Whichever way the political winds blow, Frost/Nixon reminds us that great political challenges and corruption of the past may not be as distant as we may think.  Now that is politics for Broadway!

Halloween is fast approaching, and we know lots of our Broadway Fan Club members are planning to dress up as a Broadway characters to go trick-or-treating. We're asking you to send us a photo of yourself or your kids dressed up as Elphaba, the Phantom, Tracy Turnblad, or whatever Broadway character you choose. We'll share our favorite shots in a future issue of the newsletter.

To upload your photos, click here.

Q: I noticed that in this year's Tony Awards® for Best Musical that Xanadu was nominated, and Disney's The

Little Mermaid wasn't, even though Xanadu premiered last year.  In my opinion, Little Mermaid should've been nominated. For this particular award, are shows premiering the year previous eligible to be nominated?
—Jacob Z., St. Louis

A: Great question, Jacob!  The answer has to do with how a “year” is defined on Broadway.  For the Tony Awards, the season begins and ends on eligibility cut-off dates determined by the Tony Awards Management Committee.  Those dates generally fall in late April or early May (the date for 2009 is April 30).  Xanadu opened on July 10, 2007; The Little Mermaid premiered on January 10, 2008. That put them both in the running for the 2008 Tony Awards.

For more information on the Tony Awards, visit TonyAwards.com.

If you have a question for the Broadway Concierge, please e-mail us at fanclub@broadway.org and we will answer it in an upcoming issue of the Broadway Fan Club Newsletter.  Don’t forget to include your name and city!

Happy “Rocktober”
The global smash hit musical Mamma Mia! celebrates 7 years on Broadway this month.  You can get in on the “Rocktober” festivities by viewing the on-line calendar. Throughout October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Mamma Mia! will continue its year-round support of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

WABC-TV Spotlights Fall Shows
On Saturday, October 25 Chicago star and two-time past Tony Award nominee Tom Wopat joins WABC-TV news anchor Michelle Charlesworth to host the network's annual special "Broadway Backstage: Fall Preview."  The half-hour program airs in the New York area at 7:30 p.m. on WABC-7 and will highlight all of the new productions on Broadway this season.

A Haunting Refrain
Two-time Tony-winner Christine Ebersole returns to Broadway this winter as a ghost who haunts her husband in a new production of Noël Coward’s comedy Blithe Spirit.

Piven (Speed-the-Plow) and Dianne Wiest  (All My Sons), as well as Broadway regulars Glenn Close, Alec Baldwin, and Laura Linney, who were all named Emmy-winners in the acting categories.

Hair Apparent
If you missed the acclaimed revival of Hair in Central Park this summer, don’t worry: The Public Theater has announced that the show will re-open on Broadway next year. Stay tuned for more info.

Hair Today...
The long-running Tony Award-winning Best musical Hairspray will likely close on Broadway in January.

Tony Awards Date Announced
The American Theatre Wing’s 2009 Tony Awards will be broadcast on June 7 on CBS, live from the stage at Radio City Music Hall.  The Tonys are presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing.  Visit TonyAwards.com for info.

A Toast to 20!
Past Tony Award winners Bob Martin and Beth Leavel host a concert to benefit the National Alliance for Musical Theatre and celebrate the 20th Annual Festival of New Musicals. The event will feature songs from past Festival shows, performed by Broadway stars including Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Will Chase, Gavin Creel, Malcolm Gets, LaChanze, Lauren Kennedy, and Bobby Steggert.  Benefit Tickets start at $250.  “A Toast to 20!” takes place on Sunday, October 19 from 6 to 9 pm at Comix, 353 West 14th Street.  Click to register online.

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