Suzanne Somer's The Blonde in the Thunderbird opens at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre!
Somer's one-woman show, which was scheduled for a pre-Broadway run in Toronto, opens today, July 8, in New York City (the Toronto run was cancelled).
This article from Playbill recounts an interview with Suzanne Somers:Question: How did the idea for The Blonde in the Thunderbird come about?
Suzanne Somers: In the best way possible -- it was not part of the agenda. [Laughs.] I hired Ken and Mitzie Welch, who are the last of their kind. If you ever loved "The Carol Burnett Show," they wrote all those great musical numbers -- that great "Gone with the Wind" [sketch]. They won 16 Emmys between them...they're just fantastic. In fact, Ken Welch was the first person that ever put Barbra Streisand on television, so these people go all the way back. I had hired them 15 years ago to punch up my [Las Vegas] act. We sat and talked and sat and talked, and they came back and they had written me this 15-minute production number of my getting the part in "American Graffiti." And, it was fantastic, except that I was doing a jazz act. It was so Broadway-esque that I couldn't slug it into my act. It just didn't work, so I put it on the shelf. And, several years later they started working with Barry Manilow, who is my best friend, and he called me one day and he said, "They played me that piece they wrote for you. If you just did that..." [I thought] I should hire them to do a whole act around that. So we sat and talked for days, weeks, months, and they started turning in material to me. One day I said, "This isn't an act. This is a one-woman show!" And, we all kind of realized that it is, and that's how this came to be, and it's just been the past intense four years of working on it -- this labor of love and joy and creativity. And it's exciting. I love this piece so much!
Okay. I was unsure as to whether to go see this. I thought perhaps the Toronto cancellation was due to some problems with the show, last minute creative emergencies or the like. But reading the background on the writers, Ken and Mitzie Welch, this show has rocketed to the top of my list! I mean the Gone With The Wind sketch from The Carol Burnett Show for goodness sake! And how cool is it that Suzanne is best buds with Barry Manilow!
Okay, I admit it -- I'm a child of the '70s!
"Come and knock on our door..."
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