Harvey's Broadway Blog: The Calm Before the Storm

Harvey Returns! Welcome to The Return of special new series on BroadwayWorld.com - four time Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein's personal MySpace blog of bringing his brand new musical, A Catered Affair to Broadway. We'll be exclusively picking up Harvey Fierstein's blog as he shares his first hand reports from rehearsals to Opening Night (and beyond). Check back for updates as rehearsals get underway!

It's Saturday, the Ides of March, and we have the day off. We did a full week's rehearsal and managed, in that short time, to get most of the rewrites and restaging incorporated.

I am thrilled with how the new material sounds. But I must say that JOHN DOYLE'S work with the show and the cast continues to astound me. His attention to detail, his knowledge of the stage and the score and the way an actor's mind works is simply unbelievable. For any actor or writer out there I can only wish that you will get a chance to someday work with this man. But selfishly I hope he has never leaves my side and we get to work together on dozens of future projects.

But back to the week that led to this day off:

MEET AND GREET also known as THE DOG AND PONY SHOW

Every Broadway show produces a day where the press gets to meet the cast of the upcoming project and hear about what the show will be like. Most of the time these events take place under flourescent lights in a rehearsal hall. But the producers of A CATERED AFFAIR put together a truly different and fun event. The cast was assembled to meet the press at New York's landmark bridal shop KLEINFELD. There were snacks and beverages galore and dozens of designer bridal gowns to gaze upon. Out front, in keeping with the plot of our show, there was a vintage TAXI CAB for the cast to pose in. And inside there was a stage and piano set up where composer JOHN BUCCHINO played and LESLIE KRITZER sang to MATT CAVENAUGH. All over the web you can see photos of us posing so I will skip those. But for you, something different.

Here is your inside look:



LESLIE KRITZER and I pose for the cameras.



This is what it looks like to the PAPARAZZI as they shoot photos of us.



And this is what the PAPARAZZI looks like to US!!!!!

See? I promised you an inside look and you got it.

REHEARSAL ROOM

From there it was back to work for us. We started out with a music brush-up and continued with a week's worth of reexploration of the story. Being back together with the cast after all of these months was wonderful. Anyway, here's the gang around the piano learning the new harmonies of the final song. And that's the newest member of our company front and center - MARK ZIMMERMAN who will understudy us guys. Ain't he a sweetie?



ABC'S BROADWAY PREVIEW

On Thursday I ran from rehearsal over to the Times Square studio of ABC News to tape a TV special that will air on March 29th. It's a preview of all the shows opening this spring as well as a few of the shows that opened earlier this year.

I was co-host with the fabulous MICHELLE CHARLESWORTH. She was a real doll and lots of fun to play with. Here's a photo of us posing together and another as we got ready to shoot in front of the cameras.