This marked my first time at Chatterbox (at Don't Tell Mama) in about five weeks (due to law school, alas). But I'm glad I caught it with Lea Michele, who dished about her life pre-SPRING AWAKENING. Rudetsky's hair, which he has not cut for some four months, is grown out to look in a 1970s vein for his Broadway debut in THE RITZ.
Michele, who grew up in NJ (with a different last name - she's half-Jewish), made it to Broadway only a short while after seeing her first Broadway show, PHANTOM. She joined a friend who was auditioning for Little Cosette in LES MIZ and sang "Angel of Music." She mentioned that Ricky Martin was in the show at the time, and that she was eventually replaced in her role by Andrea McCardle's daughter once she got too old.
Her and Rudetsky reminisced over RAGTIME. She talked about how sad she was when Peter Friedman lost Best Featured Actor in a Musical and RAGTIME lost Best Musical. (He took her to the Tony Awards as his date.) In fact, this caused her to fear that SPRING AWAKENING would lose the Tony to MARY POPPINS.
As the grand finale of her one-hour interview, Rutesky took to the piano and Lea sang "On My Own." You see, she was originallly cast as Eponine in the LES MIZ revival, but jettisoned that once it was announced SPRING AWAKENING would move to Broadway. I can honestly say it was far better than Celia Keenan-Bolger's performance, as well as other replacement actress I've seen in the revival. She mentioned she'd consider playing the role in the revival later on.