When the Broadway Cruise launches from New York later this month, it’ll be a first in more ways than one. For one thing, it’s the inaugural launch of a new cruise experience that will bring together Broadway fans and Broadway stars for poolside performances, behind-the-scenes programming, sun, surf, and show-tune karaoke.
It’ll be a first for me too — my first cruise ever — and there I’ll be aboard the Norwegian Gem with the likes of Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Lena Hall, Laura Benanti, Joshua Henry, and Michael Cerveris. But even though I’m a newbie, some of my shipmates have given me a good idea of what to expect — and plenty of reasons to get excited.
First, there’s the chance to see Chenoweth perform live on the pool deck with Bermuda as a backdrop —- and then hear her interviewed onstage by her longtime friend Cumming, who’ll perform his own show later that night. That’s just one highlight in a lineup that also features fan-fave talents Hall, Benanti, Henry, Cerveris, Sierra Boggess, Jeremy Jordan, and Randy Rainbow.
For both performers and fans, the Broadway Cruise provides the chance to get to know each other in new ways. I’ll be hosting in-depth, one-on-one interviews and panels with creators such as composer-lyricist Scott Wittman (Some Like It Hot, Hairspray), choreographer Spencer Liff, and makeup artist John DeLuud (Wicked), among others. Fans will have the opportunity to learn from some of them, like in dance classes with Liff and makeup tutorials with DeLuud.
“I’ve never been on a cruise, but I’ve known a lot of people who have been on this specific ship and they all tell me it’s the most amazing time,” Cerveris says. “I’m really looking forward to the chance to be apart from the rest of the world with a bunch of people who care very much about something I’ve devoted a lot of my life to, and so have they. I’m excited about interacting with all those people in a different way.”
Hall, for instance, will not only be performing songs drawn from the same well as her album The Villa Satori: Growing Up Haight Ashbury, she’ll also be exposing fans to a place that’s personally very meaningful for her: Bermuda.
“I got engaged there, and then I got married there,” she says. “My husband and I love it so much.” She’s been there several times, and can rattle off recommendations of her favorite island spots like an enthusiastic and very knowledgeable tour guide.
Hall went on a cruise once, as a teenager, and what she remembers most is the karaoke she did on board. You can expect to find her doing it on the Broadway Cruise too.
“Oh, I’ll be there!” she promises. “I’ll be serenading.” (I’ve politely requested she reprise “Nobody’s Side” from her recent concert staging of Chess.)
Benanti will also bring some surprises. In the first of her two sets on board, she’ll show off her soprano with songs from the musicals for which she’s best known: Think The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, She Loves Me, and Nine.
But in the second show, fans can get to know a different side of her work. “I’ll have some songs by a new composer I’m working with named Miranda Ferris Jones,” Benanti reveals. “Plus, I’ll do some Tori Amos and Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon. It’s more eclectic.”
Cerveris, too, will do one set in which he’ll showcase some of the theater songs he’s known for —tunes from Tommy, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Sweeney Todd. “And I just can’t pass up the opportunity to sing a little of Titanic!” he adds with a laugh.
His second performance on board, however, will let audiences hear some of the original songs he co-wrote with his Americana-rock band, Loose Cattle. “I’m looking forward to sharing this whole other side of my life and my career,” he says. “I’ve spent as much time playing in bands as I have in theater.”
All of the artists I talked to before the cruise said they’re most excited about the face time they’ll be getting with their colleagues and their audiences.
“I have been feeling more and more like live performance is our last bastion of humanity,” Benanti says. “We’re living in an increasingly digital world and it’s becoming so rare — that real, human interaction and connection. So for me to be on a boat full of people who value the same things that I do? It sounds frickin’ great.”
