The cabaret genre is very popular with Broadway stars. It’s often a selection of songs that reflects their career, their lives, their loves. Debbie Gravitte, who won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1989 for Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, certainly could do that. And she has before. But this time she’s serving as entertainer and host of Debbie Gravitte Plus One, a new series that begins on Monday night at Birdland in New York.
Gravitte will be joined by friends of hers who will join for conversation and song. Monday’s guest is composer Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin). On May 9th she’ll be joined by composer Marc Shaiman (Hairspray; Catch Me If You Can) and on September 12th her guest will be Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy; Kinky Boots).
Gravitte finds that all three of her guests have something in common.
“These first three people I’ve asked happened to be all incredibly wealthy, famous Jewish men,” she said during our recent Zoom conversation. “I know them personally. I’ve experienced things with them as as friends and in business and I think that they feel comfortable with me.”
Though she’s never appeared on Broadway in a show created by any of these three men, she has had other working relationships with them.
“Stephen and I did concerts before Wicked opened. I was like the first person who sang Defying Gravity,” she revealed. “Of course I did Godspell because I think every human being who’s ever done a show in their life has done either Godspell or Pippin. And Marc Shaiman, when I met him I think he was 17 or 18. We were both really young and he was already playing for Bette Midler because his talent is undeniable. It’s just crazy. He did the orchestrations and arrangements for my first cabaret show. And then Harvey happens to live in my town in Connecticut. We’ve become buddies. I was doing a show at a local theater here and I asked Harvey to come and we sang Do You Love Me from Fiddler [On The Roof]. So we sort of performed together.”
When asked about opportunities she’d like to have with Schwartz, Shaiman and Fierstein, she doesn’t hesitate with her dream roles – one of which is surprising.
“I’d love to be Elphaba. Although when I first took my children they turned to me, I think they were like 10 years old, and said, ‘Mom, you are so perfect for this show. You’d be the perfect Glinda,’ because they think I’m funny. So I’d love to do Elphaba, scream my lungs out and fly. Wouldn’t it be glorious? And with Marc, I’d like to be the lead in Catch Me If You Can. I’d like to sing Live in Living Color. That’s not going to happen. And I think that I’m in the perfect role with Harvey because we’re friends.”
For all of her experiences on concert stages, Broadway (including Zorba and Chicago) and cabaret venues, it was a suggestion years ago from a former late-night talk show host/comedian that inspired Debbie Gravitte Plus One.
“I was opening for Jay Leno years ago in Atlantic City. This was right after I’d won the Tony Award. I had all my dialogue written out. It was so scripted. And he says to me, ‘You know you’re really funny. Why don’t you just talk? Which is why I’m doing this series. I’m very comfortable just talking.”
As Gravitte was when we she told a great story about being in London with lyricist Fred Ebb (Cabaret; Kiss of the Spider Woman) and composer Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!; Mame).
“I’m trying to breathe basically thinking about how rich these men are and how incredibly famous they are and their bodies of work. This was before Chicago had its second life on Broadway for Fred. Jerry walks away and Fred says to me, ‘God I wish I was as famous as Jerry Herman.’ What is he talking about? He’s Fred Ebb of Kander and Ebb, and I just realize that it’s very relative. It’s just part of life; the grass is always greener.”
For Gravitte, who grew up in West Los Angeles, being around people like her guests or Ebb or Herman wasn’t necessarily what she thought her life would be.
“I don’t think so, but I think I always hoped so. Who knows what you’re thinking as a girl growing up in L.A.? Literally my house overlooked 20th Century Fox. It was really up high on a hill. I could literally see 20th Century Fox; movies, movies, movies, movies. And all I ever wanted to do was Broadway – to be a Broadway star.”
She achieved her dream and is fully aware of how privileged she is to have done so.
“I was doing a concert one time and this woman came up to me. I guess she was of a certain age. She was older and she came up to me weeping. ‘I always wanted to do what you wanted to do.’ Then I’m saying, ‘Well, you can do it. You can still do it. You can sing in the shower.’
“When I am standing on a stage and am fully present and people are gazing back at me with that look of expectation, I absolutely feel like I am the luckiest human on the planet. I get to do what millions of people wish they could do. You know me, I wish I could build bookshelves. We all have things we want to do. I’ve never gone ‘I am an actor. I’m a dancer. I’m a singer.’ I’m an entertainer. I want to entertain people.”
To see and hear the entire delightful conversation with Debbie Gravitte, please go here.
Photo: Debbie Gravitte (photo by Bill Westmoreland/Courtesy of Birdland)