Laura Osnes may be the smartest person on Broadway right now. She went from a dinner theatre production of Grease, sang her guts out on a TV show no one in the industry respected, got very poor reviews in a very poorly reviewed production, and walked out with a coveted replacement role.
From the start, Laura Osnes was my #1 pick on Grease: You’re the One That I Want, and I felt like she had the talent to make it. But the truth is, there’s so much more to star power than just talent. Sam Levene couldn’t sing strongly, but he was cast as Nathan Detroit in the original cast of Guys and Dolls for other talents. Gertrude Lawrence was also not a singer, but she starred in The King and I, originating some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s best songs (for the record, every Rodgers and Hammerstein’s score has some of their best songs, except maybe Me and Juliet, but it always seems like the right thing to say). I haven’t yet seen Osnes on stage in a big Broadway show, but I know she at least has the singing talent.
And her recent casting in South Pacific proves she’s got something important, and whatever it is, she’s going to be selling tickets to South Pacific. If I make it to NYC this summer, South Pacific is now on my “Must See” list (it was with Kelli O’Hara, but with just any replacement cast member, it would not have been). And how many Broadway people are out there who are more experienced could have out-performed Osnes in the role? Quite possibly a ton . . . actresses who have been pounding the pavement for years, who have refined themselves with three other lead roles in Broadway shows, earning rave reviews for each one.
But they’re not the smartest person on Broadway.
Why more Broadway babies don’t audition for those singing and dancing reality shows, I’ll never know. It’s a long shot, but auditioning for a Jersey Boys replacements is pretty darn long too. And it’s probably much easier than spending all that time griping about Laura Osnes, Max Crumm, Constantine Maroulis, or Diane DeGarmo "stealing roles from legitimate Broadway performers."
As a performer, take every chance you get. As a writer, take every chance you get. There are darn too few of them that come along to pass any up.
At one point, Osnes’ husband (pictured above) had talked about possibly getting back to performing. After all, the story is that they met in a children’s theatre production of Aladdin. If he has chosen to go that direction, then let me tell you, he needs to take every chance he can get. And he’d better not be shy about using his wife’s connections.
Take every chance you can get.
Take every chance you can get.
Take every chance you can get.
the Broadway Mouth
February 23, 2009
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