INTERVIEW: ‘Celebrity Autobiography’ puts comedic twist on famous memoirs
Image: Courtesy of Celebrity Autobiography / Provided by BBB with permission.
The love triangle that involved Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher ate up the headlines and was the talk of the town in the late 1950s. So the story goes, Taylor and Fisher began an affair, betraying Reynolds and creating enough fodder for the paparazzi and tabloids for many months.
The story actually has been on Broadway before. The late great Carrie Fisher, daughter of Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, described the relational shenanigans in her hilarious one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, and now that triangle is back in the spotlight — along with a tongue firmly planted in the cheek.
Celebrity Autobiography has been a hit evening of comedy for many years, having played to packed crowds off-Broadway and around the world. Now the hilarious sendup of celebrity memoirs is on Broadway for a few Monday performances at the Marquis Theatre. The limited engagement continues Dec. 10 and Dec. 17.
Celebrity Autobiography is the brainchild of Eugene Pack, a writer and performer who has a slew of credits to his name. Dayle Reyfel helped Pack develop the piece over the years, and they both perform in what can only be described as a unique night at the theater.
Here’s the pitch: Real-life celebrities and performers take to the Marquis Theatre stage to deliver monologues, the text of which has been lovingly pulled from celebrity autobiographies. The result of their spot-on recitations is often gut-busting. Imagine Saturday Night Live alumna Rachel Dratch reading from Mr. T’s memoir, or Lewis Black remembering the time when Vanna White almost had a wardrobe malfunction when turning those letters on Wheel of Fortune. Other stars in the rotating Broadway cast include Alec Baldwin, Susan Lucci, Mario Cantone, Cecily Strong and Antoni Porowski, among others.
Recently, Pack and Reyfel talked to Hollywood Soapbox about what audiences can expect from Celebrity Autobiography. Here’s part one of that conversation with Pack (part two with Reyfel to follow).
On the origins of Celebrity Autobiography and its path to Broadway …
“We’ve been doing the show off-Broadway successfully at Triad Theatre, and we’ve had the most amazing performers involved rotating. It won the Drama Desk Award for unique theatrical experience, and we’ve also toured with the show. We’ve done it at Sydney Opera House, Edinburgh Comedy Festival, the whole United States, little stints here and there, so it’s been quite a journey.
“We’ve always, of course, wanted to have our show on a Broadway stage. It’s such a unique evening that you really have to see it to experience the full comedy of this simple premise and simple idea. It really, really is a very memorable experience in the theater for people, to see these performers in action reading from other celebrity memoirs. It’s really funny. I like to say that it’s probably the only show that anyone will ever see that was inspired by the autobiography of Vanna White.”
On how Vanna White inspired the show …
“I have a comedy background, of course, in writing and performing, and I came across a hardcover edition of Vanna Speaks by Vanna White in a used bookstore. And I pulled it off the shelf, and I thought, what did she write about? How did she fill this gigantic book with her memoir? And I started flipping through it, and I found this chapter where she talks about how challenging it is to flip the panels on Wheel of Fortune.
“I was reading out loud to myself, [paraphrasing], but one day my belt broke on national television, and I held on to that loop. And I kept flipping those panels. And I thought, if you could read sections like this and figure out a creative way to present it to an audience … could that be a show? And from that, Celebrity Autobiography was born, and it started out small. We always thought big with it, and that’s why it’s very exciting to do it at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway. And we have plans, of course, to bring it back.”
On what exactly happens at each performance …
“It’s so fun, so if you have never seen the show before, what we do is we do these solo pieces. So someone will come out. For example, Matthew Broderick will read from David Hasselhoff’s autobiography, a section, and later on we have what we call celebrity mashups where we combine different autobiographies. So we’ll have someone reading Burt Reynolds, someone reading Lonnie Anderson, and Burt Reynolds’ secretary wrote a book, which is hilarious that all these people are writing books about their experiences with Burt Reynolds. And we have this Ping-Pong, he-said-she-said-she-said up there, and we act it all out.
“And later we do Eddie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor from their autobiographies and talk about the greatest love triangle in Hollywood history, and we have people playing Richard Burton. … So as you can see, it’s really creative, and one evening, one show, we act out a variety of different memoirs. We’ll have themes where people will be reading from sports figures: Arnold [Schwarzenegger], [Sylvester] Stallone, Tiger Woods, Joe Namath. And then in another one, we’ll read from music legends like Celine Dion, Ricky Martin, Dolly Parton, back and forth. So you get the gist of it.”
On whether the guest performers select the material or the show’s creative team selects the material …
“We choose the material for them. In a way, each show is different; however, it’s really structured and taken seriously about who reads what and the order, and there’s a whole build to the evening. So it’s not a random open-mic night situation. It’s edited in a certain way that is conducive to this epic evening. …
“We’ll have Rachel Dratch reading the memoir of Mr. T, so that’s it’s completely oddball. Lewis Black read from Vanna White, as I mentioned.
“It’s not a mean-spirited show. I really like to point that out. It’s really important. It’s not mean-spirited. It’s not making fun of anyone. Picture Tony Danza acting out Justin Bieber’s memoir on stage. It’s the opposite. It’s from the book that they wrote. It’s performing monologues that happened to be written by people like Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. Who knew they were writers.”
On what the rehearsal process looks like …
“The show has evolved over years, so there’s some people that have done the show. For people that have never done it, it’s really a quick rehearsal. We’re not looking for polished performances or impersonations. It’s not like that. It’s pretty loose. As I said though, everyone gets a chance to go over the material. It’s not random or cold reading.”
On whether the show will extend beyond Dec. 17 …
“We want people to come see it. We have two more shows, Monday, Dec. 10 and Monday, Dec. 17, and the cast varies, the material varies. Once that wraps up, we’ll be exploring bringing it back to New York. We’re definitely going to tour with it. We’ll definitely bring it back to New York, for sure; however, right now these two dates we want to encourage everyone to come see it at the Marquis Theatre.”
On how they invite guests to perform …
“These are people that I work with, and also sometimes they’ll come in and say, oh, you know who would be great doing this or would love to do this. And then sometimes we have other producers and casting people that connect from all different sources. Performers really, really enjoy doing this show. It’s a chance for them to work with people that they’ve never really worked with before, that they admire, so it’s fun to see everyone also interacting, getting a kick out of each other.”
On his role during each performance …
“I host the evening, and I perform in it. I love doing Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods wrote a book called How I Played Golf, and in it, he talks about how he approaches the whole club, his putter and what he does for his pre-putt routine. Now, of course, all of this was written years ago, and when you read it now, it takes on a different meaning.
“And you don’t have to do much with the material. It’s so fun to read that straight and have a reaction from that. I also love doing Neil Sedaka’s autobiography — Neil Sedaka, of course, legendary singer-songwriter. He has a chapter about what he eats in every single restaurant he goes to. It goes on and on. He’ll talk about what he eats in a Chinese restaurant, a French restaurant, a Japanese restaurant in detail, and that’s so much fun to do.”
On growing up with comedy and performance in his life …
“I always gravitated toward comedy and performing and creating one-man shows and different comedy sketches and studied at Second City. I’m always looking for creative ways to gather people and put casts together and perform in it myself, so, yes, I’ve always loved doing this. And this idea has really opened up so many possibilities and given us a chance to work with these fantastic people.”
On whether the show changes a lot for engagements in other countries …
“When we do it, for example, in London or overseas, we make sure that we do authors that anyone knows: David Hasselhoff, Madonna, Beyoncé, pretty much international. If we do it in a specific city somewhere, we try to read from an autobiography that they would really get a kick out of. In New York, it’s all over the map, of course. If we do it anywhere else, we revise it.”
On whether he could ever have imagined his idea would make it to Broadway one day …
“What’s fun about that is whatever I do, I always imagine, oh, this could be big. This could be on Broadway. This could be a movie. This could run all around the country, so there’s always a part of me that thinks, hmm, let’s think with this. But let’s not have any expectations when we first do it. Let’s really do the work, put it out there, get the reaction. In the back of my mind, there is always that this could really go to Broadway, and let’s shoot for the moon.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Celebrity Autobiography continues Monday, Dec. 10 and Monday, Dec. 17 at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information, including the rotating cast, and tickets.
