Seth Rudetsky courts 'Disaster!' for laughs

For Seth Rudetsky-whose 1970s Long Island youth was a heady swirl of disco tunes, disaster movies and fascination with violent weather phenomena-being at the helm of a new musical which incorporates all those elements, must be like living his own personal Hollywood ending.

Too bad so few of his characters make it to that ending with their life, limbs and sanity intact.

But that's the price you pay when you choose to spend a perfectly lovely summer night, circa 1979, aboard Manhattan's first floating casino and discotheque. As you groove to fabulous Casey Kasem Top 40 Countdown songs, little do you know that something awful is about to happen. It's something so awful that it makes "The Poseidon Adventure," "Airport '75" and "Earthquake" seem like a day at the beach.

Obsessed with weather disasters

That's the giddy premise of "Disaster!" - a very high concept 1970s disaster movie musical created by Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick, and featuring all the best songs (and disasters) from the '70s.

"Oh, yeah I went to every single one of them," Rudetsky says of the seemingly endless string of disaster movies released throughout the 1970s. "My parents had zero boundaries," he recalls with equal parts gratitude and horror. They never hired a babysitter, so impressionable little Seth (already a hardened veteran of Jewish summer day camp musicals) was riveted when he saw a triple bill of "Death Wish," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Taxi Driver."
?
As if that weren't enough to get his mind percolating, Rudetsky notes, "On top of that, I was obsessed with weather disasters. I wanted to be a weatherman when I was a kid. I had all the equipment and obsessively checked it, hoping a hurricane was going to hit. I was also obsessed with natural disasters, and all the amazing things that happen during them. I just thought it was so thrilling."

Like a soap opera

So when a flood hit another part of the country, "I was annoyed that I lived in New York," he says, also recalling a time when a minor earthquake hit nearby mountains. "I wanted to move my family there. I hated being in such a safe area."

Fortunately, little Seth grew up safe and sound so he could visit death and destruction upon a cast of innocents in "Disaster." But before his latest effort, Rudetsky had already wracked up more show business credits than an "American Idol" auditioner can dream of.

Currently. Rudetsky hosts a Broadway-themed show (daily) on Sirius Satellite Radio. As a pianist, he's played for Broadway shows including "Ragtime." "Les Miz" and "Phantom" (where he wasn't hit by that falling chandelier so much as once). He wrote and starred in the very well received Off-Broadway show "Rhapsody in Seth," had a recurring role on "All My Children" and wrote the books "The Q Guide to Broadway" and the thinly disguised autobiography "Broadway Nights" (an equally thinly disguised version of that tale, written for kids, is soon to publish-under the title, "My Awesome/Awful Popularity Plan").

But what he really wants to do, is, well, what he's doing now-collaborating with a group of good friends and folks he admires, to put on a show where characters we quickly have grown to love are picked off one by one.

"The theme of the show is," explains Rudetsky, "if the disaster didn't happen, these people would not have their issues resolved. Because of the disaster, all of their issues come out, and everything ends in either resolution or death. The disaster is the catalyst; like in a soap opera, where it is the villain who makes things happen."

Heartbreak and unrequited love

And the valuable life lesson that the audience and the surviving characters take away? "The theme is," Rudetsky notes, "that the real disaster is not to have love."

That's where the glorious music comes into play-those beloved 1970s tunes whose themes of heartbreak and unrequited love were, thanks to the disco beat, made to be danced to.

"The lead romantic character is a waiter on this boat," says Rudetsky, "and he winds up with his ex-fianc�e, who left him at the altar. So he sings, "Alone Again, Naturally.' Then, we have a lot of inappropriate songs. An ice sculpture falls on a woman during the earthquake and chops her up; and a man sings, 'you're once, twice, three times a lady.' Me and Jack [co-creator Jack Plotnick] worked hard to use songs that fit dramatically and move the story forward. So many musicals shove a song in there that doesn't [make sense], except for a couple of lines."

That meant sacrificing some numbers he fondly recalls-like Captain and Tennille's "Shop Around."?That's one song I was obsessed with," admits Rudetsky-who included it in the "Disaster!" songbook when the piece was performed for a May, 2011 benefit. But the lyrics didn't fit the given situation, so it was replaced with "I am Woman."??The '70s were so much about feminism," notes Rudetsky, "so we used that instead. 'Shop Around' did not make enough sense, plot wise-so we had to kill our babies, like Mike Nichols says, to make the plot work."

More than just camp

Rudetsky and Plotnick also worked hard to steer their doomed ship away from the sort of metaphorical icebergs that have sunk many a musical: "I don't like musicals where two people meet and by the end, they're married," says Rudetksy. "That's why in this show, they [the waiter and the ex-fianc�e] have a whole history and relationship."

Although audiences have been eating up the easily digestible, infections tunes, Rudetsky says their reaction to the music varies according to whether it's all new or achingly familiar. "This young guy, maybe 24, came to see it," Rudetsky recalls. "He thought the music was written for the show. But they're all these amazing songs from the '70s that had actual melodies. It was the sort of time when people would listen to a song from start to finish, not just go to a club and dance to a hook.

Rudetsky says he's also pleased to see, from audience reaction, that the show is being received as more than just a campy tribute to a lost era. "I guess I'm realizing," he notes based on the faces of those in the seats, "that the show has a heart. It's not a sketch where the joke is over in five minutes. People feel devastated when the characters die."

That moment of impact is easy to see in the, shall we say, rather "intimate" venue. "At the Triad, I love being able to look out and see that we didn't lose the audience half way through. We're literally inches away from them. It's like environmental theater."

The audience is so close, Rudetsky contemplated reaching out and shaking the first row chairs. "So it would be like having Sensurround," he says-referencing a 1970s movie theater audio experience meant to give the roar and rumble of disaster movies that up close and personal feel. "I'm hoping to involve the audience more," he says, contemplating a disaster-themed immersive experience. "At least get them wet... possibly set them on fire."

"Disaster!" plays at The Triad (158 West 72nd Street), at 7:30pm, on Sundays, through February 26. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased .

For more about Seth Rudetsky, visit his website.

Watch this clip of highlights from "Disaster!"