Michael Cerveris has been a staple on Broadway for more than two decades, from 1993’s The Who’s Tommy to 2015’s Fun Home. And he’s currently a series regular on the hit HBO Max series The Gilded Age, with a cast jam-packed with his fellow Broadway luminaries.
Little do theatergoers know that he is the lead singer of a band called Loose Cattle. Soon, he’s bringing the group on board the Broadway Cruise that sails from New York City to Bermuda March 31 to April 5, 2023. Laura Benanti, Kristin Chenoweth, Sierra Boggess, Lena Hall, Joshua Henry, Alan Cumming, Randy Rainbow, and Jeremy Jordan are also part of the excursion.
“It just sort of happened that I’ve managed to have a career and make a living as an actor. The music side of things has always been a passion of mine that I was equally invested in, but that’s not the thing that as many people know me for,” Cerveris told Broadway Direct of his music background that started when he was growing up in West Virginia.
Loose Cattle formed in 2011 with his friend Kimberly Kaye. There are now five musicians in the band, which started by covering country songs and has evolved to Southern-rock influences. The name “Loose Cattle” comes from a sign Cerveris saw at an album launch party for country singer Laura Cantrell. There was a big photograph on the wall inside the restaurant that read “Loose Livestock.” Cerveris thought it described his band, a “motley crew of people,” but he had misremembered the sign as “Loose Cattle.”
“We’re really hoping to reach a new bunch of fans and followers through this cruise by sharing the music that we are really passionate about playing and have a lot to say with,” Cerveris said. “People hopefully will discover that they enjoy the music that I make outside of the theater as much as the music I’ve made inside the theater.”
On the cruise, he will be performing in two concerts: One will be dedicated to Loose Cattle songs and the other will have more traditional musical-theater selection from prior roles, including Titanic “if I can figure out how not to freak people out,” Cerveris quipped.
Of course, his act will also pay homage to Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, a role Cerveris played opposite Patti LuPone in 2005. The original version of Sweeney Todd, starring Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury, was the first Broadway show he ever saw. He initially thought he wanted to pursue a serious acting career, but after seeing the musical, he changed his course.
“Len Cariou was giving this Shakespearean-sized performance of Sweeney,” he recalled. “And Angela Lansbury was giving this incredibly smart, funny, and unnerving performance as Mrs. Lovett. I suddenly saw in these two actors the kind of acting that I wanted to do. I realized, for the first time, that there were actually musicals that required that.”
On the heels of Dame Lansbury’s passing at the age of 96, Cerveris paid tribute to his idol on Instagram, writing, “You’re a bloody wonder. Eminently practical and yet appropriate as always. As you’ve said repeatedly there’s little point in dwelling on the past.”
“She was always the kindest and most supportive. She was so classy and elegant. She treated me like an equal, which did not feel right at all to me when I was a young actor growing up. I didn’t feel like I deserved to consider myself in her league at all. But she was always really very complimentary and kind and that way,” he told Broadway Direct.
While Cerveris never got to speak with Lansbury about Sweeney Todd specifically, he did go out to dinner with Cariou when the actor came to see Cerveris’s interpretation, and they talked about the show. Cerveris now plans to do the same thing as Josh Groban steps into the title role next spring at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre opposite Annaleigh Ashford as Mrs. Lovett. Previews begin February 26. He’s already told Groban that therapy is going to be important as he takes on such a dark role as the demon barber on Fleet Street, citing “dark places that you need to go to for that.”
While it’s been a few years since Cerveris’s last Broadway show, most recently he has been seen as the Russell family servant Watson on The Gilded Age. In season one, his character had been seen lurking around trees. “I’m happy to say that a lot of the mystery surrounding Watson gets revealed at last and you get to see a lot more of his story, which explains all of his strange lurking around trees,” he teased. “Everything that was sort of in motion by the end of the first season gets kicked into high gear starting at the beginning of the second season. There’s a little bit of a time jump of a few months.”
He said when the cameras aren’t rolling, theater stories are traded constantly among the theater-vet cast, along with a verse or two of the chorus of a musical-theater song. Though when pressed, Cerveris couldn’t recall from what show specifically. “I can’t say that a full-scale musical number has broken out. I think it’s more that everybody knows that that could happen at any time. So it’s more likely that one of the non-musical-theater [actors], like Carrie Coon or Louisa Jacobs, would be more likely to sing than Audra [McDonald], Christine [Baranksi], or me.”
The good news is, if the series gets to season five, “we have been promised, unofficially, that they’re going to start looking into a musical episode,” Cerveris said with a chuckle.
Privacy Policy
Last updated and effective as of January 14, 2019
Introduction and Your Acceptance of These Terms
Broadway Direct ("Us", "We", "Our") knows that your personal information is very important to you, and We respect your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how your personal information is collected, used, and protected and the choices available to you with respect to Our handling of your data. This Policy applies to all visitors to Broadway Direct.com, Our mobile services, services available via telephone, and those transactions that take place in person, by postal or electronic mail. (Collectively, the "Site"), including ticket sales, comments on articles, and any information provided to Us.. By visiting this website, you consent and agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and to the collection, use and storage of your information by Us. From time to time, We may change this Privacy Policy. When We do, the “Last Updated” line above will be revised. You are responsible for regularly reviewing this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this Site following the posting of a changed Privacy Policy indicates your acceptance of the changes. Unless We provide you with specific notice, no changes to Our Privacy Policy will apply retroactively. Please also refer to our Terms of Use and Lottery Terms & Conditions. If you require any more information or have any questions about Our privacy policy, please feel free to contact Us by email at [email protected].
Information We Collect
Information we collect directly from you: Your provision of your personal information to Us is completely voluntary; it is not a statutory or contractual requirement. Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) is information that is uniquely identifiable to you, such as your name, address, email address, phone number, credit card number and other personal information that is not otherwise publicly available. Certain features of Our website may require that you provide Us with your personal information, including:
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Co-Branded Pages
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Transactions With Third Party E-commerce Partners, Vendors and Advertisers
When you provide personal information to one of Our Site’s third party e-commerce partners, vendors or advertisers (i.e. Ticketmaster.com, Telecharge.com), this transaction will occur in connection with the site of the e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser, not on the Site, and, as such, the personal information you provide is collected pursuant to and controlled by the privacy policy of such e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser. Broadway Direct is not responsible for such parties’ privacy policies and We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the applicable privacy policy of the e-commerce site with which you transact business or to contact the operator of such site for more information.
Delivery of Advertising and Other Content
In addition to ads and content that We may serve you directly, We use third-party advertising companies and marketing services companies to serve ads and other content when you visit Broadway Direct and elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both We and these companies may use information about your visits to Broadway Direct and elsewhere to serve ads and other content to you. In the course of doing so, a unique third-party cookie may be placed or recognized on your browser by such companies. In addition, We and these companies may use Web beacons to help manage Our online advertising and content. These Web beacons enable Us and the third-party companies to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits this Site and to learn which banner ads bring users to our website and to serve you ads that you may find of interest elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both Broadway Direct and these companies may use information obtained from your visits to Broadway Direct or other websites, and information received from you offline in order to provide advertisements about goods and services and other content of interest to you across the internet and in other media. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used in this manner by Our third party advertising companies, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.asp and/or www.aboutads.info/choices. European users may opt out of receiving targeted advertising by visiting http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/. In addition, we may provide PII and Anonymous Information to marketing services companies. This may include information we received from you offline or online. These companies may combine information we provide (including PII and Anonymous Information) with personal and anonymous information they may have about you, using cookies they place or that We place on their behalf, as described in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. We require these companies to delete the PII we provide them. These companies may use the resulting non-personal information and such cookies for their own marketing purposes, and they may provide the same to their customers for their customer’s marketing purposes. Some of Our emails may contain tags that allow Us and Our advertisers and other partners to determine the types of content that may be of interest to you. Those tags may contain PII and may be shared with others to the same extent indicated in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. Those tags may not be deleted but you can opt out of receiving the emails.
Use of This Site by Children
The Site is not directed to individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and We request that such individuals do not provide personal information through the Site. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided Us with PII without the parent or guardian’s consent by, for example, misrepresenting his or her age, that parent or guardian should contact us at [email protected]. If Broadway Direct determines that it has collected personal information of children under the age of 13, Broadway Direct will immediately delete such information and any accounts believed to be held by children under 13. In addition, we may not collect or process information from a citizen of an EU member state under the age of sixteen (16) without such person’s parental consent. If you are a citizen of an EU member state under the age of 16, please tell your parents that you are using the Site and have your parents email Us at [email protected] so that We may delete any information We may have collected about you.
California Visitors
California Civil Code § 1798.83 permits California residents to request information about whether we have disclosed personal information to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. California residents have the right to request in writing: (a) a list of the categories of Personal Information, such as name, email address and mailing address and the type of services provided to the customer that a business has disclosed to third parties (including affiliates that are separate legal entities) during the immediately preceding calendar year for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes and (b) the names and addresses of all such third parties. To make a request, please contact Us at the following email address: [email protected].
EU Visitors
If you are located within the European Union, you should be aware that your personal information will be transferred to the United States, the laws of which may be deemed by the European Union to have inadequate data protection. If you are located in a country outside the United States and voluntarily submit personal information to Us, you thereby consent to the general use of such information as provided in this privacy policy and to the transfer of that information to, and/or storage of that information in, the United States. We transfer Personal Information from the European Economic Area and Switzerland to the USA and other countries, some of which have not been determined by the European Commission to have an adequate level of data protection. Personal Information of EU residents will be transferred in compliance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).
Rights of EU Data Subjects
If you are a resident of the European Union, under the GDPR, European Union residents, as data subjects, have the following rights:
Right to access – This right allows individuals to obtain confirmation as to whether or not personal information concerning him or her is being processed and provide access to such personal information. It also allows individuals to request details of the processing of his or her personal information, including, without limitation, categories of recipients to whom the personal information have been or will be disclosed and purposes of processing.
Right to rectify – This right allows individuals to rectify any inaccurate personal information about him or her.
Right to restrict processing – This right allows individuals to block or suppress processing of personal data under certain circumstances.
Right to be forgotten – This right is also known as the “right to erasure”. It is an individual’s right to have personal data erased or to prevent processing in specific circumstances.
Right of data portability – This right allows individuals to move, copy or transfer personal data from one place to another in a secure manner without interrupting the integrity and usability of the information.
Right to object to processing – This right allows individuals to object to certain types of processing, including direct marketing, profiling and providing for purposes of scientific or historical research and statistics.
An EU resident has the right to access his or her personal data that We hold and to ask that their personal data be corrected or erased and to port their data. An EU resident may also have the right to object to, or request that We restrict certain processing or to withdraw consent previously provided. If you would like to exercise your rights under the GDPR, please contact us at [email protected]. If you are an EU resident and have a concern about our processing of your personal data that we are not able to resolve, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority where you reside. For contact details of your relevant local Data Protection Authority, please see http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/item-detail.cfm?item_id=612080
Security of Your Personal Information
Broadway Direct employs reasonable security measures consistent with standard industry practice, for personal information collected through this Site, including physical, electronic and operational measures to maintain security and prevent unauthorized access. While Broadway Direct takes all appropriate steps to safeguard personal information under Our control, unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or method of storing data can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As such, We cannot guarantee that personal information supplied by users will not be accessed on Our servers, or intercepted while being transmitted to Us over the Internet. We assume no liability for any damages you may suffer as a result of interception, alteration or misuse of information during such transfers.
Retention
We will retain your information for as long as your account or inquiry is active and for a reasonable time thereafter in accordance with Our standard procedures or as necessary to comply with Our legal obligations, to resolve disputes, and to enforce Our agreements. Even if We delete some or all of your Personal Information, We may continue to retain and use aggregate or anonymous data previously collected and/or anonymize or aggregate your Personal Information. Please note that We will not be liable for disclosures of your data due to errors or unauthorized acts of third parties.
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Users can opt-out of receiving future newsletter emails from Us by selecting the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our email. However, We are not responsible for removing your information from the lists of any third party who has previously been provided with your information or is collecting your information through their cookies. You have the right to withdraw your consent for Our processing for your personal information by contacting us at [email protected].
Correct/Update
This website gives users the following options for changing and modifying information previously provided, at any time.
Users can send mail to the following postal address: Broadway Direct 1501 Broadway 14th floor New York, NY 10036
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Successors
In the event that We are, or any component of our operations is, merged with, or is acquired by, another entity, then any such successor or acquiring entity may become the successor to Our obligations with respect to the personal information that you have provided to Us, which would be necessary for the entity to effectively continue our business. By using this website, you consent to any transfer and use of such personal information by an entity assuming control of Our operations as a result of a merger, purchase of assets, or liquidation in bankruptcy or insolvency.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this website, or your dealings with this website, you can send an email to [email protected]. Our data protection officer can also be contacted at [email protected].