RITA'S TURN

The Voice, even speaking over the telephone, invites the obvious comparisons. Brassy with the volume ratcheted up, Rita McKenzie, like her favorite subject, sounds like a broad, a term that has morphed over the years from being complimentary to being considered insulting.

During the pre-feminism halcyon days of Broadway, being a broad was a label to be worn with pride. You might even say that part of Merman’s charisma was her broad (in every sense of the word) persona.

From her fierce Annie Oakley (Annie Get Your Gun) to her unflappable Sally Adams (Call Me Madam) to her feral Mama Rose (Gypsy), Merman shared an aggressive independence and a don’t-fuckwith- me-fellas demeanor with the gallery of characters that she brought to life. But in spite of the gals’ ostensible ability to take on the opposite sex (“Anything You Can Do”), these were women who simultaneously longed to be lost in the arms of a man.

Like the women she portrayed onstage, Merman longed to find offstage domestic happiness, but a total of four unsuccessful marriages must have filled her with a sense of failure. Coupled with unrealized desire for movie stardom, which had been gestating since she was a child standing outside Paramount’s Astoria Studios in New York, the undercurrent of Merman’s dashed dreams was not erased by her legendary track record on the boards.

Not only did Merman not achieve the movie stardom she coveted; her abilities as an actress were overshadowed by her uniquely phenomenal singing voice.

The unparalleled stage success proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Being a household name played havoc with her marriages and role as a mother (her daughter eventually died of an overdose that was assumed to be suicidal). Yet clearly her reputation as a professional stalwart provided her with an identity she clung to even though it was an identity that often carried a whiff of disdain: a star, not an artist. Or maybe she only achieved that ambiguous status of celebrity. Eventually, she faced the final put-down that many actresses strive to avoid: Merman was a camp.

When she rehearsed a lovey-dovey duet with Fernando Lamas, he looked into her eyes as he sang the lyrics. Ethel’s head was focused on her priority: the audience. Lamas was furious. “Is she always going to do this?” he shouted.

The answer was “yes,” she was. Merman played opposite the audience, not her leading man or supporting players.

The audiences came to see Merman more than Annie or Rose or Sally and, as odd as it sounds, she may not have embraced audiences as wholeheartedly if she had put the characters before herself.

McKenzie astutely describes the love affair she cultivated with those people out there in the dark. “When Ethel was in charge, you knew you were going to be OK,” McKenzie says. In other words, for an entire generation of theatergoers, Merman provided comfort that swept across the footlights.

In her upcoming local appearances at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse and the San Fernando Valley Playhouse at El Portal Theatre, McKenzie will attempt to serve audiences that quality. “I want everything to be all right during the time they are in the theater,” she says. Capturing Merman’s sterling gift is not an act of impersonation, McKenzie insists. “I evoke her,” the singer-actress says. “The thing I have in common with her is spirit,” McKenzie points out.

In reality, McKenzie is probably a better actress than Merman was, and undoubtedly not as mechanical. Merman, especially as she gained box office power, would insist on freezing the performance a week before the show’s opening night.

“It’s frozen,” she’d announce—not as a diva, but rather as a scientist who made meticulous choices that were technical in nature. “Call me Miss Birdseye,” she quipped, referencing the popular brand of frozen dinners. And frozen it was. There were no subtle shifts of nuance, no kinetic emotional adjustments to accommodate the other performers.

While Merman steadfastly comforted audience after audience, year after year, night after night, she remained virtually without comfort. So even though she was undergoing yet another divorce, while performing Gypsy, she didn’t “substitute” (an acting technique) her own life in order to make Rose’s more authentic.

But she made a choice to keep her pain at home, miles away from the boards. If you wanted Stanislavski-inspired verisimilitude, you’d go see Geraldine Page do Tennessee Williams.

“Well, someone tell me, when is it my turn?” Rose wails, alone in the glare of the spotlight, delivering Stephen Sondheim’s tour de force song-monologue that elevated Gypsy to a level of drama that had seldom been attempted in a Broadway musical. “Don’t I get a dream for myself?”

Certainly it must have crossed Merman’s mind that this was a manifestation of art mirroring life, but that fact was not reflected in her straightforward, no-frills performance. Merman’s powerful spirit prevailed, as it always did, but it didn’t delve deep into Rose’s psyche to reveal the anguished similarities between the two women. “She was a regular gal,” McKenzie says. “She kept the same friends that she had in high school. She was straight as an arrow.

“She was also a very feminine woman,” McKenzie says, “but people didn’t see it.” McKenzie had never seen her perform live and was non-plussed when people suggested that she was Mermanesque. As the performer began to study Merman, “a kinship” became clearer and clearer.

At the top of her show, McKenzie as Merman makes an announcement, “A lot of men can sing louder than I can,” she points out. “But not for an hour and a half. She then lets the audience know that she’s a Republican and an Episcopalian.” Her conservatism must have been challenged when trash novelist Jacqueline Susann intimated that she and the Broadway babe had engaged in a lesbian love affair.“She was in love with Ethel,” McKenzie asserts. I find that bit of fiction less believable than the rumored marriage between Jim Nabors and Rock Hudson.

An unflattering version of Merman appeared on the pages of Susann’s Valley of the Dolls, and then resurfaced on film via Susan Hayward by way of Judy Garland. Helen Lawson was projected as yet another comeback for Garland who was tragically dysfunctional and grossly miscast. Too vulnerable to play Lawson/Merman, it was impossible for Garland to not bring her complex fragility to a role, and right into the camera’s lens, a fragility that was antithetical to everything Lawson and, to a degree, Merman possessed. Casting Susan Hayward as the foul-mouthed, brittle star was also doomed. No matter how much braying she did, Hayward’s elegant stature, like an ill-fitting slip, was always showing. In truth, it was Susann herself who could have nailed Merman’s testosterone-driven, take-charge position.

The movie, like many of the actresses involved, immediately became a camp classic, another bond created by the gay community’s identification with fading beauty, excess, and man trouble. Camp, as defined by McKenzie, “is still doing something you did 50 years ago.”

Merman’s iconic camp status was elevated to dizzying heights when she released an all-disco version of her hits that could be heard on dance floors in gay clubs worldwide. “She was very proud of her gay following,” McKenzie says.

A somewhat daft appearance on The Tonight Show, belting out a pumped-up version of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” with an overwrought disco beat, displayed not a hint of embarrassment or self-awareness on Merman’s part. She was doing her job, thankyouverymuch, and grateful they still cared. At the end of her life, Miss Birdseye committed to working as a volunteer at a hospital gift shop in Manhattan. One day a week, the woman who originated 30 roles on Broadway donned a blue smock and tallied up sales, rain or shine.

“She was always a saleswoman,” McKenzie says. “A saleswoman of songs.”

Merman must have been validated yet again when an appearance on the 1984 Oscars was set. But on the morning of her departure to Los Angles, while a driver waited outside her building to take her to the airport, she suffered a stroke.

The wanna-be movie star who couldn’t get a man with a gun (or anything else for that matter); a theatrical force of nature who carried on an intense love affair with her audiences for decades; the mother who would never recover from her daughter’s death; the broad who possessed an unlikely combination of common sense, compassion and commitment; the Merm died a month or so later.

The View (Los Angeles) , Feb 05 – A View From The Aisle
Theatre Review

“Ethel Merman’s Broadway”  -- Greatness Worth Re-experiencing

By: Joseph Sirota

I’ve often counseled – “Don’t miss a chance to see a living legend, —life’s too short, legends too rare, and such memories too precious to forego”. Sometimes, it’s too late, yet fate gives us the next best opportunity. Remarkably talented songtress Rita McKenzie’s powerful, funny and clearly heartfelt musical/biographical salute to Broadway’s reigning Queen of the showstopper, Ethel Merman is a rare chance to magically step back in time while enjoying a swimmingly fun live evening in the present.

 “Legend”.. perhaps an overused word in a world where even superstars may fade within a handful of years, and regular stars even more quickly become hard to remember until they show up on game shows or doing commercials. My compensation for being, .. well not exactly a kid anymore, is I grew up seeing some of these entertainment legends who not only “lasted”, but left indelible impressions – in their field. They set standards even future greats are measured by. Ethel Merman surely earned the title, legend. Perhaps the most explosively powerful Broadway singer/actress to ever rule the live musical comedy stage, Merman made showstopping song after song by Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Sondheim… “her own”, for all other Broadway divas to follow.

Sadly, Merman, like Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Patsy Cline and Judy Garland is no longer with us. But like these other “originals”, Merman lives on not only in her recorded and filmed works, but by virtue of a current live show that pays worthy tribute to the greatness that made the legend and brings us a welcome first-hand taste of the talent and magic that was Ethel Merman.

I found Rita McKenzie, to be a most formidable singer/performer in her own right. She radiates the solid stripes of a veteran of Broadway, national tours, TV, film and many “Pops” evenings with top-tier symphony orchestras.  But audiences will still find it surprising.. even, remarkable when McKenzie starts belting out those Merman signature songs just how striking her gift is for capturing Merman’s amazing vocal strength, clarity and emotional richness. In signature song after song, “I Got Rhythm”, “Anything Goes”, “I Get a Kick Out of You”, “Doin’ What Comes Naturally”, “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun”, “They Say It’s Wonderful”, “Hostess With the Mostes”, “There’s No Business Like Show business”..(and many more), McKenzie never misses a beat, quarter note, or nuance --even though fighting a lingering sore throat(singing with Merman-esque power with a sore throat ..Talk about “the show must go on” – Brava.

More than this, Rita also captures the subtler Merman – the vulnerable side, the unsure side that has to remind herself she’s a star, -- the neighborhood girl from Queens who still maintains her excellent secretarial skills with pride. These real elements that stayed with Merman, even after decades of rubbing shoulders with show-biz greats and world shakers are given life as well. Using the premise that we’re guests there to discuss her upcoming film autobiography, Rita(as Ethel) openly, warmly and humorously tells of her life path. Sure, she relates the super moments – praise from the greatest pop composers, and immediate stardom following the “Annie Get Your Gun” opening, -- but also the sad broken marriages, loss of a child and miscast film backfires. It works.

Christopher Powich directs, achieving the right balance between blazing showstoppers and warm, naturalistic humor and narrative. Powich should get the right beats—as he originally wrote “Ethel Merman’s Broadway”. Musical Director Ron Snyder, is also a fine accompanist; the live music is well-matched to Ms McKenzie’s unforgettable vocals in the Merman style. There are two chances to see this most likable show. If you miss “Merman’s Broadway” in the neighboring South Bay Hermosa Beach Playhouse run , it’s worth catching in North Hollywood’s El Portal Theatre.

Entertainment News/LOS ANGELES EASY READER, Jan 27 05

Ethel Merman's Broadway

by Deanna Alisa Ableser

"They Say It's Wonderful" that "There's No Business Like Show Business,"
and Rita McKenzie as Ethel Merman in Ethel Merman‚s Broadway definitely
knows the wonders of show business.

Ethel Merman's Broadway is a one-woman show that captures the essence and
spirit of the absolutely amazing Ethel Merman. McKenzie captures the
personality and vocal stylings of Merman and brings Merman's humanity to
the audience. She also balances out the piece, mixing personal tales,
popular songs, and audience interaction into one classy act. Under the
premise of interviewing for a movie about Merman's life, McKenzie really
lets us into Merman's history from her start as a secretary (120 words a
minute) to her becoming the "Queen of the Broadway Musical." McKenzie also
lets us into Merman's soul as we learn about her four husbands and her two
children, Little Ethel and Little Bobby.

McKenzie uses audience interaction in just the right mix. From having
audience members join her in "There's no Business like Show Business" to
passing out Ritz crackers with jalapeno dip to prove that she is "the
hostess with the mostess" from Call Me Madam to signing autographs after
the show, the audience begins to feel a real kinship with McKenzie and,
through her, with Merman.

McKenzie does all the favorites along with some lesser-known songs. Though
fighting a bad cold, McKenzie belts the songs out with fervor and passion.
My personal favorites from the evening were a medley of Annie Get Your Gun
songs and a show-stopping rendition of "Some People" and "Everything's
Coming Up Roses."

Writing (Christopher Powich and Rita McKenzie) and direction (Powich)
really give the show a nice sense. It's not all singing, it's not all
audience interaction, it's not all story after story; it's a nice blend of
Ethel. Musical direction (Ron Snyder) adds sweetly to that mixture as does
lighting design (Peter L. Smith) and costume design (Eric Winterling).

If you are an Ethel Merman fan, you really can't go wrong with this show.
McKenzie obviously respects, adores, and treasures Ethel Merman. So, go
ahead, see it. You never know what "roses" might just be coming up for you.

Thursday, February 10, 2005 Los Angeles Daily News

'Merman': brassy, bold and bigger than life

By Katherine Karlin
Correspondent

Rita McKenzie gives an affectionate portrayal of a stage legend in "Ethel Merman's Broadway" at the El Portal Theatre.

It may be hard to remember a time when Broadway musicals were built around more than, say, a string of hits from a mediocre Swedish pop group, or that the giants of American song - George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter - wrote numbers that quickly became standards, and that these prolific songwriters shared the unlikeliest of muses: a brazen broad from Astoria, Queens, with the build of a linebacker and the voice of a trumpet swan.

"George Gershwin said I could hold a note longer than the Chase Manhattan Bank," says Rita McKenzie as Ethel Merman in the one-woman show "Ethel Merman's Broadway." Merman had another talent that enchanted audiences of the '30s and '40s. She was loud. Really loud. No body mike ever nested in the ruffles of her taffeta gowns. And because Rita McKenzie is a mere mortal, she might need a little amplification, she might not be able to hold the "I" in "I Got Rhythm" quite as long, but she does a credible imitation of La Merman, affectionate enough to avoid satire.

With her flat-footed stance, rectangular smile, and manner of accepting applause like a queen suffering the idolatry of her subjects, McKenzie has Merman's stage presence down pat. But it's through the songs that her performance approaches psychic channeling. And what songs. "Anything Goes," "There's No Business Like Show Business," "You're Just in Love," "Everything's Coming Up Roses" - the American songbook is weighted by the tunes Merman introduced. Inevitably, the production omits some (most grievously, the show-stopping "Rose's Turn"), but the audience gets an earful, gamely accompanied by an onstage combo led by Ron Snyder.

The patter between numbers, including a labored bit in which the star serves cheese and crackers to the audience, seems to be contrived only to give McKenzie's pipes a well-deserved break. We hear fleeting references to Merman's four marriages and two children, but little of her collaborators and co-stars, and nothing of her reputation for being difficult, diva-ish and dense as brick cheese.

Like her friend and rival Mary Martin, Ethel Merman bridged the transition from the chirpy song-based musicals of the 1930s to the darker, book-based shows of the 1950s and '60s. "Gypsy," the glorious tour de force of Merman's later years, gave the star a chance to show off her acting chops as the fire-breathing Mama Rose. Similarly, when she performs "Some People," McKenzie transcends mere impersonation and gives us a glimpse of real star material.

Holllywood Reporter, February 8, 2005

Ethel Merman's Broadway

By Ed Kaufman

Written by Christopher Powich (who also artfully directs) and Rita McKenzie (who also stars), "Ethel Merman's Broadway" is a captivating, compelling and lyrical solo tour de force salute to Merman, the Queen of Broadway, when Broadway was still king and ruled the world as far as musical entertainment is concerned.

She was a glorious and golden moment during the golden age of Broadway musicals. She was described once as "a doll from Astoria with a trumpet in her throat." When Merman sang, Irving Berlin once said, "You could hear her up and down Broadway." And George Gershwin warned her, "Never go near a music teacher."

With the talented McKenzie, it's as if Merman, who died in 1984, is once again among us. Not only does McKenzie look like Merman, she talks like Merman, walks like Merman, acts like Merman -- and belts a song like the brash, boisterous Merman.

Merman's legendary voice is easily recognizable, somewhere between a foghorn and a siren -- always with the volume ratcheted up. And so is McKenzie's as she goes from the fierce Annie Oakley ("Annie Get Your Gun") to the unflappable Sally Adams ("Call Me Madam") to the feral ferocity in her greatest 1950s triumph as Mama Rose in the classic "Gypsy."

Still, the show is more than a revue. Powich and McKenzie have created a narrative structure that has Merman sitting in a chair in her living room entertaining a movie producer who wants to make a film of her life. And by "sheer coincidence," musical director Ron Synder and his seven-piece orchestra are onstage.

As the show unfolds, McKenzie seems to blend more and more with Merman, especially the more mature Merman of the '50s. By then, she had starred in 14 Broadway shows, including "Girl Crazy," "Something for the Boys," "Panama Hattie" and "DuBarry Was a Lady." All told, she introduced more than 100 songs by many of the great composers of her era: Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Berlin, Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman. Twenty-three of them are in the show, including "Friendship," "You're the Top," "Ridin' High," "I Got Rhythm," "Anything Goes," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "It's Delovely," and the touching "Let's Be Buddies."

As for Merman's personal life, it was something of a mess: four failed marriages (including a brief stint with Ernest Borgnine) and a daughter who died of an overdose.

Still, McKenzie as Merman doesn't dwell on the past as she wows and overwhelms us with "Some People," "I Had a Dream" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses," also from "Gypsy," the ultimate story of a showbiz mother with ambition and chutzpah who is still something of a den mother. Very much like the Powich/McKenzie portrait of Queen Merman.

RITA MCKENZIE RECREATING AWARD-WINNING ROLE AS QUEEN OF BROADWAY’S GOLDEN AGE IN THE HIT MUSICAL, "ETHEL MERMAN’S BROADWAY"

Here's a February, 2005, review from Goldstar's ROAR OF THE CROWD-LOS ANGELES.

Rita McKenzie, among Broadway, Hollywood and television’s most versatile actresses recreates her internationally acclaimed tour de force performance in ETHEL MERMAN’S BROADWAY

Launched Off-Broadway at New York’s John Houseman Theater, Rita McKenzie’s personal success triggered an international tour taking her to Carnegie Hall, Pasadena Playhouse, Harrah’s Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, and on an SRO eight-city tour of Japan. Earlier, McKenzie starred in the Los Angeles premiere of the Off-Broadway musical, RUTHLESS!, and can be heard on the original cast album. She also toured the country as Annie Oakley in the 50th Anniversary production of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN with Glen Yarbrough. An accomplished TV and film actress, McKenzie recently played Alice, the housekeeper, on Fox’s "The Brady Bunch: The Final Days," has guest-starred on NBC’s "Caroline in the City," and will be recalled for her roles as Mrs. Littlejohn on NBC’s "Frazier," Rita Marcus on the Family Channel’s "Big Brother Jake," and her recurring role on "Daddy Dearest," starring Richard Lewis and Don Rickles.


In addition to having conceived and directed both the Off-Broadway and Pasadena Playhouse productions of ETHEL MERMAN’S BROADWAY, director Christopher Powich wrote and directed McKenzie’s nationally acclaimed symphony "pops" tribute to Ethel Merman. He directed McKenzie and Carole Shelley in the re-enactment of Ethel Merman and Mary Martin’s famous 1995 television medley at New York’s Rainbow and Stars Nightclub and continued his association with McKenzie when he created, directed and performed with her in "Class Act," a night club revue which toured the Eastern United States.

REVIEWS • TOUR SCHEDULE•
MARKETING MATERIALS • TECH RIDER
CONTACT STANDER & ASSOCIATES