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And...Scene! is Juan A. Ramirez's weekly column with hot takes, musings, and all that jazz.

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Now, this space (the column; my mind, generally) is usually a site of diva worship, especially for ladies of the stage. But “John Cullum: An Accidental Star”, a new filmed performance of what was to be a live one-man show, got me thinking about Broadway’s leading men and the curiously small place they occupy in our cultural awareness.

The show, it must be said, is mostly delightful. Cullum is a jovial presence––avuncular in a way we don’t see much anymore. His sweet Tennessee lilt and heavy Americana vibes are the kind that, for many, were annihilated by the politics of recent years. At 91, he has an infectious––and even for this 24-year-old, enviable––vitality and “golly gee!” energy that have not crashed in the eight decades he’s been in New York.

The “accidental” nature of his stardom is of the type we usually lose our minds over when associated with women. Think of Sutton Foster’s picked-from-the-chorus-line narrative with Thoroughly Modern Millie, or of Cullum’s own castmate in the original Broadway production of On the Twentieth Century, Judy Kaye. When a height-of-her-powers Madeline Kahn left that production shortly after its opening, Kaye ran away with both the spotlight and the audience’s imagination. Cullum won his second Tony Award for the performance, anyhow, and has been working on Broadway right up through a 2016 stint on Waitress.

But here’s an American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee with two Tony wins and two more nominations who we don’t often think about. What other leading men do we have? Those of the versatile Norbert Leo Butz and Danny Burstein variety tend to inspire more respect than adoration. Comedians like Andy Karl and Christian Borle get laughs, but little glitz. I’ve enjoyed and relied upon these men’s performances throughout the years, but it’s usually the women on the Playbill to whom my eyes wander.

Far be it from me to turn this into a Men’s Rights column, but does Broadway not regale its men with the same glory it does its women? Should we? Should we care? Or is the nature of stagedoor stanning predicated on the razzle dazzle of the roles we give our divas? Would I start posting overly earnest Instagram birthday posts for Norm Lewis if he donned a fabulous bob and sequined gown onstage the way I do whenever Patti LuPone so much as blinks? Would area gays have blacked out at intermission in preparation to see Peter Gallagher descend a staircase in a red-feathered headdress in Hello, Dolly!?

Honestly, probably. I almost screamed the roof off London’s Apollo Theatre cheering for Layton Williams when I saw Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, and anything Alan Cumming does is certified gold, so my gut tells me that a simple––hold your laughs––queering of Broadway might be the way to get these men Audra levels of praise.

In any case, lowkey-Broadway-historian Tina Fey gave John Cullum a quick 30 Rock cameo as Leap Dave Williams, and on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt as… well, watch for yourself. And that is how showbiz legends never die.

Follow Juan A. at @itsNumberJuan.

And...Scene! is Juan A. Ramirez's weekly column with hot takes, musings, and all that jazz.

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It is day 386 of the Broadway shutdown, as one newsletter is bent on reminding me. For the first time in a while, however, I am filled with the blind optimism that has clearly overtaken the producers of the upcoming Princess Diana musical. Yes, hope has reared its sunny head into the New York theatre world and, just as that particular team believes a 2-month streaming run on Netflix ahead of a live production will make people want to see their ill-advised biomusical even more, I believe the days of hand-wringing and Zoom-logging-inning are soon to pass.

In his daring finish-line scheme to Actually Do Good before an impending ousting, Governor Cuomo seems to have targeted theatre nerds on this would-be rehabilitation campaign, announcing the hasty return of live indoor performance, effective today.

Of course, enthusiasm had already been brewing in me since Blindness, a COVID-era theatrical experience which began at London’s beloved Donmar Warehouse, announced a New York bow. I’ll admit I was slightly dispirited when I found out there would be no live performances, but rather a “socially distanced sound and light experience,” but nevermind the fact that that copy is basically describing the concept of cinema! It is something to do.‍

Blindness comes from the Donmar and is adapted by Simon Stephens from a Nobel-winner’s novel, but its most impressive cosign, by far, is the knowledge that its concurrent Mexico City production––they’re going wide, baby––is narrated by Marina de Tavira, best known as the matriarch from Alfonso Cuarón’s spectacular Roma.‍

Best of all, I’m able to see a future in which all the pessimistic think pieces about the death of theatre as we know it can be proven wrong. No, we will not forget the long days of COVID-19, but I am unable to believe that a year-long stint in isolation will have a profound impact on how we experience theatre. Yes, live streams, digital productions, and producers seemingly not caring about entire productions existing on YouTube are gorgeous new additions to our theatrical landscape, but let’s not pretend we’ll forget this whole mess as soon as the curtain rises on a new show.

It should go without saying, if you see me writing a complete negation of this in a few months, following a resounding reversal of everything I hope for… mind your business. But tomorrow, I will be watching Blindness and, once again, be sitting in a dark room, in silence.

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Follow Juan A. at @itsNumberJuan.

Have you ever been to a Broadway show and tried their signature cocktail in the bar in the lobby? Theatrely recently had a virtual drink with Kellyann Coyle and Brian Sedita, who took those drinks and are teaching you how to make them on their Instagram, Broadway By The Glass.

Theatrely: What were you both up to before the pandemic started?

Brian Sedita: In the theater industry, at least, I have a podcast called “Pitch to Stage” on the Broadway Podcast Network. And then after quarantine started, I also co-created another show with Michael Kushner called “My Broadway Memory” which is also on the Broadway Podcast Network, which I'm still co-creator of, but have stepped down in terms of my commitment to producing and all that kind of stuff, because quarantine was one thing, and then after that life went back to normal a little bit for me. I don't work in the theater industry anymore.

Kellyann Coyle: For me, pre-pandemic, I'm an actor in the city, dancer first! I did a couple of tours and some regional stuff. I'm also a bartender, my bar has since closed until April. So this passion project has pulled literally the two things that I love doing that I can't do during quarantine together. So it's been so great. And we both just love theater so much. So it's like it's such a fun passion project for us.

T: How did you two meet?

BS: So we actually grew up together! We went to preschool through graduating high school together and have stayed best friends since.

T: When did you two decide to start Broadway by the Glass?

BS: So I'm also a bartender in New Jersey. Honestly, it's so funny, because I had been thinking about doing something like this for a while. And then, I know Kelly was thinking about doing the same thing, and at that point I really didn't have a lot of time to commit to it. But I was like, "you know what? If you want to go ahead without me I will not be offended." And it just ended up working out that when we were going to start this time freed up in some areas of my life so I was able to commit a lot more time to it.

KC: It was literally like the next day, wasn't it? Because I was ready to go and then you were like, "I have time now." And I'm like, "yeah!"

BS: And what I've loved most about this collaboration so far is that Kelly and I haven't really worked together in an artistic or professional sense since high school. So this has been a really great way to connect even more than we normally would have over the past couple of years.

T: Walk me through your process a little bit, how do you get from picking a show to formulating a drink?

KC: Hmmm, well, I feel like when we started out, we were picking random shows and we were like, "OK, so, what's something we could do from Frozen, like maybe an iced drink?" And then I guess we got a little more specific with Christmas. We did a 12 Days of Christmas countdown, and Brian made a full on list of all Christmas shows and Christmas songs. Then we went in and listened to it and tried to get inspiration from it, like if they mention a liquor or what the vibe is. I feel like that's the one thing that we really try to do is get the vibe of the show. So like when you think of super smoky and like dark, that's what you expect when you hear Hadestown.

BS: And I mean, if you're twenty one and above, you might love alcohol. And if you're a Broadway fan, like merging those two things is just lots of fun. How many times do you get drunk and sing show tunes? So this is like the perfect marriage of those two things. And it's creative to like sit down and like craft a cocktail! Like it's not just your normal margarita for Escape to Margaritaville. We're trying to come up with things like where we can introduce people to different kinds of liqueurs and spirits so that it'll also expand people's vocabulary and liquor cabinets.

KC: A little educational! And we're starting to do hopefully every Friday a little history on either a cocktail or explaining a liquor or liqueur and doing like a little education segment on IGTV.

BS: Like, there's so much that we could do with this and so much that we've discussed how we can build and grow as a brand. So every show you go to has a really cool cocktail list and you're excited to go to the bar and look at what they came up with for the shows. So our dream for this would be to create custom opening night cocktails for opening nights on Broadway or around the country and doing cocktail workshops and leading cocktail parties and stuff like that, and maybe getting our cocktails on those Broadway show menus. I think the moment that I first was inspired to do something like this was two years ago. I went to the opening night of Be More Chill and they had and at the after party they had a Squip-tini and it was this Mountain Dew and vodka, and it was smoking because it had dry ice in it. And it was this really cool cocktail that like maybe didn't taste great because Mountain Dew doesn't taste great. But it was so specific to the show and it was that perfect marriage of those two things that I was talking about with alcohol and a Broadway show. And then there's such missed opportunities, like I remember going to the Alice By Heart opening and they didn't do anything with a teacup, like you'd think like a tea cocktail, like Earl Gray Gin. Or there's so many tea inspired cocktails now. And they didn't do anything like that.

T: What's been your favorite drink that you've posted so far?

KC: Oh, my God, lemme see. I loved the "You Go, Glen Coco" and it was a candy cane martini. And I was super excited about it. And I was trying to get inspiration from recipes online. Everyone was going the white chocolate route, which I don't love. So I went in the complete opposite direction and went a little fruity with it. And it literally tasted like a melted down candy cane that you get when you're a kid where it's sweet and minty, but not like in your face, and the garnish was really cute. I put icing around the edge and dipped it in crushed candy cane and it just was so pretty. And it did really well on the page.

BS: My favorite was also from our Christmas series. And it was "She Loves Christmas" and we used the "12 Days of Christmas" from She Loves Me as the backtrack to it. And we went to the nine days of Christmas and that's what day we did it on. It's a vodka elderflower liqueur, which is my absolute favorite liqueur, Aperol, lemon juice and simple syrup. And it's something that honestly, I've made for so many of my friends when they come over to my house now that they're like, "you need to bottle this!" And it's delicious and it's sweet and sour and it's good and it hits hard.

T: Is there anything on the horizon that we can look forward to seeing?

BS: We're partnering with some Broadway box subscriptions to get our cocktails in their boxes like little postcards with cocktails and a mocktail. And then you'll scan like a QR code to exclusive videos with us doing a workshop on that cocktail. So a little more than our social media might give you. You have an exclusive link. And then we're going to be releasing some merchandise in the spring. There's many references to liquor throughout the Broadway musical theater canon. So we're going through that and picking out our favorite things to design and hopefully by March we'll have that up and running. So we're kind of trying to build that brand so that by the time Broadway comes back, we can really hop on. There's so much content out there because there's so many artists that are looking for something meaningful to do during this time. Yeah, there's so much exploding, and hopefully there's so many things that we want to take outside of this time of quarantine back to like normal times. I mean, theatre is all about connecting, and honestly, for us, when you go out to a bar and connect with people over a drink, it's the same kind of connection that you can have at the theater.

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