Stage Star

Bebe Neuwirth will take the stage at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts with her one-woman show.

By Neil Cohen

Bebe, it's You!

Broadway and television actress brings her star power to Scottsdale

Photo by Chris Calkins

Bebe Neuwirth won over television audiences as the stiff and repressed, but lovable, Lilith Sternin on Cheers and Fraiser, but years before she was a TV character she had been dancing and acting on Broadway.

The versatile performer will bring her show, "Stories With Piano," to the Valley Oct. 15 to open the season at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts.

During a telephone interview from New York City, Neuwirth hesitated to call the show she does with pianist Scott Cady a cabaret performance. "It's sort of hard to describe, because some of the songs are from Broadway shows, but some of them are from Tom Waits and there's a Beatles song in there and there's an Edith Piaf song in there," she said.

"They are a group of songs that either tell a story in a narrative way or they are a moment in a person's life that is so compelling or so emotional or so deep that you know there's a big story behind it," Neuwirth said.

She said the show is different than the experience of acting on stage. "It's an interesting thing to stand on stage as yourself and not be a character like Jenny in Threepenny Opera or Velma (in Chicago) or Mortitia (from The Addams Family)," Neuwirth said. "I'm just me. I don't want to stand onstage and tell you all about myself because I just think that's far too narcissistic and boring an exercise for me.

But since she selected songs that she relates to for the show, Neuwirth acknowledged that afterwards "there is something that you might know about me ... maybe."

Born outside Princeton, N.J., Neuwirth developed a love of ballet at an early age. "I've been in ballet classes since I was 5 and been on stage since I was 7, so it's really when I'm dancing that I feel most comfortable and most at home," Neuwirth said.

"I enjoy television and film a lot and I enjoy being in a play or singing in these concerts that I do immensely, but there's something a little bit different when I am dancing onstage," she said.

Her first Broadway role was a coup, playing Sheila in A Chorus Line at age 19 in 1978. The show was a phenomenon. "The show was only three years old at the time," she said. "Picture a Broadway without helicopters landing onstage or chandeliers rising up or people dressed up as cats so much that you don't even see the person anymore," she said. "It was a different time, maybe a more human time on Broadway. It was just thrilling beyond words."

Neuwirth started in the tour, then graduated to the Broadway production, where she got to work with more experienced dancers who had done shows with legendary choreographers like Gower Champion and Bob Fosse.

Neuwirth went on to work with Fosse, winning Tony Awards for her roles in Sweet Charity and Chicago. Emmys for Cheers followed.

Her biggest Broadway triumph was the result of a concert version of Kander & Ebb's 1975 Chicago at Encores! at City Center. No one thought it would go further, but she said the audience response "blew the roof off of the theater."

Ten years after blowing audiences away as merry murderess Velma Kelly, and after hip replacement surgery in 2006, Neuwirth returned to the cast playing the other killer, Roxie Hart. in the Chicago revival.

It was a great experience, both because she got to see the show from a different angle, but also because it set aside any worries that she wouldn't dance again.

"There were two things going on," she said. "One was the absolute exalting feeling of being able to dance again after excruciating pain and going through an operation and all the physical therapy. And the other thing was being able to experience the show from a different perspective made me appreciate it all the more."

Neuwirth's new album, Porcelain, can be ordered online at theleopardworksrecords.com -E

VITAL STATISTICS
Bebe Neuwirth: Stories with Piano
8 p.m. Oct. 15
Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts
7280 E. Second St., Scottsdale
Tickets: $59-$149
480-499-8587; www.scottsdaleperformingarts.org

Neuwirth on LGBT issues

Marriage: "Sometimes, when (same-sex) couples come and tell me that they just got married and that they wanted to come see me in a show, I find that extremely moving, because marriage for anyone is a big deal. To be included in the celebration of that means a lot to me."

Bullying: "Bullying is lousy no matter the degree, but there was a girl who made my life hell for the fifth grade, really horrible, and you know, I hate her to this day. ... Be yourself and believe in yourself. You are a gift to the world and acknowledge that because that is the truth. It used to be upsetting to me that I wasn't like ‘that person' or ‘that person' and maybe I should change. It took me a while to realize, ‘No, exactly who I am is exactly who I should be. That's the best I can do.'"

Iconic status: Neuwirth said she is "grateful and humbled" by her status as an icon in the LGBT community. "That's inspiring to me."