Free Forbidden Broadway: Behind the Mylar Curtain by Gerard Alessandrini, Michael Portantiere

Salonga), and Mary Denise Bentley (in Once on This Island).

    Forbidden Broadway around the world.

    Forbidden Broadway in Boston, Japan, and L.A.

    Clockwise from top left: Chloe and Nora dress Bill in the busboys' area
at Palsson's; Dee Hoty modeling her Evita costume; Rachel lames, our
stage manager's daughter, learned to sing "I Sleep with Everyone" for
her second-grade class; and Dorothy Kiara, relegated to "Forbidden
Fantine" after having starred on Broadway in Nine.

    Clockwise from top left: Gerard, dressed and hyped to play Kurt in "The Sound of Music Part II"; Danny Gurwin and Felicia
Finley, so crammed backstage at Forbidden Broadway 2001 that they are forced to have sex in their Aida costumes; Andrea
McArdle, the original Annie, gets into character backstage to play Forbidden Annie at a benefit; Phill George as King Arthur
prepares to sing "I Wonder What the King is Drinking Tonight?"; Nora and Gerard backstage.

    Donna English (as Beauty) and Bryan Batt (as the Beast)
display Disney's new design for the Tony Award.

    Donna English, as Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard, gets a
"Master Class" in singing from Patti LuPone in the person
of Christine Pedi.

    Gerard surrounded by his Cats/Chorus Line cast. Clockwise from top left: Bryan Batt,
Christine Pedi, David Hibbard, and Donna English.

    Our audience tolerated my rather lame City of Angels parody, but you could tell
they really wanted to see us attack shows that took themselves too seriously. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber came to our rescue by delivering Aspects of Love, straight from
London. That show became even more of a target when Sarah Brightman stepped
into it; she was one of our most beloved voodoo dolls at Forbidden Broadway, and we
were always happy to stick a few pins into her shapely bodice and attempt to adjust
her overbite. Our Aspects number was "I Sleep with Everyone," to the tune of "Love
Changes Everything." It was a big hit, partly because who is sleeping with whom in
showbiz is always of great interest to the entire world. (We could do a whole sidebar
on that subject....)
    Miss Saigon was a big hit of the early '90s, but it wasn't as spoofable as Les Miz
because the songs weren't as hummable. We did have some fun with all the hoopla about the race-blind casting of Jonathan Pryce as the Engineer in that show. Equity
objected to bringing over a British star for the part, especially because the role was
Eurasian. We spoofed Equity president Colleen Dewhurst objecting to Pryce's castingand what made it really hilarious was that we had Mary Denise Bentley, an AfricanAmerican actress, playing Dewhurst. She appeared onstage and said, "In order to
protest Cameron Mackintosh bringing Jonathan Pryce over from London to play this
role, I have now become black." It was one of the biggest laughs we ever got. Then we
had "Jonathan Pryce" come out and sing "I'm an Asian, Too." That number was Phill
George's idea, and he wrote most of the lyric:

    Attend the tale of Teeny Todd! Jeff Lyons and Marilyn Pasekoff.

    Left: Susanne Blakeslee as a jaded, chain-smoking Orphan Annie. Right; Herndon Lackey, Susanne Blakeslee,
and Jeff Lyons confess: "I Sleep with Everyone." (On Broadway, who doesn't?)

    Herndon lackey as Jonathan Pryce in Miss
Saigon: "I'm an Asian, Too!"

    At the time, Phill and I used to work out at the same gym; it was a Bally's on Broadway at 76th Street, located over a D'Agostino's supermarket. We called it "Fags Over
Dag's." I was in aerobics class one day when he came running in, yelling, "Gerard!
Gerard!" The aerobics teacher turned off the music, and Phill shouted, "Colleen Dewhurst just died!" The teacher said, "I'm so sorry, was she a friend of yours?" And I
said, "No, we just lost the biggest laugh in our show!"
    "Grim Hotel" was one of my favorite spoofs of that or any year. Grand Hotel
was so easy to make fun of because of all that German Sturm and Drang. A lot
of the music is in minor keys, and there were all