BWW Asks: 'What's Your Favorite Halloween Memory?'
By: Eugene Lovendusky Oct. 31, 2008
Frankenstein’s Monster comes to life on 42nd Street… Witches cackle in The Gershwin… And ogres are taking residence on Broadway! What better place to celebrate the spooks and creeps of Halloween than The Great Fright Way?
HAVE A FUN AND SAFE HALLOWEEN!!!
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Celia Keenan-Bolger (Les Miserables) and Todd Buonopane (Grease): My favorie Halloween memory was unquestionably when my college friends and I went as the Addams Family at the University of Michigan. We made the costumes ourselves and looked awesome! We, of course, won the best costume contest at the Musical Theater Majors’ party!
pictured: Todd Buonopane as Pugsly, Celia Keenan-Bolger as Wednesday,
Courtney Balan as Morticia, Daniel Reichard as Gomez and Alexander Gemignani
as Uncle Fester, with friend Andy Sievers as Lurch
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Michael Berresse (A Chorus Line): A couple of years ago I decided it would be "fun" to introduce my 70 year-old mother to Halloween in New York City. We both dressed-up as old-timey prison convicts and headed down to the Christopher Street Parade. Needless to say, this adorably-game older woman with a ball and chain was a huge hit with the Drag Queens, and they were a huge hit with her. So there we were chatting with Wonder Woman and Princess Diana when suddenly there was a crush of people behind the street barricade because the subway entrance had closed. People were still trying to get in as the others were coming out and we were stuck in the middle, literally being crushed with nowhere to go except over the barricade! The news clip flashed in my head: Broadway actor's mother crushed by Glamazons. I gave my mom a leg-up but she could only get half-way over. Out of nowhere, a dreamy young NYPD officer (a real one) reached from the other side, scooped her out of my arms and into his and carried her over to safety. New headline: Hunky cop snatches 70 year-old convict out of Drag Queen stampede. Only in New York, kids, only in New York.
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Stephanie J. Block (9 to 5): My favorite Halloween stories come from handing-out candy as opposed to going door-to-door. One Halloween, my brother-in-law, Jason and I decided to go all out... make the front-yard a cemetery with dry ice! We decorated the bushes with spiderwebs and glowing red eyes; we had a fake body fall from the balcony when they approached the front door while spooky music pumped through the stereo system. All of this would scare the young ones and the pre-teens, but the high schoolers would just make fun of us and act as if they were "over it"... UNTIL... they would reach for candy on the table we had set up. It, too, was decorated with goo, spider webs, and a plater with a bloody head. It looked fake until it would open it's eyes and try to bite their hands. It was actually my brother-in-law crouched under the table and his head sitting on a bloody platter. I know it sounds a little sick and creepy but we would laugh everytime!!! THE BEST HALLOWEEN EVER thanks to my bro, Jason!
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Cheyenne Jackson (Xanadu): I went to a private Christian school and we weren't allowed to celebrate Halloween. Instead, we would have a "Harvest Party" where we would all dress-up as various biblical characters. My sister was an angel and I went as Moses, complete with fake itchy beard and bathrobe to complete the look.
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Tituss Burgess (The Little Mermaid): My favorite Halloween memory is when I was in high school…I dressed-up like Oprah Winfrey. The funny part was, back in the sticks of Georgia, they actually thought I was her…wonk wonk!
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Annaleigh Ashford (Wicked): A couple years ago, I went to a swanky party that happened to be filled with fabulous drag queens. I went as Tinkerbell and made my own fabulous costume and had very outrageous makeup. Well, the dress was skin tight and I didn't wear my "chicken cutlets" that night. I had a guy come up me and say, "Girl... That's the best drag I've seen all night. Fierce!" He thought I was a man... in drag... as Tinkerbell. That was a first!
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Jeffry Denman (White Christmas): One Halloween, when I was feeling very unsociable and a little depressed, a friend of mine convinced me to go to a HUGE costume party. It was literally the last thing I wanted to do. I didn't have a costume, but I went rummaging through my closet and found an old Spider-Man mask. Not having the full costume I decided I would go as "Spider-Man: Day Trader." I put on my best Hugo Boss suit, printed-out business cards that read "SPIDER-MAN: Webslinger - Superhero - Day Trader" and went to the party. I spent the entire evening completely silent, only handing out the business cards. Many of my friends were there. No one knew it was me. It was fantastic. I drank my beers through a straw. I danced with strange women (this was before I was married). I played little pranks all night. By the end of the party, the hostess was so pissed she demanded that someone tell her who I was. Someone guessed and the jig was up. The point is, it was nice to be anonymous. There was a freedom in it. And no harm was done. When they knew it was me everyone laughed and were amazed at how long I kept it up.
pictured: Annaleigh Ashford (left) at age 5 as Ariel;
Jeffry Denman (right) as Spider-Man: Day Trader
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Sarah Saltzberg (Don't Quit Your Night Job): Halloween was probably my favorite holiday growing up. Of course I loved the dressing up, but more than that was the massive amounts of candy I would meticulously organize and stockpile for the next year. I had a system throughout my childhood, where every night after Halloween I would dump out all of my candy and then organize it according to type -- Reese's Cups, Tootsie Rolls, Smarties, etc. I also had a pile of "candy to donate" to the less fortunate children who couldn't go out trick or treating, and that pile sadly consisted of pasty Necco wafers and hard-wrapped candy. I wouldn't have eaten that candy anyway, so I smugly figured I was killing two birds with one stone. After everything was organized into piles, I would put each piece of candy into a clear plastic bag with a twist tie and then label the bag with a Post-It, so that I could tell at a moments glance what type of candy it was (in case looking through the clear plastic might be too arduous) and exactly how many pieces of candy I had remaining. This would ensure I not only got through the long, hard winter but also the merciless spring and summer with enough candy... until next Halloween.
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Dan Lipton (Don't Quit Your Night Job): When I was in 4th grade, I somehow convinced a bunch of my friends to be the Electric Mayhem Band from "The Muppet Show." I was Dr. Teeth, and we had Animal, Floyd, Janice, even Zoot the sax player! I don't think any of my other friends loved the Muppets like I did; they just didn't have any better costume ideas.
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Jeff Bowen ([title of show]): Trading Smarties for Milk Duds with my brother in Baltimore, MD circa 1977 – post Trick-or-Treating.
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Justin Bond (Lustre): When I was about 4, my Aunt Joyce made me a Prince Charming costume. At first I was a little-bit plucked, because I wanted to be Cinderella... but the epaulets were gold and sparkly and somehow I felt very beautiful and special in it anyway. The whole event opened a new window of possibilities in my mind. After that, my favorite Halloween memory was my freshman year in college when I dressed-up as Edie Sedgwick and got a bunch of theatre majors who were high on acid (including Jonathan Larson, I believe) to pretend they were Warhol superstars and jump into my girlfriend Nancy's shower. They were mostly juniors and seniors, so I knew I had arrived socially if I could get them to take off their clothes and jump into a shower. I still have the ability to inspire mass-nudity when the occasion requires it!
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Tony Yazbeck (Gypsy): When I was about 12 years-old, I had a Halloween where I guess I pretended to be "real bad." I went out with a couple of friends around the neighborhood and egged a couple of houses, and we wore all black, like we were burglars. Then we noticed a fire truck down the road had spotted us, and we all started running as fast as we could, and then jumped into the bushes at the end of the road. The truck rode right by us and didn't catch us. I can't say that I was proud of that moment, but I did feel like a bad-boy for a moment... where you would usually catch me as the biggest nerd in school in the Chess Club and Math League.
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Heather Parcells (A Chorus Line): When I was 13, I was still riding horses, and our barn had a Horse and Rider Costume Contest. I was a creative little adolescent, and decided to make my horse a mummy, and I, a large cardboard Pyramid. I constructed this fabulous pyramid that rendered me unable to really use my hands. My arms were sticking out the sides (much like Violet Beuaregard in Willy Wonka when she swells into a blueberry). Now, add that to the fact that I had limited vision and was riding a horse whom I had foolishly wrapped in toilet-paper as the mummy. I could hardly steer or see, and every step my horse took, the toilet-paper would rip and shred away everywhere. To top it all off, I went home and went Trick-or-Treating in the pyramid around our neighborhood; and I could see even less in the dark. I bumped into so many things and fell down like a turtle on it's back so many times, my dad finally just pulled it off of me and threw it away.
Heather Parcells (age 13) as a Pyramid, with Zanty,
the "Mummy Horse" wrapped in toilet-paper
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J. Robert Spencer (Jersey Boys): My all-time favorite memory of Halloween was living in York, PA... I was in the 10th or 11th grade and dressed-up in my dad's farmer clothing, stuffed it with pillows, put on a scary halloween mask, sat on the front porch and waited for Trick-or-Treaters. I sat there motionless. As the kids approached I could hear them saying: "Is he real? Is that a person? No, it's just fake. Touch it. No you touch it!" To which, at some point, some brave kid would reach for me and I'd come to life! They would scream and jump and end up laughing. And then I'd lift my mask and give them Halloween candy. It was great fun.
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Stephanie D'Abruzzo (Avenue Q): My most vivid Halloween memory was the annual plotting of the Trick-or-Treating route with my sister Diana. We lived close to two other school districts (in Peters Township, on the borders of Bethel Park and Upper St. Clair). For some reason, each school district would have different windows of time for Trick-or-Treaters. One district might be from 6:30-8:30PM, another might be from 7-9PM, and the third might be from 7:30-9:30PM. So it was a matter of trying to get the most candy that was humanly possible. It's easier said than done, because there were a lot of hills in our neighborhood to slow you down, and cutting through some big backyards was necessary to get to certain streets. Each year, the route was different because the times always changed. And since the plotting took place as we were walking out the door, there was always some confusion. One thing that always remained the same was the old guy who would give out the pennies, wrapped in a Kleenex to look like a ghost. You'd think we would have eventually skipped his house, but the greed of youth always wins-out over pennies.
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Ann Harada (9 to 5): My favorite Halloween by far was my son Elvis's first Halloween, when we dressed him as the most famous Elvis. I had bought a basic costume but went to the experts in the Avenue Q costume department, who went with me to buy trimming in the garment district and proceeded to snazz it up. This year I have to make his costume... he wants to be the planet Neptune!
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Jared Gertner (Spelling Bee): I was never crazy about Halloween as a kid. I was kind of a nervous kid and a chronic rule-follower, so I was very uncomfortable with the late night tomfoolery. I was always such a procrastinator, too. I would wait until the day of Trick-or-Treating... and I would throw on an old shirt, the lining of a coat and put some "dirt" makeup on my face. Then I'd put a soda in a brown paper bag and call myself a bum. I did this just about every year. My favorite Halloween was my freshman year at NYU. I remember seeing Superman hail a cab (I thought that was hilarious). Then I went to the parade in the Village with some friends... I didn't have a costume. I just wore bell bottoms, a blazer and yellow glasses (not sure what I was supposed to be). But my friend Devin put me on his shoulders and I watched a bunch of truly crazy people parading around and thought: "This is where I live now!"
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Henry Hodges (13 The Musical): One of my favorite memories ever was where I was in the opera Idomendeo at the Kennedy Center. After I had my costume on, which involved a lot of Karo Syrup and red food dye to simulate blood (I was playing the part of the "dead boy") my dresser said Placido Domingo wanted to see me in his dressing room. We had a big scene together and I wondered what I had done wrong. Did my face look alive? Did I breathe too much? 'What could I do to look more dead?" I thought as I knocked on the dressing room door. The door opened just a crack and all I could see was Mr. Domingo's head peeking through at my eye level. He said "Trick or Treat!" and threw the door open. He had a huge bowl of chocolates in his arms. It's a Halloween I will never forget.
pictured: Henry Hodges (left) in "dead boy" costume with Placido Domingo
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Steve Rosen (Don't Quit Your Night Job): My father is a dentist, so we gave out toothbrushes instead of candy. The parents of the little Trick-or-Treaters thought it was a terrific and funny idea; but the neighborhood kids would invariably destroy our pumpkins and cover our trees in toilet paper.
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John Treacy Egan (The Little Mermaid): I would wear my plastic-in-the-box Batman costume weeks before the big-night... mask and all! (I was Batman three years in a row)
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Adam Pascal (Rent): A neighborhood egg and shaving-cream war, consisting of about 50 kids. Circa 1982...
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Telly Leung (Rent): Every year, I go through the same ritual. I always say to myself (and my friends - who all love Halloween): "I hate Halloween! I dress-up and parade around in-costume for a living... It's the last thing I wanna do when I'm off-duty." But, the spirit of the holiday always takes over. My friends come over and gets my party-pooper booty out of the house, and we throw something together last minute... and I always end up having a good time.
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Shannon Durig (Hairspray): Halloween is one of my favorite holidays! When I was in college, I could not afford a costume so I decided I was going to get creative. One year I was a bumble bee. I wore all black and taped myself in yellow duck tape all around my upper-body. I found a black funnel, colored the end of it yellow and used that as the stinger. I then took pipe-cleaners and braided my hair in them for my antenas and bought wings. The entire costume cost me $8 and a whole night of fun buzzing around stinging people. My friends and I now joke all the time about the "bee dance" I did all night long. An $8 well spent!
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Nikki Snelson (Legally Blonde): Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I suppose I always wanted to play dress-up and pretend to be someone else (probably why I became an actress). I loved anything scary... movies, haunted houses. My cousin, Brad, would take me to a haunted house every year in St Louis. Brad was 18 years older than me. He thought that it wouldn't be "cool" to go to a haunted house at his age... so he would use me as an excuse to go. Nothing better than a 24 year-old man throwing his 6 year-old cousin in a ballerina costume in-front of the guys with the chainsaw! But I LOVED it!
pictured (l-r): Nikki Snelson and Mara Davi as festive young ladies
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Mara Davi (A Chorus Line): When I was growing up in Colorado, it would snow on Halloween, so instead of Trick-or-Treating, my family went to a "Harvest Festival" at church where we would play games to win candy. Hoop tosses, cake walks, cookie decorating and playing with my friends in the warm and toasty chapel. It was truly a great way to spend Halloween!
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Nick Blaemire (Glory Days): I'm pretty sure I was Batman, like, 7 years in a row when I was a kid! Not because I wasn't creative, but because one night wasn't enough! I used to go Trick-or-Treating with my brother using huge pillowcases and we'd compete to see who could get the most candy; which usually turned into a very unfriendly race from house to house. But it always ended with us in the kitchen counting and sorting out the candy that we wanted (from the healthy stuff old ladies had given us before we could get away). I remember one year thinking I'd won the competition, and then my brother blitzkreiged me with a huge amount of candy he'd put in his pockets because his pillowcase couldn't hold any more! That was a pretty great Halloween... I'm pretty sure I was Batman at the time.
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Dan Bogart (Les Miserables): All four of us Bogart brothers went to a Catholic grade school called Piqua Catholic. Every year on Halloween, the students were allowed to come to school in costume. But one year, the school staff thought it would be clever to put a "Catholic slant" on this special day for children. They demanded that our costume was to resemble the clothing worn by our Patron Saint. It was the most boring Halloween ever because everyone looked the same. Every student... male and female... was draped in bed sheets. But my brother Dominic had one unique accoutrement. His middle name is Francis, therefore, his Patron Saint was Francis of Assisi. Francis was a friar who had the "Friar Tuck" balding pattern. So my mom made him a yarn-haired wig with a huge bald spot. I remember thinking he looked silly and yet I envied him because it made him noticeable (amidst all the bed sheets).
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Stephen Flaherty (Ragtime): October 31, 1963 was an important night in my life. I was 3 years-old, living in Pittsburgh, looking forward to my first Halloween, going Trick-or-Treating with my dad and my older brother Bill. I was a panda bear and Bill was a goblin. Mom crafted my panda disguise and applied eye-makeup. It wouldn’t have been a Pittsburgh Halloween without a rainstorm and we went door to door for what seemed like forever. I followed Bill, dragging my paper shopping-bag (decorated with tiny crayon pumpkins and my sensitive portrait of Casper). We received all sorts of treasures… but most amazing was a marshmallow in the shape of a hot dog, decorated with colored sugar: colored sugar to make the marshmallow look like real meat on a real bun! We finally approached the last house at the end of our block. My bag was weighted down, heavy from all of the treats. I dragged it along, a weary little panda. As we began to ascend the stairs to the house, tragedy struck. The bottom of the 8-ton bag tore open! The loudest RRIIPP I had ever heard! Out rolled the candy and my prize of the evening… the large hotdog-shaped marshmallow! The world had ended. I sobbed like a kid who had experienced the bitter taste of life’s injustice for the first time. At home my mother washed the black Alice Cooper-like circles from around my eyes, my dad offered condolences and my brother (begrudgingly) shared half of his evening’s take. Jerry Herman says “Time heals everything” and I suppose it does. And yet, even now, when I see young goblins, superheroes and even the occasional panda go by, part of me still yearns for that marshmallow hot dog, the one that got away.
pictured: Stephen Flaherty (left) with brother Bill Flaherty, 1963
Jason Tam (A Chorus Line): My friend Tiffany Shinn and I were both in the Canadian National Touring Company of Les Miserables when we were about 9 or 10 years-old. Because both of us are from Hawaii, on Halloween we wore little grass skirts, the coolest neon-green sunglasses ever, and little Les Miserables shirts with the standard print of young Cosette on the front, but she was holding a surf board and it said "Catch the Waif!" We Trick-or-Treated all over the hotel we were staying at in Hamilton, Ontario.
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Kaitlin Kiyan (Hair): My favorite Halloween memory would probably be that of junior year. Because I grew up in Hawaii, I had no idea that people could Trick-or-Treat in apartment buildings. When I told my New York friends, they were shocked! So that night, they took me to Stuy Town to Trick-or-Treat in all of those apartment complexes and I was like a crazy kid in a candy store, so excited to receive any amount of candy! Since we were older than most of the other Trick-or-Treaters, some people would give us weird looks or just laugh at us... but it was all worth it. That candy lasted for a couple of months, at least.
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Nick Adams (Guys and Dolls): My mother always constructed costumes for my brother and me. We never had any store-bought costumes. My favorite was a spider costume she put together using fishing wire to connect all the legs… so that when I raised my arms, the legs would move as well. On Halloween night, I wore the costume to our local zoo for the Zoo Boo festivities.
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Donna Lynne Champlin (Sweeney Todd): Halloween has always been my absolute favorite holiday for the obvious reasons (costumes, candy, Celtic new year), but October 31, 2002 was also our Broadway opening of Hollywood Arms. Since the kids in the show were going to miss Trick-or-Treating, I threw a huge party for them (and everyone else’s kids) down in the basement of the Cort Theatre, in-between shows the day before. I spent so much time strong-arming everyone into wearing costumes that I completely forgot to bring my own that morning. Panicked, during the matinee I called a friend who had a really fluffy Tigger costume, and during the matinee, she dropped-off a huge garment bag for me. I opened it up and inside is NOT the kid-friendly Tigger, but an extremely risque Bo Peep costume (from Fredericks of Hollywood). Obviously in her hurry, she had grabbed the wrong bag! I weighed the odds and I figured any costume was better than no costume so, I shoved my boobs into that corset, went downstairs and we all had an absolute blast. I was referred to as "Milk Money" for the rest of the run.
pictured (l-r): Comedienne and Hollywood Arms playwright Carol Burnett,
with Donna Lynne Champlin as naughty Bo Peep
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Jennifer Cody (Shrek): My favorite Halloween memory was my Dad making my costumes for me. We didn't have a lot of money so my costumes were home-made. One year, I was probably four, I wanted to be an angel. My Dad made me wings out of hangers and tin foil. I always hated Halloween night in upstate New York because you had to wear a jacket over your costume. But that year it was warm and my wings were amazing!
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Barrett Foa (Avenue Q): Growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I had different Halloween experiences than most kids. We'd get dressed-up and never leave our own apartment building. The elevator would stop on a floor, we'd score some candy, get back on the elevator, and go to the next floor. It all sounds a little pathetic now, but we would get very excited about the whole night (and remember, it was all we knew). The best floor was the Sasserdotes in 3C. The elevator would open into their own private, tiny, dimly-lit vestibule. Normally, flowers or mail sat atop the long narrow table, but come October 31, a dead body (with plenty of ketchup) lay in its stead. We would ring the doorbell and wait. The door would creak open to reveal the scariest old hag of a witch we'd ever seen! She would peek out, and in a dry crackley voice ask: "Yeeeees???" as if she had no idea what we were doing there. We'd mumble "Trick-or-Treat?" She was downright terrifying! We stood transfixed as she'd slowly dole out the candy, deliberately looking each of us in the eye. "And what are you?" We'd try to avoid staring at her warty nose. Then we'd pee in our Spidey-tights. For years, I thought that The Sasserdotes actually harbored a crotchety old crone in their apartment. Every so often, I'd see Mrs. Sasserdote in the elevator. She had a bright smile, and was tall and smelled nice. Just as I would get up the nerve to ask about the mysterious old woman at her door each Halloween, the elevator doors would shoot open, and Mrs. S's long legs would be half-way to 79th Street. I soon outgrew Trick-or-Treating, and The Sasserdotes have long since moved away. I guess I'll never know what became of the witch in 3C.
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