Michael Cerveris was a working actor—but a Broadway nobody—when he booked an audition for a stage version of The Who’s Tommy back in 1992. He was playing a minor role in a revival of Richard II in L.A. (Kelsey Grammer had the title role), and musical-theater performing wasn’t high on his priority list. Still, he was a fan of The Who and had a history of playing in bands, “so when they said they wanted me to sing a rock song, I brought my guitar and auditioned with ‘Young Americans’ by David Bowie,” he says. “I mean, no way was I having some rehearsal pianist trying to accompany me.”
The actor was convinced “some curly-haired blond guy who looked like Roger Daltry” would play the title role, but Cerveris was cast instead. Ingeniously staged by Broadway veteran Des McAnuff, The Who’s Tommy opened in California to money reviews, came to New York in 1993, and Cerveris was a Broadway nobody no more.
Today, Cerveris is not only a Tony winner (for Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins) and four-time nominee but almost synonymous with musical theater, having appeared in everything from Titanic on Broadway to a long Off-Broadway stint in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Despite spending nights of late down at the Public Theater (in another Sondheim musical, Road Show) and days rehearsing opposite Mary-Louise Parker for a Broadway-bound Hedda Gabler, he’ll reunite with Tommy’s original cast for a 15th anniversary concert of the show on Monday, Dec. 15. Event proceeds benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fight AIDS, the Broadway Dreams Foundation and the Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia and Parkinson Foundation.
Staged by original cast member Donnie Kehr, the concert highlights how much of Broadway’s current Who’s Who—folks like Tony-winner Christian Hoff and Tony-nominee Sherie Rene Scott—debuted on Broadway courtesy of a pinball machine, driving chords and a young man’s exploding dreamscape.
“And it’s funny,” Cerveris says. “When Daltrey was touring once he asked me to go with him, so I did these 20-minute Tommy suites. I’m talking the volume it was intended to be performed at, in this muscular, non-character, non-narrative-driven performance, this shirtsleeves rock ‘n’ roll. Later, I met Eddie Vedder and he said, ‘Man, how do you do that eight times a week?’ I said, ‘For one thing, I don’t sing like you do.’ Anyway, last week I listened to the CD to see how much I remember. I remembered most of the lyrics—I sang that show for four years. But I couldn’t get over how fucking high I was singing. So I’m just hoping and praying enough of Tommy will still come out.”
August Wilson Theatre, 245 W. 52nd St. (betw. Broadway & 8th Ave.), 212-239-6200. $50-500.
