An Abiding, ‘Forbidden’ Passion

Over the past 15 years, “Forbidden Broadway” has enabled Susanne Blakeslee to become a grand stage diva, multiplied many times over--and so what if it’s only pretend and just for laughs?

During the same span, Brad Ellis has put his heartinto making the show rollick and lilt as its piano-pounding sole accompanist and musical director.

Now the two close friends are helping to claim new territory for this musical theater institution, in which the words and scenarios of notable Broadway songs and scenes are tweaked for the sake of poking fun. After nearly 20 years in New York and many touring editions, “Forbidden Broadway” will play Orange County for the first time tonight, beginning a two-week stand at Founders Hall in the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Creator Gerard Allessandrini and his cohorts revise it regularly to reflect the foibles, follies, flops, fatuousness and fabulousness unfolding on the Great White Way. When “Forbidden Broadway” played Los Angeles in 1994, New Yorkers Ellis and Blakeslee came with it. The actress and the pianist didn’t expect to be giving their last regards to Broadway, but it turned out that way. Ellis fell in love with one of the L.A. cast members and decided to stay; Blakeslee made some great friends and stayed too.

Both have been performing in periodic West Coast revivals of “Forbidden Broadway” and in its 1995 offshoot, “Forbidden Hollywood.” Ellis and Blakeslee play prominent parts on a new CD, “Forbidden Broadway: 20th Anniversary Edition,” that adds eight newly recorded parodies to highlights from five previous albums in the series.

Blakeslee, who grew up in northern Virginia, says she owes it all to her mom. In 1986, she was scuffling for work on the New York City theater scene when her mother called with the news that “Forbidden Broadway” was holding auditions for an extended run in Washington, D.C. Blakeslee got the job, and soon she was imitating big stars, just as she had done as a small girl. Her repertoire of impressions includes Barbra Streisand, Carol Channing, Julie Andrews and, with hilarious, squeaky-voiced nastiness, Sarah Brightman.

One of the pleasures of performing in “Forbidden Broadway,” Blakeslee says, is that “you can do these leading-lady roles even though you’re not quite the leading-lady type.” She says that learning to mimic breeds admiration, rather than contempt.

She wasn’t very keen on Streisand when she began learning to copy her looks and style. “But I went back and listened to her and realized how brilliant she is. You gain respect for these people.” And typically they are good sports. “The real great people don’t mind being spoofed at all, because they know it’s a reflection of their greatness.”

Of course, there are exceptions. “I admit I don’t find Sarah Brightman much of a talent,” Blakeslee said. “I guess it’s an acquired taste and probably thousands of people love her and she’s probably a very nice person.” None of which stops Blakeslee from taking “great joy” in her performance as an almost unlistenable Brightman. It takes real skill to sing badly enough to be funny, but not badly enough to turn people off, she says.

Some alumni of “Forbidden Broadway” also have enjoyed success on legit Broadway--among them Jason Graae, who will perform next month in OCPAC’s cabaret series, and Brad Oscar, a recent Tony nominee for his part in “The Producers.”

Blakeslee says her closest brush to Broadway legitimacy came in the early 1990s when she was asked to be an understudy for a revival of “Guys and Dolls.” She had to turn it down; she was already booked in “Forbidden Broadway.”

But the talents she has cultivated on the “Forbidden” side of the tracks have served her well in her new main pursuit doing the voices of animated characters. She sings the role of Cruella De Vil in a direct-to-video offshoot of “101 Dalmatians,” and, staying on the villain’s tack for Disney, she has played Cinderella’s stepmother and the evil queen in “Snow White.” She has an ongoing gig as the voice of an enchanted goldfish on the weekly Nickelodeon series “The Fairly Oddparents.” Meanwhile, she is “gathering up the courage” to pursue a longer-range ambition--a one-woman cabaret show in which she would play a series of characters, a la Lily Tomlin, but with singing.

For Ellis, “Forbidden Broadway” has been a lifeline. He joined the show when it came to his hometown, Boston, in the mid-1980s, then he moved on to the mother ship in New York.

“Playing eight nights a week with my brain alert gave me my career,” he said of his work as accompanist for “Forbidden Broadway.” He learned how to musically embellish a joke, when to help the actors by adding humorous musical flourishes, and when to just stay out of the way. “If it’s done right, the show is based on a David and Goliath principle, with singers you’ve never heard of making fun of stars,” he said. Backing it with just a piano fits the concept of gleeful underdogs flinging well-placed stones at their supposed betters.

“It’s possible to play a lot of notes and have them get in the way. But if you use them as lace and filigree, it adds a flexibility to the music that’s good for comedy,” Ellis said.

By the time he came to Los Angeles with “Forbidden Broadway” in 1994, Ellis was making his way as a composer of his own musicals, collaborating with others on the “Forbidden” creative team. That took him back to New York during the L.A. run. When he returned, he found that a new cast member had been added. First, Ellis said, he was “a little miffed” that he had not been consulted before Eydie Alyson was brought in. Then he fell in love with her.

“I’d been a New York chauvinist all my life,” Ellis says. “When I was in Boston, I thought, ‘I really don’t count till I get to New York.’ But for me, the decision to stay in New York would mean my career was more important to me than being happy.”

He and Alyson eventually set a wedding date in 1998, but instead of marrying on the planned day, Ellis checked in to the intensive-care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. His heart, damaged since childhood, was giving out, and only a transplant could save him.

His extended family from “Forbidden Broadway” came through. “Susanne [Blakeslee] would come every day, or twice in a day, and bring me a flower or something like that,” Ellis recalled. “All my friends in New York offered financial support.”

To defray his postoperative costs, the “Forbidden” family organized a benefit parody show at the Pasadena Playhouse dubbed “Forbidden Bradway.” There were, of course, a lot of heart jokes, among them “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” retooled as “My Heart Belongs to Braddy.” In New York, the producers of “Forbidden Broadway” donated the proceeds of their 1998 opening night to Ellis’ medical fund.

When “Forbidden Broadway” opened again for an extended run at West Hollywood’s Tiffany Theater last year, Ellis (who married Alyson during his hospitalization) was back as pianist and musical director. The musician, who also accompanies Kristin Chenoweth in concert, says it was the ultimate test of his recovery and his new ticker: “There are so many things I do that don’t test a pianist as much as ‘Forbidden Broadway.’ I felt I was back as a musician when I could play ‘Forbidden Broadway’ without passing out.”

When the New York production needed some emergency revision after its musical director left last fall, Ellis set aside other projects and helped put the show in order.

“I could not be so thick as to not realize I owe this show a great deal,” he said.

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“Forbidden Broadway,” Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Opens tonight. Wednesdays to Saturdays, 7:30 p.m., Saturday late shows, 9:30 p.m., Sundays 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 30. $46-$49. (714) 556-2787.