6:45 pm. The curtain goes up in 45 minutes. Sarah Rudinoff is surrounded by a phalanx of costume, makeup, and hair people. Her face in the dressing-room mirror is surrounded by photos and lights. Carol Channing has used this mirror. “Ooh, my new wig cap. I look like a Hispanic gangster who’s setting my new do,” Rudinoff says to 5th Avenue Theatre’s head of hair and makeup, who explains, “It won’t be as hot for you.” Tonight is the final preview of Wonderful Town. The 2,200-seat house is packed. Rudinoff talks about costar Timothy McCuen Piggee having to be rushed to the hospital last night. “He got hit with a flying postcard during the rehearsal of the bow.” (The postcards are part of the set. They’re as big as billboards.) Outside Rudinoff’s private dressing room is Rudinoff’s private sitting room. Outside of that is the theater’s green room, crowded with tables, a piano, lockers, luggage, and bags of plastic fruit. A female dancer walks by in a ’30s-era red dress and wig cap, looking lively, well dressed, and bald.
7:32 pm. In front of the curtain, 5th Avenue Theatre Artistic Director David Armstrong welcomes the crowd: “Every season, we like to do one rare and wonderful musical… I like to think of them as being in the category of the best musicals you’ve never heard of… ” Behind the curtain, in the dark, the cast listens, holds props, leans against exterior façades, stretches, twirls, whispers, stares. Then conductor Joel Fram, visible on a black-and-white TV monitor, strikes up the orchestra: Leonard Bernstein’s upbeat overture.
7:53 pm. There are 34 actors and more than 40 wigs in Wonderful Town. In a mirrored room, 16 wigged dummy heads and 21 bald dummy heads stare at their reflections. The backstage PA broadcasts Rudinoff and Billie Wildrick singing about Ohio. “Now listen, Eileen,” Rudinoff interjects, “Ohio was stifling! We just couldn’t wait to get out of the place!” An instrumental interlude follows. I consult the posted scene order to find out what’s happening. “VARIOUS LOCATIONS. CONQUERING NEW YORK.” Some cheerleaders head toward the stage, followed by a guy in a tux.
8:27 pm. Jim Gall, in a pinstriped suit and white tie, is in the green room reading the theater section of The Stranger. He throws it on the table. He looks at me. He doesn’t know I work at The Stranger. “I had a friend just trashed. Just on and on for several sentences. Maybe she was miscast. But The Stranger‘s just rude for the sake of being rude. Sensationalistic.” He looks into a mirror on the wall and, in a Brooklyn accent, rehearses: “Her sister? She’s a blond, good-looking kid, isn’t she?” He looks back at me. He asks what I do. I tell him. He asks if I wrote “that review.” I confess I did. He doesn’t know what to say. He looks back into the mirror and rehearses, “Heya gorgeous. That’s right. I gave the city editor a big pitch already.” We talk about the show I trashed. I compliment his suit. “My favorite is the shoes,” he says. “My character’s a newspaper reporter from New York. A real sleazebag.” I joke about being a sleazebag journalist. He says he should take me onstage with him. An actress walks in and says, “Hey, pinstripey.”
8:53 pm. During intermission, Piggee comes into the green room and announces, “We are having the oogiest show tonight.” Rudinoff comes in looking like she’s seen death. “Oh my God, I came this close to falling in the orchestra pit. I had one heel at the edge—the audience gasped—oh my God—we changed the blocking—if I had just teetered the other way…” Someone comes in with a cake. It’s someone’s birthday. The cast does an incredible rendition of “Happy Birthday to You,” with harmonies, high notes, etc. Then someone hugs Rudinoff. “How horrifying was that? It would be Wonderful Town, two performances,” she says, shaken. “My face was ashen. I was white as the light. Oh, isn’t it nice to be alive?”
9:55 pm. After the second act, director Bill Berry comes by Rudinoff’s dressing room to congratulate her and adds, “I wasn’t sure if you almost fell into the orchestra or if you were doing a bit.” Rudinoff laughs, “I tried to make it look like a bit.” Minutes later the star leaves the theater eating an Asian pear. She has no idea how fantastic opening night is going to be.
