{"id":5611,"date":"2019-11-24T23:44:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T07:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=5611"},"modified":"2019-11-24T23:44:50","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T07:44:50","slug":"buschs-broadway-benefit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2019\/11\/24\/buschs-broadway-benefit\/","title":{"rendered":"Busch&#8217;s Broadway Benefit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The original <em>Broadway <\/em>cast of <strong><em>The Tale of the Allergist\u2019s Wife<\/em><\/strong> reunited for a special reading to benefit <em>Broadway Cares\/Equity Fights AIDS<\/em>.&nbsp; The idea for the reunion was sparked by <strong>Linda Lavin<\/strong>, the leading lady of the original <em>Broadway <\/em>production.&nbsp; When she recently staged the play at her North Carolina theatre company, she played the role of the leading lady\u2019s mother, Frieda (played on <em>Broadway <\/em>by the late <strong>Shirl Bernheim<\/strong>).&nbsp; Linda knew that playwright <strong>Charles Busch <\/strong>always coveted the title role, so why not assemble the rest of the original cast and have Charles play Linda\u2019s role while Linda played the mother?&nbsp; Charles was in, but said that since Lavin played the role to perfection, he\u2019d have to play it the way she did \u2013 \u201cin homage\u201d.&nbsp; \u201cThere will be times Linda\u2019s going to feel like she\u2019s acting with herself.\u201d&nbsp; While Busch slipped into the title role effortlessly, Lavin still stole every scene she was a part of.&nbsp; As I quipped to Linda, \u201cI can\u2019t think of another actress who returns to a play in which she stole the show 20 years ago, plays a different part, and steals the show again!\u201d&nbsp; The event proved what a phenomenal piece of writing Busch\u2019s play is \u2013 it may even survive the proposed film version starring <strong>Bette Midler <\/strong>and <strong>Sharon Stone<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Just a few blocks away, the <em>Roundabout Theatre <\/em>was doing their own benefit reading on the same night.&nbsp; <strong>Oscar Wilde<\/strong>\u2019s <strong><em>The Importance of Being Earnest<\/em><\/strong> starred the formidable <strong>Angela Lansbury <\/strong>as the meddling Lady Bracknell.&nbsp; I\u2019m told that Angela gave a terrific performance \u2013 obviously I wasn\u2019t there because, contrary to popular belief, I cannot be in two places at the same time (I can, however, be with two men at the same time, should that ever be relevant).&nbsp; Everyone says Angie seemed thrilled to be back onstage.&nbsp; The audience loved her, and she looked positively elated at the endless curtain calls.&nbsp; Two benefits for two great causes.&nbsp; Only in NYC.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The original Broadway cast of The Tale of the Allergist\u2019s Wife reunited for a special reading to benefit Broadway Cares\/Equity Fights AIDS.&nbsp; The idea for the reunion was sparked by Linda Lavin, the leading lady of the original Broadway production.&nbsp; When she recently staged the play at her North Carolina theatre company, she played the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5620,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611\/revisions\/5620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}