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[0:00] Macon Prickett: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the fabulous 54 Below. Before we get started this evening, just a polite reminder, please take this moment to silence your cell phones and also there's no flash photography, please. Welcome to the 54 Below podcast. I'm Macon Prickett, the club's assistant programming director. Our guest today is Christine Pedi, a musical theater comedian, Drama Desk Award nominee, and Sirius XM on Broadway channel daily presenter. She's appeared in three Broadway productions, most recently starring as Matron Mama Morton in Chicago, as well as many shows off Broadway, including Forbidden Broadway, Spamilton, and Musical the Musical. She's also an award-winning cabaret star who's performed on stages across the country and abroad.

On March 25th, she brings us the Wicked Stage, Songs About Show Business, a brand new concert celebrating songs from the stage, screen, and beyond that tell the stories of show people who are like no people you know. Christine, welcome to the podcast.

[1:06] Christine Pedi: We love you. We are so excited after having you with your two performances of Snow Business. We are so excited to have you back. You know, when I walked into 54 Below the first time, how long has the club been open?

[1:20] Macon Prickett: Over 11 years now.

[1:22] Christine Pedi: Right. So it was 11 years ago. A couple of weeks after it opened, I walked in and I saw that room, and I said, "Oh my god, this room. This is a room for my Christmas show," because it's just so warm and cozy and festive and everything. So I've always been so grateful to bring the show there. And I was happy to do it again. You know, I've been doing it all over New York for 16 years now, and the past year we did it at 54 Below, and it was just like my Christmas party, you know, because I can't fit anybody in my apartment basically. We're New Yorkers, so we have to have our parties elsewhere.

[2:09] Macon Prickett: Yes, most definitely. Well, also, you know, with the Christmas decorations and everything and just the size of the room, it really is perfect for a show like that.

[2:17] Christine Pedi: It is, and I love that people are eating. There's something about that. I don't know, maybe it's just my own personal relationship with food.

[2:25] Macon Prickett: Well, it feels very festive and very warm.

[2:28] Christine Pedi: Yeah, it does. And I don't know. Food is love and the holidays, booze is love too.

[2:36] Macon Prickett: That's the truth. Well, Christine, I want to go way, way back. I want to start and ask kind of a basic question, but some a question I find that you can learn so much about someone, especially someone who is in show business, is where did your love for this business first begin?

[2:58] Christine Pedi: Well, I mean, it probably began at the movies, you know. It probably began realistically speaking when I watched old movies, because I didn't go to Broadway shows as a kid. I didn't see a Broadway show till I was in high school. So I didn't really quite understand what cast recordings were or a lot of things. But I understood movie musicals because that was what was at my disposal. You kids today don't understand that we were so hungry. People who love 54 Below can understand the love of this kind of music and this kind of theater. But anyone born after a certain year can't really process just how little there was by comparison for people from my generation. We had three channels and a public television channel, and the public television channel is where I got a lot of my information from, a lot of it about the theater and about Broadway.

And on the three major channels, I just hoped and prayed that maybe there was a musical on, you know. And if you know, I grew up even before, you know, part of my childhood was before VCRs. And now there's just, you can give yourself such an education, you can also entertain yourself so much with the social media and the internet.

[4:48] Macon Prickett: Well, the social media, the internet. Social media, I'm not gonna give it too much power, but the internet for sure. You know. What were some of those movie musicals that you remember loving when you first saw them?

[5:04] Christine Pedi: Oh god, absolutely every one of them. I mean, Gypsy and Oklahoma and My Fair Lady, you know, those are the three that come to mind. Gypsy, Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, and then of course the one that everybody, I mean, even the most serious headbanging acid rocker knows, The Sound of Music.

[5:24] Macon Prickett: Absolutely.

[5:25] Christine Pedi: There's even like an acid rock version of, I think, So Long, Farewell. I really, I swear there is. I think it's So Long, Farewell, I'm pretty sure. Or maybe it's The Lonely Goatherd, but it's just as stupid, you know, it's just as unlikely. And so, you know, just all of them. And there used to be like the 4:30 movie when I was growing up. So after school, you come home and the 4:30 movie was on. And you know, if you were lucky, it was Gypsy or Oklahoma or Funny Girl. And but it kind of elbowed into dinner time. And if my mother was sort of on time with dinner, it was terrible. "Christine, come on, you know," and I'd be down in the basement like, "I'm coming, I'm coming." And you know, I didn't want to leave it because remember the next time Gypsy was going to be in my life, I couldn't even begin to know.

[6:16] Macon Prickett: Right.

[6:16] Christine Pedi: You know, it was probably going to be at least a couple of years.

[6:19] Macon Prickett: Yeah.

[6:20] Christine Pedi: So it was just a different world.

[6:23] Macon Prickett: Mm-hmm. I remember my mom telling me growing up that they would all know when the yearly viewing of The Wizard of Oz would be and literally build calendars around it. Because if you missed it, it'd be here.

[6:37] Christine Pedi: It was appointment television and I remember being at my uncle's house and The Wizard of Oz was on and my cousin wanted to watch David Copperfield. And I wanted to die. I could not believe it.

[6:45] Macon Prickett: It's tragic.

[6:50] Christine Pedi: I thought there was something clearly wrong with her. And I just couldn't believe it. I mean, just the, I can even, I could hear in my head the music underneath the opening credits and also Cinderella, the live Cinderella with Leslie Ann Warren. And I didn't at the time know that it was just peppered with cameos. I didn't know I forgot that that was Celeste Holm because she was older then and I didn't connect her to All About Eve, you know, or High Society. I didn't make that connection as such a little girl. Ginger Rogers and Walter Pidgeon, for God's sake. Those are huge names as the mother and father, the king and the queen. And every year we'd get in our pajamas and go to my grandmother's house because she had a color television set.

[7:48] Macon Prickett: Oh wow, yeah.

[7:49] Christine Pedi: And when that, uh, bump bump bottom bump bump bump, a thrill of a lifetime, a thrill. Oh, and then it was 364 days or more before I get to feel that again.

[8:04] Macon Prickett: Yeah, then the countdown begins till the next one, right?

[8:08] Christine Pedi: Yeah.

[8:09] Macon Prickett: Yeah.

[8:10] Christine Pedi: Well, but as a result, it was a community experience. You know, and I'm much more. I love that's kind of how it feels, you know, when we have the Tonys or the Oscars, you know, when there's that one once a year event that you know people are tuned into. There is something feels so warm and community-based about that.

[8:29] Macon Prickett: For sure.

[8:29] Christine Pedi: Yeah, absolutely. Moving past those glorious musical movies, what was your first Broadway show when you made it downtown?

[8:38] Christine Pedi: It was called Very Good Eddie. Talk about obscure. It was a little obscure little Jerome Kern musical that had played the Goodspeed Opera House. And it opened on Broadway at the Booth Theater, and we had tickets in the last row of the balcony of the Booth Theater. My mother and father and my brother and sister and I. And I had seen only community theater until that point. And it wasn't honestly so much the singing and the lights and the orchestra. It was the costumes.

[9:26] Macon Prickett: Right.

[9:27] Christine Pedi: And so here were these high button shoes and this Battenberg lace and this, you know, dozens and dozens of buttons down the back of the dresses. And I was knocked over by it. I couldn't believe the extravagance and how stunning it was.

[9:54] Macon Prickett: Oh wow.

[9:56] Christine Pedi: Oh gosh, Elizabeth Ashley. Or it might have been Dracula. And then Ain't Misbehavin'. And I think those are, you know, those are up there. And was it then that you, I mean, obviously there was this love of musical film already, but how, when was that moment where you kind of decided that you wanted to be a part of the business itself?

[10:21] Christine Pedi: Well, it was so far beyond any reality that I could have imagined for myself that I couldn't, I wouldn't, it was like saying, "Would you like to go live on the surface of the moon?" I mean, it what? Now, let's remember that it's now probably possible to live on the surface of the moon, but I never, I couldn't even fathom that because I didn't have that ability, you know. And when I was in high school, I did one show, I did Godspell at my local girls' school, and the director told my mother she thought I should take singing lessons because I had potential. Now I was like, "Wow." And so my mother was stunned. And we went to a local lady who was, um, actually had been the second Laurie in Oklahoma.

[11:14] Christine Pedi: Wow.

[11:14] Christine Pedi: And so she knew Celeste Holm and I think I paid seven dollars for an hour lesson every Sunday. She gave me nothing but soprano stuff to sing. I have no idea why. And it was all dry and lugubrious and, you know. I just, so that's what I knew about the theater. I didn't know very much else about the theater. And then I started to go to the theater. I started to pick up more cast recordings. Remember, there wasn't a Sirius XM radio channel with 24-7 music of the theater on it. I didn't even know how to listen to this stuff, where to go. I had to buy albums and discover the music in my bedroom on my record player. So I slowly started that. And in high school, I discovered Bye Bye Birdie because I did a production of Bye Bye Birdie.

And that cast recording was, you know, we only had one cast recording in my house growing up, and that was The Most Happy Fella. It was a good one to grow up with, but I still didn't quite know what a Broadway show was. I mean, I knew this was a play, but it had been done so long ago, and I just didn't understand what Broadway was. And I, in high school, I discovered what it was slowly. And in college, I just, I was immersed, total immersion. I was the arts editor at the college radio station at Fordham in the Bronx, and I, as a result, got free theater tickets, and I went in as often as humanly possible. I interviewed, God, when I was in high school, when I was in college, I interviewed Jerry Herman and Charles Strouse and Julie Stein and Marvin.

Did I introduce Mark? I interviewed Marvin Hamlisch, but I got his phone number and I eventually interviewed him on Sirius several times. God, he was great. So when I, by the time I was in college, I was just hungry for the theater. Still not performing though. And then I did a little production of Side by Side by Sondheim, and I realized that I could belt, and it seemed like I could actually do it. Like it wasn't faking it. I thought I'd been faking it at home while I was, you know, doing my chores when my mother was at work when I was singing along with Barbra Streisand. I thought I was faking it. I didn't think that was really singing, but I did this show and I kind of thought, "Oh." And so when I graduated, I started to do community theater.

[13:52] Christine Pedi: And after about, I don't know, after about four years of community theater, three years, I had a desk job. I decided to give it a shot. You know, just quit my day job and attempt to go on auditions and see what could happen. You know, because I was getting really good parts in community theater, doing big leads like Evita and Funny Girl and Little Night Music and My Fair Lady and The Music Man. It just beautiful productions. And so I that's when I started. And it took a very long time. Also, it's just I was singing them all. You know, I could, it was a soprano back then. And um, at Little Shop and Oliver and So you were doing community theater. Was this back in the Bronx where you like kind of where you graduated from college, or were you kind of going all over?

[14:57] Christine Pedi: No, it was in the suburbs. It was in Westchester County. It was up in Chappaqua where Vanessa Williams grew up and where the Clintons live now and uh Harrison, up in the suburbs of Northern Westchester, and um beautiful productions. John Tracy Egan was uh in several shows I was in. Oh, he, you know, he's been on Broadway in more shows than you can count, and he was the last Maxby Allish stock and producers on Broadway. And so yeah, I just I was and then I was I quit my full-time job and I uh auditioned and auditioned and did still was still doing community theater at night. And uh I just couldn't, I couldn't. I just reached a point after years and years and years. I mean, I was it was probably, I'm gonna say, let me think. It was probably from the day I quit my job, uh at least five years plus, and I got one job, two, two little short jobs, uh one summer stock and one workshop out of town that paid no money, and that was it.

[16:22] Christine Pedi: And then finally I said, you know, I've had it. I got all these open calls and they're cattle calls, and there's hundreds of girls, and it's just it's subhuman. And I said, I'm not going on another cattle call until I have I'm not going on another audition until I have an appointment. Uh an agent's appointment, and I have an appointed time, and I can do it like a human being. Um I can't do it. So I just said no more, even though I didn't have an agent, and there was no, there was no conceivable way I'd ever get one since I had no credits of any substance. And I just looked up and said, no more. I I I am not gonna allow this to happen anymore. And then the very next audition that I read about was for Forbidden Broadway.

And I thought, well, I'll do one more, but this is the last one. And I went to a cattle call, and they said I was their first choice of 200 girls, and then that began a relationship that continues to this day. And that was in 1992, maybe. You know, it's over 30 years.

[17:42] Macon Prickett: I was wondering how your relationship with Forbidden Broadway began.

[17:46] Christine Pedi: And there, there we go. There we have it. Yeah, it started with the non-equity tour and then a sit-down in Detroit for almost for a year, basically. I did it in Denver for a couple of my uh for uh a while. I did it in Salt Lake City. Um I've performed it in sit-down companies in Cleveland and San Diego and Los Angeles, and um did it on the Queen Mary 2, performed it on the West End and in the fringe, just you know, right right off the West End. And um did it in concert at the Adelaide Festival in Australia. This was just the wrong association, and then uh Gerard Alison Drini asked me to produce Spamalton, which is you know a spoof of Hamilton, and he created a part for me in that small part, but you know, little cameo moments.

Uh, but also wanted me to produce it. And uh, and then most recently he did the same thing in Forbidden Sondheim, Merrily We Stole a Song. He, you know, he wrote a couple of numbers for me to do. And I don't know if I'll be in it, but they've announced for they they've they're bringing Forbidden Broadway to Broadway. They're gonna keep the title Merrily We Stole a Song. It's not a Forbidden Sondheim show solely. There'll be plenty of Sondheim in it, obviously, but uh it's gonna cover the whole Broadway season and history, I assume. I don't really know exactly whether they're gonna do the greatest hits or exactly how it's gonna work, but um.

[19:16] Macon Prickett: Well, that's very exciting to hear.

[19:27] Christine Pedi: Yeah, it's exciting for Forbidden Broadway. I mean, uh it's a funny show and I I like the idea of I don't know, it being nestled in it's gonna be at the Helen Hayes. So it's not, you know, some big old glossy, snappy, snazzy, glittery old marquee Broadway theater. It's this little joint. It used to be called the Little Theater. The Helen Hayes Theater used to be called the Little Theater. And because it is and um I think it's maybe five or six hundred seats. So that's where that's that's just sort of that's just right.

[20:02] Macon Prickett: Yeah, just the right set.

[20:03] Christine Pedi: Well, and maybe it'll still have some of that the feeling of that that all the other productions of the show, you know, not too over the top, not too polished. I would love it to I would love them to put cabaret tables in there because that's the great thing about Forbidden is you walk into a uh yeah, you walk into a basement venue or an upstairs venue and it's it's tucked away and the lights go down and you're suddenly telling wicked little secrets about people you love, basically.

[20:35] Macon Prickett: Exactly. You know.

[20:37] Christine Pedi: And um uh so here's hoping, you know, here's hoping that that it it can do that. I think it can. I I think it can. He's the same writer. He's not gonna change his writing style. He he you know, he's the same writer. He he's still as on his game as he ever, ever was. Um some of my biggest laughs came in this last iteration of Forbidden Broadway, which was called Forbidden Suntime. I mean, so I you know, I'm very confident in that. Uh then I hope I get to be in the cast.

[21:14] Macon Prickett: I sure hope so too. That's that's very exciting.

[21:17] Christine Pedi: Well, you can start a letter writing campaign.

[21:19] Macon Prickett: Maybe I will. You'll probably deal with all those people who talk in those chat rooms.

[21:26] Christine Pedi: Hey, I I've seen a lot a lot of those chats. You know, now the chats are moving on to, you know, Instagram and TikTok. So it's you can't avoid it. Um I do want to go back for a second. What you talked about, you know, belting along to Barbara Streisand when your mother was at work doing, you know, chores around the house. But is that when you discover this talent for impressions, or did that come along later in your career?

[21:53] Christine Pedi: It's funny. Only in the teeniest, tiniest little way, because I listened to Barbara Streisand's greatest hits, you know, until I was blue in the face, and then you know, uh, The Way We Were came out. Everybody knew the song The Way We Were. So I remember being on the phone with my cousin, and um I started singing The Way We Were as Barbara Streisand, or sort of like her. I didn't think I was doing an impression. I was sort of I didn't think it was an impressionist. Marilyn Marilyn um Michaels was an impressionist, and I was just horsing around. And they're like, oh my god, it was so good, Christine, it was so good. And I mean, yeah, okay. You know, and I never did impressions, except of my Italian grandmother, and I did I did dialects.

Um, but I never did impressions now, because Marilyn Michaels is an impressionist. She was like uncanny, and um and and Marilyn Michaels is still, you know, very much with us and still sings beautifully. And uh then I was asked at the Forbidden Broadway audition if I did any um impressions. And I said, just my Italian grandmother. And they said, Can you do Carol Channing? And I went, Oh, well, everybody can do Carol Channing, you know. And I had just met her. I volunteered for an event, and she um uh I was just helping her in the dressing room and she said, and what is your name? And I said, Christine. Well, thank you, Christine. And I just told them that story because I said when she said my name, I was like, my God, she said my name that way from that mouth with those eyes and that, you know.

And and then they asked me to do an Ethel Merman, which I just sort of did. I I just did what what I could. I didn't, I hadn't have a clue. And I I evolved, I got better at it, I got much better and much quicker at it.

[23:59] Christine Pedi: And so for me, anyway, it was an acquired skill that got honed and honed and honed with the luxury of eight shows a week. Certain impressions get much better.

[24:11] Macon Prickett: Right.

[24:11] Christine Pedi: I mean, you really didn't have a choice, you had to work on them.

[24:15] Christine Pedi: Yeah, uh you find sometimes you find a little ism or a vowel sound or a affectation that you missed that just came to you or something. And and then you do get quicker at at I got anyway. Uh, you know, it's I don't know that it's something that can be taught, that's for sure. People think it is. Why they'd want to learn to do it in the first place is beyond me. Because it's not like, you know, you're gonna make even latte money doing this, but um it's it's not really necessarily something that can be taught. People sometimes, however, if they have to do an impression for a part or not an impression or they're playing a character of who really existed, on on occasion. I've I've helped people, you know.

I helped somebody with the Frank Sinatra recently. We just looked at the Frank Sinatra stuff, and it's now we just observed it together, and I listened to their voice, listen to his. I help somebody with the Maggie Smith. Um so I I I I think I can do that too. I can sort of teach someone to the best of their ability.

[25:29] Macon Prickett: Right.

[25:30] Christine Pedi: It just sort of depends. And sometimes you don't have the instrument for a certain voice, and that's just the end of that.

[25:37] Macon Prickett: Right.

[25:37] Christine Pedi: You just don't have the the structure in the in your mouth or whatever it is, you know, to get an uncanny sound, that that sounds your voice is simply not a deep enough voice, or it can never get deep enough, or your voice can never get high enough, you know.

[26:01] Macon Prickett: Well, being a you know, Forbidden Broadway mainstay over over the years, um, you know, probably you've imitated Carol Channing and Patty LePone and Liza Minelli. And, you know, my I have to say one of my favorite videos is more recent, but the video of you, uh the Hello Dolly audition or uh the Hello Dolly revival audition.

[26:23] Christine Pedi: Yeah.

[26:23] Macon Prickett: It's just one of my absolute favorites.

[26:29] Christine Pedi: Well, that was in five minutes. They said we should do this. And I was doing musical the musical at the time, and I said, Oh, okay. And they just grabbed whatever wigs were in the show and whatever clothes are in the show, and uh brought me a shaker of Cosmopolitans, and we would ask the question and I would answer it as whoever the hell I was, you know, Oprah Winfrey or um what was the what the heck was the Oprah Winfrey one? An oak leaf.

[27:04] Christine Pedi: Yeah, she says something about an oak leaf. Um yeah, it because it wasn't done with we didn't, I mean, we just knew it would be it would be of the moment, but we didn't get too greedy about it or full of full, you know. Tom and Michael Dangora are the ones who produce and edit, and you know, Tom sort of directs me while I'm doing them, and and Michael films them and then edits them. He edits down what I say, and he always adds in the perfect pauses.

[27:43] Christine Pedi: That's a great editor.

[27:45] Macon Prickett: Yeah, he does.

[27:46] Christine Pedi: He makes me funnier, I can tell you that.

[27:49] Macon Prickett: Well, having seen Snow Business, I think your shows are very funny.

[27:53] Christine Pedi: Right. That show was wonderful. Um, you know, when you're preparing for these different characters, since you've been doing it for years now, is it more kind of like an old hat situation? You can just kind of, you know them so well, you know these divas so well. Can you just kind of pull them out, or do you still have to really kind of hone in on their particular sounds?

[28:14] Christine Pedi: No, the ones I've done I can do. But trying somebody new now that I don't have the luxury of eight shows a week is harder. Like I know I can do a killer Dolly Parton, but I have to do her. I can't just walk around the house and do her. I need to do her up behind a microphone. To hear it behind a microphone, it sounds different. I need to see what resonates with people as far as what intonations and inflections and humorous, you know, affectations resonate with people. And if I do it once on stage in a club act, and then I'm not on stage again for four months, it's just not enough. You know, it's also because I've been spoiled with having my own little laboratory between Forbidden Broadway and Musical to Musical to, you know, get certain impressions down.

Others I know are pretty good. Like I started working on a Christine Baranski. And um, I've been watching The Gilded Age. And it could go into Bette Davis, but it doesn't if I work on it. But I'd need less work if I were to do a Christine Baranski, but a Dolly Parton, I need more work. I need more, you know, behind the mic just doing it. And I know I could get her to where she'd be like mint.

[32:29] Macon Prickett: Well, I also wanted to ask you, you know, I being on, you know, Broadway TikTok and Instagram and seeing all of these videos that these young content creators are creating. Have you had the chance to see, you know, all of these kids are doing impressions now? It's a huge thing.

[32:47] Christine Pedi: There’s this guy—no, it gives me a headache. It makes me nervous. I just want to scream at them. Don't do it. Nobody cares. It's like we care on TikTok. But maybe there's—maybe it can be monetized on TikTok. You know, I don't really know if people are monetized on TikTok or YouTube or what. But it's really, you're doing it for the joy, unless you can get on SNL. If you can get on SNL, that's it.

[33:12] Christine Pedi: So there's what? Well, now S—I was gonna say what, there's four slots for four impressionists on the entire planet on SNL, four female impressionists. Let's say we're talking just women. Okay. But actually, SNL has the longest freaking roster. I mean, it used to be six people. When I first watched it, there's like 20. It's insanity. There's too many people.

[33:39] Christine Pedi: I mean, so, uh, yeah, but no, it does. It makes me kind of nervous because I know how hungry everybody is. And the hunger, the hunger makes me so nervous for them. I'm nervous for them. I worry for these young people because I just, you know, uh, well, hey, you know, you know how it is, and you know those years of cow calls and all of that that you spoke about. I mean, it kind of goes hand in hand back to all of that.

[34:11] Macon Prickett: Yeah, and the thing is you can if you can do a couple of—here's another thing, too, with an impression. I can do a whole evening of impressions. Uh, but honest to God, unless you're doing a funny song, all right. After the first 30 seconds, the gimmick is worn out. You know, the gimmick is over. Now I've got to make you laugh. It's gotta be funny jokes, not just a funny impression, but funny jokes. And so if I'm gonna give you, let's say, oh, uh, Cher singing a song, like if I'm doing a whole evening and I give Cher a song and I give Dolly Parton a song, and I give Ethel Merman a song, and I give—after the first 30 seconds, the humor of the impression has been established. And now, uh, the audience, whether they know it or not, is gonna want to laugh at something else.

You know, and so the songs have to have funny parody lyrics, or there's gotta be— that's why I've always done contradictory styles, like having a Julie Andrews sing, I don't know, a Rolling Stones song, you know. That can be funny. And that could buy you some time. But it's so—the point is if these kids on TikTok are doing these like 30-second spasmodic impressions, they can be funny for 30 seconds, but then what are they gonna do with this skill? If they're stand-ups, then they can do a lot with the skill. If they're stand-ups and they're gifted stand-ups and they want to write scenes and funny comic scenes and, you know, great, but you gotta write it. You gotta be a comedy writer as well, or have a comedy writer.

I'm not quite a writer, you know. I can write some funny stuff when necessary. I, you know, I did, I mean, you saw my Christmas show, I guess. I don't know if you remember the Barbara Streisand singing Frosty the Snowman.

[36:13] Christine Pedi: Of course. So she has a monologue in the middle about global warming and, you know, and low self-esteem. You know, because he gets a victim of, uh, of climate change every year, you know. But, uh, I can come up with stuff if I have to, but I'm not necessarily driven or I don't have that writer's comic writer's, I don't know, um, uh, drive. Uh, so if you can do impressions, the long game is that you have to have content for them to perform.

[36:57] Macon Prickett: And well kids, you heard it here first. That's great advice, really.

[37:01] Christine Pedi: That's true. Uh, before we jump into The Wicked Stage, your upcoming show with us, I want to talk a little bit about these Broadway appearances that you have on your resume that are so exciting. Uh, Little Me, the revival of Little Me.

[37:15] Macon Prickett: Yeah.

[37:17] Christine Pedi: Which I have to say, I'm a bad theater person and didn't know there was a revival of Little Me. I was like, what? There's been a revival?

[37:22] Macon Prickett: There were two.

[37:24] Christine Pedi: Oh wow. Originally it was revived with James Coco and Victor Garber, and, uh, I didn't see that one. But, um, the one I did was with Martin Short and Faith Prince, directed by Rob Marshall and Neil Simon and Cy Coleman were alive and kicking and vibrant fellas in their 70s, and they were, you know, they were there. I didn't do anything, and I was so nervous it was my first Broadway show, so I never talked to any of them because I was just petrified because I had nothing to do. So I was of no real significance to the project. I was just thrilled to be there, and I don't know, I probably figured if I talk too much they'd fire me. I don't know.

[38:08] Christine Pedi: Um, so I, yeah, yeah, but that was—and I always wanted to work at the Roundabout, and that was back when it was at the Criterion, which is now a swatch store, I think. I'm not kidding, I think it's a swatch store.

[38:24] Macon Prickett: Yeah, it's right on that corner.

[38:27] Christine Pedi: Yeah. So Little Me and Little Me and Talk Radio and then Chicago playing Mama Morton is, you know, a huge. How—what was it like to finally, you know, put your stamp on that role?

[38:42] Christine Pedi: Well, they're, you know, all my Broadway shows have been limited runs. They've all been three to five months. That's it. So I was only contracted for 10 weeks in Chicago. They extended it by a week because I was being replaced by that musical theater dynamo Wendy Williams, the talk show host. I was again nervous, you know. I was a visitor to that house. I just—I just wanted to be polite and not bump into the furniture or break any of their nice things. That's basically how I considered myself. I was profound.

[39:15] Christine Pedi: Yeah, so I um, really lucky because, uh, normally when you're put into a Broadway musical as a replacement, you don't get a rehearsal on stage with the orchestra. You usually just rehearse with the pianist and the stage manager and the other actors you have scenes with, and then you do a final run-through on stage with no orchestra. And so the first time you're singing with the orchestra is, you know, uh, what is it? No? Um, you're on, you know. And um, I was lucky because Adam Pascal was going on as Billy Flynn when I was going on as Mama Morton, so they decided to have a full orchestra rehearsal, which was very helpful. And so, um, I ironically, when they were costuming me, you know, they have racks and racks and racks of costumes from previous Mama Mortons.

And you know, I had a tiny role in The Sopranos, tiny little role as Bobby Baccala's wife. Tiny. Just like three episodes. And then Aida Turturro, who plays Tony Soprano's sister, she goes after my husband. She sees him as a really good catch, and she's like, zeroes in on him as soon as I kick the bucket. Well, the funniest thing is when they were going through the costumes backstage at Chicago and finding which ones fit me. Lillias White's was a little too big here. Sofia Vergara would never even fit around my, you know, uh, one leg. And then there's just right was Aida Turturro's costume. Oh my god, it was just so weird. So, um, I mean, I've loved that show since I first saw it. And I’ve seen it probably 20 times now, maybe 22 times, I think, since it opened and since this revival opened in 1996.

[41:31] Christine Pedi: When I had, um, when I had, uh, been cast in the show, I had seen it 18 times. So I had to, and I'm not including the times I sat in the wings. That take the, you know, uh, I had to perform in the show over two weeks before I performed it more times than I'd actually seen it, you know. It's bulletproof in my opinion, absolutely bulletproof. There are people on that crew, I think, who'd been with the show the entire run of the show, like 18 years or something, and they're still whistling or not whistling, you're not allowed to do that in the wings, but they're still humming along in the wings. And the same thing goes with cast members too. Longtime cast members. I just think it's practically perfect in every way.

And it's, I also think it's incredibly empowering to women. I usually feel very bad about my body when I go to Broadway shows, and I see little correens tap dancing and, you know, with their beveled legs and blah blah blah. But I see these women who are in next to nothing, who are in string bikinis covered in mesh, and I never feel bad about my body. And that's because I think that they own their space with such ferocity that I bypass, oh, I wish I looked like them. And I go to, I want to be like them. Like I want to have that ownership of who I am, and don't screw with me. I think that that is what I, that is the primary takeaway when I'm looking at a woman that gorgeous with that attitude.

The attitude trumps the gorgeousness, but the gorgeousness helps. But I don't laugh, I don't latch on to the gorgeousness and make myself feel less than by how gorgeous they are. I just appreciate it's like I think that body somewhere in my body, and they make me think it is.

[45:59] Macon Prickett: Let's get into the Wicked Stage songs about show business. This is coming to 54 Below on Monday, March 25th. And you're the announced guest so far, I'm thrilled. Um, about we have John Bolton, Leroy Reims, Marilyn May. Um, can you tell us just a little bit about putting the show together and getting it ready for 54 Below?

[46:21] Christine Pedi: Yeah, should I wait for the siren to go by? Can you hear it? Because it's killing my eardrum. Ah, yes. Such a tranquil part of town. Anyway. Well, I had this idea, I don't know what prompted it. Something did, but it was I just, oh, I just love the idea of, um, songs about show business, songs about just wanting to be a star, uh, uh, songs about loving the dance, songs about wanting to sing, songs about musicians, songs about pianos, songs about, um, the neighborhood, the songs about the theater, songs about there's all the, if you know, if you really dig deep, there's a lot of interesting songs about specific things like, you know, professional rivalry, and there's all sorts of stuff that we're gonna look into.

Like just the Wicked Stage, you know. The title is based on the song, you know, "Life Upon the Wicked Stage," which is a woman saying, yeah, it sounds so notorious and naughty, and oh, I'm an actress. And when it in real fact, it's just I hold a glamorous life. There's nothing glamorous about it. Um, that's another, you know, we, I, this, this, this could be a series and it could go on forever because there's just so much content. Um, but, uh, I'm thrilled that Leroy Reims could do the first one because, I mean, he's in the definitive backstage musical "42nd Street," and he himself is a walking encyclopedia of show business stories. Absolutely most of them I'd prefer not to repeat on this podcast, but if you catch him in a dark corner at a club, he'll tell you, he'll tell you, oh, he'll, he'll tell you.

And, um, you know, he's really this beautiful, wonderful vibrant, uh, Broadway legend who just makes our world go round, you know, those these great, I, I, I'll call him an old timer, but there's nothing old time, he's just such a young energy to him. And, um, I'm just so happy. He's sort of like in many respects this sort of the cornerstone of this particular, uh, group of performers. I wanted to keep it like smaller so that we each got to do more numbers and, um, John Bolton is a vibrant charismatic performer. He was in "Christmas Story" and "Anastasia," and he was in "Curtains," which is another backstage musical. So you can rest assured he'll sing a song from "Curtains." Um, wonderful Zal Owen in yet another sort of backstage musical, although certainly it's not the way you first think of when you think of "Harmony."

Um, you think of Nazi World War II musical, but, um, uh, Zal Owen has a gorgeous, stunning voice. He was one of the six harmonists, comedic harmonists in "Harmony," and, uh, stunning, stunning beautiful voice. We have Michael Levine at the piano, and Michael is really more than a music director, he's a music archivist. So Michael will definitely have lesser-known songs from lesser-known shows, uh, that will be funny and quirky and that will delight you because you probably didn't hear them before, or they will have been cut from a show, or they will have, you know, he'll, he'll find something delicious, uh, to sing for you and to tell give you some backstory. And then the woman we all love, Marilyn May.

Marilyn at 95 years old. I say to, I always say in the radio, she's 95. Oh, but like no 95 you've ever seen. And Marilyn is a, Marilyn's oxygen is the stage. I don't think there's oxygen anywhere. I think she holds her breath between, between like her apartment and the stage, because there's nothing else there that really, you know, sustains her like the stage. She gets enough of a fix on stage, and she is known for having in her earlier days recorded the demo recordings of several, uh, songs from major Broadway shows, the major one being "Cabaret," the song "Cabaret." She's the first person to record "Cabaret." Wow. Um, because, uh, they used to do that. They used to put out demos of it. I guess back in the day, this is conjecture on my part, but back in the day in like the sixties, uh, people like Edie Gourmet and Peggy Lee or Doris Day or whoever were creating albums and they were looking for content and they would record cover versions of some Broadway songs.

And so, uh, Marilyn has done a couple of, um, demo recordings of shows before the cast recording ever came out. So, uh, you can definitely count on her singing "Cabaret," and she's putting together a couple of other songs about show business for us. And she's a life force like no other, just to soak up the Marilyn May life force. It really is honestly like a B12. It's like a B12 shot when you get it.

[51:43] Macon Prickett: That is such a great analogy for Marilyn May. That is perfect.

[51:44] Christine Pedi: Yeah, it with except with no needle in the ass. You know what I mean? It's just, it's so, it is. It's absolutely a win-win. And, um, yeah, we have a, we've a nice, a nice program set up and, uh, I'm a big fan of the live streams too because I have a lot of radio listeners who don't live in, uh, you know, commutable distance and I, in general I have to say that your live streams are gorgeous.

[52:14] Macon Prickett: Yes, I definitely am, and I'm very grateful to you for having invested in that because I just think it's, it's a way to, it makes it so much more inclusive for people who just can't for one reason or another be there in person. Um, be there's no, I mean being there in person is so joyful. It's just, uh, you feel good about yourself when you go to that club. You feel like you, you know, you're done good tonight by, you know, when you put this in your calendar, make no mistake about it. Um, just every, yeah, down to the freaking cherries in the Manhattans, you know. Um, which I now make. I now, I now, um, brandy my own cherries because your brandy cherries are so good. Oh, um, and I got a yen for them based on having them. I hope you still have them there.

[53:05] Christine Pedi: We do, yes.

[53:06] Macon Prickett: Yeah. So, um, what did my friend call them? A friend of mine was making Manhattans and she gets her maraschino cherries, but my sister was saying, no, you gotta, Christine gave us a jar of her brandy cherries. And she said to me, she didn't know it was my brandy cherries. She just, she went, uh, all right, I can make you Manhattan. Would you like maraschino? Or would I call, uh, she called them like high-end or highfalutin or something, highfalutin cherries. At, uh, but anyway, just, you know, it's, um, it's a beautiful night out. Always is there, but the, but the live streams are the, the, uh, a really, really wonderful plan B, I have to, I have to say at 54 Below. Um, and, uh, and I'm grateful to have it, especially because of my listenership. Yes, you know.

[53:59] Christine Pedi: Yeah. I have a lot of people that, you know aren't, you know. Now we have to figure out the, the timing of it. So if it's at seven o'clock and you live in LA, you just start your cocktail hour early.

[54:10] Macon Prickett: Yeah, you just a little a few hours early, nothing wrong with that.

[54:12] Christine Pedi: A few hours early.

[54:13] Macon Prickett: So that's Monday afternoon treat.

[54:16] Christine Pedi: I think so.

[54:17] Macon Prickett: I think so. Or end your work day by saying, everybody, I'm gonna put this up on my computer.

[54:24] Christine Pedi: I love it as well.

[54:25] Macon Prickett: Well Christine, it's been a pleasure talking to you.

[54:28] Christine Pedi: Same here.

[54:29] Macon Prickett: Um, you can all get your tickets for the Wicked Stage songs about show business at www.54below.org. And as Christine said, we are live streaming this performance. So if you can't make it, definitely grab a live stream ticket. You are not gonna want to miss it. And, um, we will see you then, Christine. Thanks so much for coming and chatting about this on the podcast today.

[54:52] Christine Pedi: Thank you. I'm so looking forward to it.

[54:53] Macon Prickett: All right, we'll see you soon.

[54:55] Christine Pedi: Bye.

[55:01] Announcer: You've been listening to the 54 Below Podcast, part of the Broadway Podcast Network. To find out more about our upcoming shows, visit us at 54below.org.