Steve Cuden: On today’s Story Beat.

Christine Pedi: And what happens is the number’s over. Old revivals. Yow. Blackout. One of the cowboys rips Velcro. I spin out of this dress. He exits. Underneath it I have a full Liza Minnelli red sequin pantsuit on. And there is a dresser who has run on stage and kneels in front of me with the Liza Minnelli wig with a piece of glow tape. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. Um, ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Liza Minnelli lights up. So that’s pretty fast. I think it was eight seconds

Steve Cuden: this is Story Beat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. Storybeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Christine Petty, is known as the lady of a Thousand Voices. She’s discovered her talent for multiple personalities through her long association with the legendary Off Broadway revue Forbidden Broadway. Performing in companies all over the world including New York, London, Japan, Singapore and among the dozens of personalities, Christine is known for impersonating Liza Minnelli, Rosie Perez, Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Bernadette Peters, Julie Andrews, Katharine Hepburn and many, many others. She’s received a Drama Desk nomination as well as an La Ovation and NAACP Award for her work on Broadway. Christine debuted in Little Me with Martin Short and Faith Prince, directed by a favorite Story Beat guest, Rob Marshall. Other Broadway appearances include several peculiar off callers in Eric Boghossian’s Talk Radio starring Liev Schreiber and a turn as Mama Morton in the long running hit Chicago. She brought her collection of divas to Off Broadway’s musical the Musical and starred in an American parody which she also co produced. And many of you will know Christine from her daily Sirius XM radio show on the Broadway channel, playing music of the stage and screen and interviewing showbiz legends. Monday through Friday, 9am to 3pm on Saturdays, she and Seth Rudetsky co host Dueling divas and fans of Howard Stern can hear her provide the occasional celebrity voice on his Sirius XM morning show. Other Off Broadway performances include the title role in Ms. Abigail’s guide to dating, Mating and Marriage, A Broadway Diva Christmas, Jerry’s Girls and My Favorite Year. Christine performed her cabaret show great dames at, uh, many major New York venues, winning both the New York Bistro and Nightlife Awards her holiday show, there’s no Business Like Snow Business, has been an annual New York staple since 2008. She’s even performed for President and Mrs. Clinton, playing a singing Hillary on TV. You may recognize Christine on the Sopranos as Mrs. Bobby Baccala. Four scenes, five lines dead. But she recently escaped the clutches of Dr. Death on NBC. Be sure to check out Christine’s popular hilarious videos on YouTube and especially her Shit Liza says videos. It’s brilliant laugh out loud stuff. And last but not least and closest to my heart, Christine can be found singing on the well regarded 1994 double CD complete work recording of Jekyll and Hyde, the Musical featuring Anthony Warlow, Linda Etter and Caralee Carmelo. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m beyond thrilled to welcome to Story Beat the diva of all divas, the great Christine Petty. Christine, thank you so much for joining me on the show.

Christine Pedi: I’m exhausted…

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s been lovely having you. We’ll see you later. So look, you have had a career, you know, be proud of it, that’s for sure. Um, so let’s go back in time a little bit. How old were you? What age were you when the show bizbug first bit you?

Christine Pedi: Well, it was very slow and gradual. I mean, I always loved, I always loved standards. And I didn’t know much about musical theater growing up because we didn’t go to the theater and we had one cast recording. It was, uh, the most happy fellow, which I wore out. But my uncle, when we would go over there for dinner, he had My Fair lady and I did see the movie, so I made the connection, but I didn’t really know what a Broadway play was or anything. I grew up listening more to standards on a local radio.

Steve Cuden: Were you singing as a kid? Were you?

Christine Pedi: No, I didn’t think I could sing. I would sing. I would sing at home when nobody was home and I would sing along to, you know, Barbra Streisand. But like, I didn’t think that I could sing and be a performer because that was not even. It was like saying, why don’t you be a fairy at the bottom of the garden? Or why don’t you, you know, go hang out with Santa Claus? It just, it, you know, it. That happened to people who, I guess came out of the womb singing and dancing and, I don’t know, somebody came and found them and brought them to the special performers island and I, you know.

Steve Cuden: When did you discover it? What happened to. For you to have this change into I’m going, uh, a performer.

Christine Pedi: I started to understand Broadway a little bit in high school and I did audition for the local boys schools musicals. And um, I was in the chorus until my senior year. And for some reason, don’t ask me why, I just said, well, I’m not going to do the show if I don’t get a lead. And that’s weird because I had been taking singing lessons. Only because after I did my first show, which was Godspell, the the director told my mother that she thought I could sing and that I should get singing lessons. My mother was stunned, and I was stunned. But she gave her the name of a singing teacher and I went every Sunday and paid her $7. And she was the second Laurie in Oklahoma.

Steve Cuden: Oh, really?

Christine Pedi: Yeah, it was funny and. And she talked like this. She had a sopranos voice, you know, and started. But she gave me really boring stuff to sing. You know, like art songs, Italian art songs, and My Lord and Master and baubles, bangles and beads, like all this soprano stuff. And so a senior year in high school, I actually got the part of, uh, Irene Molloy and hello Dolly. So I sort of. I had made that declarative statement to the universe and it paid off. And I then went to college, to Fordham University. I started working at the radio station and they had a vast collection of theater albums. And I discovered that as the arts editor of the radio station, it was a student run radio station, I could get press seats, free seats to things. I mean, that blew my mind. So that’s when I really started like saturating my mind and spirit with theater.

Steve Cuden: And, um, about how old were you at this time?

Christine Pedi: College age.

Steve Cuden: Until college. Before it really sunk in.

Christine Pedi: Oh yeah. College started making. Giving me the longing because I would watch it, you know, and I still felt detached because I was never really, really thin. But in college I was thin by my standards, but not by Hollywood standards and, um, not by Broadway standards, you know. And so I was looking at a body image that I couldn’t connect to. I wanted to desperately, but I just didn’t have what, you know, they’re very harsh on Broadway. And until, um, very recently, you had to have a dancer’s body, even if you weren’t dancing, you know, But I still had this longing, you know, to do it. And so when I graduated college, I started doing community theater. And that’s when it really. I took all the information, all the observation, all the show tunes I knew, and I sort of hit the ground running with the local community theater in the Suburbs of New York. And I just played one great part after another. Evita and Funny Girl and Music man and Little Shop and My Fair lady, and we just ran the gamut of different roles.

Steve Cuden: Were you taking training at the same time?

Christine Pedi: I was just still studying with, uh, Evelyn Hancock, my. My little singing teacher. $7 an hour. And, um, that was it.

Steve Cuden: So you didn’t go to school for it then?

Christine Pedi: No, I didn’t even know you could go to school for it.

Steve Cuden: Hmm, interesting.

Christine Pedi: I’ve just only now recently realized. Wait a minute. I think they. They kept it under wraps or something because my college fairs in the gymnasium of my girls preparatory school high school, I never saw a performing arts major. Believe me, it would have. I would have become very curious about it. As a matter of fact, the first audition I went on for community theater was for Mack and Mabel. And I had just graduated college a few months earlier, and a girl there went to the same college as me, and we were chatting and, uh. Oh, no, no, she. She then I think she transferred. But I said, oh, uh, I said, what was your major? And she went, voice. I went, no, no, I mean, no, your major. And she went, the major’s voice. I said, no, no, I’m not making myself clear to her. I thought, what did you major in? And she went, voice. And I thought, I know what I spent for college. You know what I mean? And I thought somebody would spend that kind of money to major in the sound of your own voice. I just thought it was the stupidest, craziest waste of money. And I’m. I still believe it personally, you know what I mean? Uh, if you want to be a voice major, then just take those now hundreds of thousands of dollars and go to the best bloody teachers you can and study privately. And I, I have a. You know, I don’t want to diss the performing arts schools, but I think that you should look at a wide spectrum of options.

Steve Cuden: So how did you learn to perform? How did you learn how to act

Christine Pedi: on stage at community theater?

Steve Cuden: Just doing it.

Christine Pedi: Just doing it. And I had John Tracy Egan, who was a dear friend. He was my Che in, um, Evita

Steve Cuden: and in the original company of Jekyll and Hyde on Broadway.

Christine Pedi: Because of me.

Steve Cuden: Because of you.

Christine Pedi: Okay, because they were doing a national tour. They offered me the national tour, but I had an option to do Forbidden Broadway, Forbidden Hollywood in la. And I knew it was a better showcase for me, for my talents, because there’s only four people in the show. Two girls, two boys. And I had this sinking Suspicion. And this was my first offer, by the way. So this had to be a really strong gut feeling for me to turn down like a tour of a big fancy musical like that. You know, I had to be a good. And I had a gut feeling that my part was going to get cut or cut down big. Mhm. I was of course, right. In the fullness of time, my gut was absolutely right. And they were having auditions for either that tour or another tour to Broadway. I can’t remember. Not something I’d ever do for myself because that would be audacious and that’s just never done. But my friend John Tracy Egan had such a glorious, stunning singing voice and he looked English and Irish and, you know, and I could see him in a Victorian, you know, and I just said they got to see him. He has a Frank Wildhorn kind of voice. So I called up. Who is it? David? Um, the guy who’s casting John went up to Connecticut.

Steve Cuden: The David. David Clemens, right?

Christine Pedi: Yes, David Clemens. And I think John auditioned up there or saw the show or. All I know is they kept it, uh, they didn’t have anything at the moment. But then like all of a sudden something came available and he got the part. He got, he got the job. And then he took it to Broadway. And whenever we went out to dinner, he would always pick up the tab and say, as long as I’m on Broadway, you never pay for food. Because, uh. Because I really was proactive in trying to get them to hear his voice because I knew he had the voice they needed. And I would never do this for myself, of course, you know, I would never say I have the voice you need. But it was such a no brainer and such an obvious perfect fit. And um. And I knew he’d get along with Brad Oscar.

Steve Cuden: Oh, well, Brad Oscar’s recently been on the show.

Christine Pedi: Well, P.S. they’re like best buddies, you know. And of course they did the producers together, which is a whole other thing, but I just knew they had a similar, like, you know, personality vibe and stuff. So. Yeah, so. But anyway, John was my Che in Little Shop and we did a couple of other, you know, community theater things. He was the only other friend in show business that I had.

Steve Cuden: But that, but that was. You got him to go in a direction that has then helped to propel him along for a nice long career too.

Christine Pedi: Well, yeah, but that was long after I started in community theater. It was, you know, he, he had already done Cats and in Europe and other other things.

Steve Cuden: But were you always a funny kid? Because you’re a very funny person. Was that always in your blood?

Christine Pedi: Oh, I don’t, I don’t know how funny I am, but I was always, I mean, I always in my family. My father by nature was just sort of a Neil Simon kind of character, you know, and that’s just how I choose to go through life. And, and we had funny Italian relatives and, you know, we, that’s just how we roll. It’s. We’re not a dour people, you know?

Steve Cuden: So you were not a, you were not a class clown? You were not one of those.

Christine Pedi: Oh, God, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, I don’t know what the teachers would say, but I certainly wasn’t that kind of, uh, attention seeking, you know, not like that.

Steve Cuden: All right, so now you’re doing it in college, and then you’re doing it in community theater and so on. And obviously it’s, it’s taken a hold of you. You like it. What. How long were you at it before you thought to yourself, I am actually good at this?

Christine Pedi: Well, I’d done enough of it. And I was, I was working at a full time job for a telethon for the March of Dimes. I was working as the assistant to the producer of the telethon. And I hated it. I loved him, but I just hated 9 to 5. Hated it. And I was doing my community theater at night and I was doing, uh. And I did it for, um, three and a half years. Three, four, five. Yeah, three and a half years. And then I just couldn’t take it anymore. And I just thought, I want to give this a shot because I might have been going on auditions on the weekends or something, I don’t, I don’t quite remember. But I just decided I wanted to have the free time and the ability to try to do this forever. And so I told my boss and, you know, I was loose. I said, I don’t, you know, I’ll leave whenever, you know, it’s convenient for you. I’m not going to give you two weeks notice. I’ll give you five weeks notice. He said, well, you decide. And I looked at the calendar. It might have been like four or five weeks later. I, I saw it was Good Friday. And I thought, oh, that’s a good day to start a new life, you know, good from, you know, religion aside, just a good name of a. And I’ll never forget it. This year is the 40th. And this Good Friday, April 3rd, was the 40th anniversary of, you know, that

Steve Cuden: day I mean, that’s spectacular that you’re. Um, the 40th anniversary is on, you know, this week while we’re doing this show, because we’re recording this in April of 2026, though the show won’t appear for a little bit longer in the year. Um, what is it about performing, especially live performing, what is it about that that stirs your soul? What is it that you love about it?

Christine Pedi: Well, I think it’s not dissimilar to what I like about radio or the radio that I do anyway, which is I just like to communicate feelings and stories to people. Mhm. Sincerely. It is. It’s never been. Look at me, look at me, look at me. That’s the part, that’s my whole problem. I do not have a sufficiently big enough ego to really make it in this business. You know what I mean? I’ve really. I could be, uh, so much farther ahead of where I am and where I was if I had a proper ego. It is so not normal. Not the normal ego.

Steve Cuden: I would submit to you, you’ve done, uh, fairly well without the big ego. But you’re talking about where you would be perhaps a huge name on Broadway, something like that, right?

Christine Pedi: Well, even just being more of a bitch, excuse the expression, to agents and stuff and saying, come on, why can’t I get seen for this? Why can’t I get a scene for that? You know, you’re more proactive. Proactivity and tenacity for me anyway, I connect with having a better, healthier sen. Of your own ability.

Steve Cuden: Do you think that’s what it takes to bitch at your agent and to push and push that kind of thing?

Christine Pedi: Oh, it can. It absolutely can. Oh, yes, siree, you got that right. Trust me, there are people in this business, talented Tony nominee, good at everything he does. The phone rings, he shows up, the phone rings again. He’s got stuff lined up, lined up, lined up. And um, not necessarily household name in the theater, but, well, but known. And I don’t think he’s ever really had to, um, be a pain in the ass about it because he’s just, you know, there are certain performers who haven’t had to because they either fill a niche or they’re that fabulous and that good or they’re that lucky or a combination of all of the above. And there are plenty of actors, you know, um, and uh. Well, I mean, cabaret performers are a perfect example of this. You want to be a cabaret performer and you really want to try to develop a following. Well, no, that, that is all about tenacity and being proactive. I mean, unless you show up and you got the chops of Ella Fitzgerald or, you know what I mean, it’s not going to be a word of mouth thing that suddenly picks up steam and then voila, there’s a career.

Steve Cuden: Don’t you think a certain amount of career, uh, success is. It obviously is hard work, really hard work, But a certain amount of it is. Some people are just lucky in a way.

Christine Pedi: Absolutely.

Steve Cuden: And some people are not lucky in a way.

Christine Pedi: Abso freaking lutely. Absolutely.

Steve Cuden: You can get there just sometimes just on your looks alone. And that will get you in the door.

Christine Pedi: Well, people are also, um, myopic. Uh, a lot of people who are in the position to give you the opportunity, the work opportunity. They’re so overwhelmed with people out there. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of actors that it’s like, okay, well, the wacky neighbor, I’m thinking such and such type. And then they just go down a, a confined rabbit hole that only. Or a myopic, um, microscope where they can only think of for the wacky neighbor, big, jolly redheaded women or, you know, or loud. They don’t think I’ll get a petite, little feisty, scrawny, uh, you know what I mean? They, they become maybe because they’re so overwhelmed, I don’t know. But, um, people definitely fill a niche. We’ve been told by that that’s one of the reasons Forbidden Broadway, um, it was difficult for a lot of us and when we did Forbidden Hollywood in la, move forward and get more opportunities because they don’t for somebody like me who’s more of a character person. They don’t know what character I am because I play too many.

Steve Cuden: But. But you are that many, which is a brilliant thing.

Christine Pedi: Well, one would, if you had half a brain. Yeah, one would think that way. But I think that way. I think that way. The few times I’ve had to cast things, I’ve thought, she could be funny. I know this ingenue girl, she can be funny.

Steve Cuden: But doesn’t the performer then need to want to do that and need to be play at that? It can’t just be a ca. It can’t be you casting someone because you think they can do something. They have to actually want to be able to do it.

Christine Pedi: Well, the point is that I would have probably seen something in them that showed the potential for it. And um. And so one would assume that they want to do it because they showed me a glimmer of it or more Than a glimmer of it.

Steve Cuden: Sure, sure. Well, let’s talk for a moment about. Do you prefer the word impressionist or impersonator? Is there a word that you prefer?

Christine Pedi: I guess impressionist impersonator implies to me, like, wearing costume. Like costumes. And I don’t consider myself, you know, for all the costumes I wore in Forbidden Broadway, as these women. I don’t like wearing the. You know, I’d rather just do the impression.

Steve Cuden: Well, you’re very good at doing the impress with no costuming at all. You do it through not just your voice, but through your body movement as well, through your hands and your face and all the rest of it. Are there other impressionists that you admire or maybe inspire you?

Christine Pedi: God. Well, there’s so many now. I mean, you, uh, know, I’m not a regular watcher of snl, but there’s plenty of great people, you know, who’ve been on snl and, you know, the great one, when we were growing up, there was only one. It was Marilyn Michaels, who was pretty amazing. I found myself at a party at Joan Copeland’s house. The great, uh, actress Joan Copeland. And the pianist. The pianist. I. I didn’t know Marilyn Michaels was there. And all of a sudden he said, well, I have to have these two women come up and do a song. And so the next thing I knew, we were doing the Get Happy, Happy Days Are Here Again, um, with Streisand and Streisand medley. We weren’t doing impressions, we just sang it, which because neither of us wanted to do impressions, you know. And, um, it was great. It was great. And so, you know, she really was the only one that, that had any real coverage, you know, when I was growing up. Um, and then, uh. And now there’s a million of them, you know, there’s just a million of them.

Steve Cuden: Do you know how many celebrities you do at this point?

Christine Pedi: It kind of. It kind of depends. Like, it. One thing I don’t like when it comes to, well, anything is gluttony. In other words, I could sit here and I could probably. If I had to do like 50 impressions, would they all be great? No. But if I said to you, I’m doing, I don’t know, Barbara Walters, and I just did a little bit of it, a tiny, itsy bitsy little bit. And it’s not a good Barbara Walters, but if I told you it was Barbara Walters, you’d probably get it. And if I had good, good material and I was saying something funny, it would suffice. Um, I did, um, Forbidden Broadway for Geez. Almost always consistently. I was gonna say on and off, but it was more on than off. For 15 years. I did musical the musical for 10 years. You know, I had to do Oprah Winfrey in that. I’m like, I don’t know how to do Oprah Winfrey. So all I could do as Oprah Winfrey was buckle up purple. But then I had the luxury of doing a sketch with somebody where I had to be Oprah every night, eight times a week. And so I started finding stuff. So that went from, uh, a perfectly meh. Functional, passable impression to kind of a good one. The point is, I get. I could probably do a whole bunch of them. Um, but I don’t. I just like them, prefer them all to be good.

Steve Cuden: But there are a few that you do that are extraordinary. You have a few that are. Absolutely. If I wasn’t looking at you and I was just listening, it would be hard for me to tell. Like, like Liza. You do a spot on Liza. Obviously, when I see you on the videos I’ve watched of, uh, you doing Oprah, it’s spot on. I mean, you did it enough that you got it down. That’s the secret, isn’t it? You have to do it and do it and do it.

Christine Pedi: Well, that’s the luck. Well, it depends. Some people just come right out, bam. And that’s it. Others take time. Others I can’t do. And then I see somebody else do it and I go, oh, that’s what you have.

Steve Cuden: Mhm.

Christine Pedi: Like Martha Stewart. You know Martha Stewart. I was working on Martha Stewart. Hello, I’m Martha Stewart. And you know, she’s got that. I don’t, I don’t know what it is, but you know, I mean, yeah, that’s what it is.

Steve Cuden: Did you do impressions of family members and people in the neighborhood when you were a kid?

Christine Pedi: Yeah, I could always do accents and I could always do my Italian grandmother. She was the big one, you know, she was a Cristina.

Steve Cuden: So you’re what’s known as a polymath. You can do lots of different voices and people.

Christine Pedi: What am I?

Steve Cuden: A polymath? You can, you have different skills and talents, but, um, among those is that you can do different people. Polymath.

Christine Pedi: Polymath. I’ve never been good at any kind of math, so. I’m very glad to hear that.

Steve Cuden: Well, you’re good at the poly. Uh, so. And you also have this. When you do your act, uh, you have this amazing range. I don’t know how you get from certain Voices to certain voices as quickly as you do. Is that worked out in rehearsal?

Christine Pedi: Once I know what the voice is, I mean, there’s some voices that are heard. Like I’m trying to do Jennifer Coolidge and she can be higher than you think sometimes. And I just, I haven’t found the sweet spot because she’s in a really precarious part of like, you have to be like you’re yawning and, and if you’d have to do a yawning sound, a, uh, yawn is a fluid thing that doesn’t. That never stays in one place, you know. And, um, so that is constantly changing. And I don’t have my ho a week lab anymore to do it.

Steve Cuden: But. So how do you do it? Do you work it at home?

Christine Pedi: I don’t. It’s, it’s frustrating. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s terrifying to have to go in front of an audience. And for, uh, one cabaret show, like once a year when I do my Christmas show, I do the 12 Divas of Christmas. It’s called Snow Business and it was nominated for a Mac Award this year. But anyway, I put, I put about 20 names in the hat and a lot of people say, oh, don’t put her in the hat. Don’t put her in the hat. Don’t. You know. But I get bored to death if I have to do the same 12 people. And who was I putting in there? Like, I know if I had eight ah, shows a week to do it, I could do a killer Dolly Parton. I just can’t get her to come out. Yeah, I’m m trying to do her and I don’t know what. It’s hard to do. Uh, there’s something there, but it’s not there yet.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s close. That’s close. That’s really close. You’ve got to be one of the few people that does Elaine Stritch.

Christine Pedi: I’m the only one who’s stupid enough to destroy her voice, probably. Or old enough and menopausal enough.

Steve Cuden: And I’ve seen. Does it actually hurt to do her?

Christine Pedi: Well, I don’t know if I’ve done any damage. But, uh, it doesn’t hurt to do her. No, I don’t do her a lot though. I don’t do her for a.

Steve Cuden: So I’ve seen the video of you performing right in front of her and then she comes out and pushes you off the stage. Did you know she was there? Was that planned?

Christine Pedi: Oh, yeah, yeah. I got to the theater and not One, not two, but three separate stage managers came up to me, not knowing the other one had already done so, with sort of fear in their eyes, saying, welcome. Okay, your dressing room’s here. Ms. Trich would like to speak to you. Will you have a moment? And I go, okay. And then I’m like, oh, shit. And then stage manager number two. Hi, Christine. Okay, so when you’re done setting up, um, Elaine Stritch would talk to you. And then the same, the third time. So I knock on her door, come in, and there she is in her shirt and nothing else. You know, it’s like it comes down just to the point of, you know, to the point of decency. And, um, I said, uh, hi, Ms. Stritch, I’m Christine Petty. I’m the awful girl that’s going to do you well. I hear you’re wonderful. I said, well, thank you. This is what I want you to do. And they had. Oh, by the way, all three stage managers told me, um, when you sing your song, just bow, uh, and leave. We have no time for. No, don’t bow. Leave. That’s what they said. Just, just, you know, just end the song and then turn and leave. We are so overbooked. We are so overextended. Helene Stritch says to me, when you finish your song, I want you to look to the right, bow slowly. I want you to look up to the left, bow slowly. I want you to look to the center, bow slowly. Okay. And she’s standing right in front of me. I mean, practically nose to nose. And then I want you to walk off. And then I’m gonna come on and stop you. I’m gonna back you across the length of the stage. And I said, okay. Then I said, good. Okay, just make sure that I’m not veering at an angle. And I don’t walk off the stage. I carrier. So I did the song and I bowed to the left, and I bowed to the right and I bowed center. Now, this is the Min Marquis Theater, a huge theater compared to the itty bitty, teeny weeny, 10 foot wide proscenium I was used to at the the Triad Supper, uh, club. So I turn stage left and I’m walking off and walking off and walking off. And there’s no Elaine Stritch. And there’s no Elaine Stritch. Where the hell is she? And I am, um, maybe, I don’t know, a foot and a half from stepping into the wings. And she pops out and.

Steve Cuden: To thunderous applause.

Christine Pedi: Right, yeah, of course. Uh, and now she knows she has that entire length of the stage to just back me up. And then she’s going, go on. Keep her going. Under her breath. Keep on going. Keep her going. I grabbed them and she goes, get the mic. Get the mic. Is the mic stand. I haven’t supposed to take the mic stand with me. And the mic stand. I grabbed the mic stand, and then we were about three quarters of the way because this was going on forever. Uh, and I finally just turned around and just dragged the mic behind me and ran off. That’s what I remember. I haven’t actually watched it in. Maybe I’ve watched it once, but, um, never, never saw her again.

Steve Cuden: By the way, I watched it a few days ago. It cracked me up. It was like, wow. You know, because she was a force. I mean, she was a dominating force.

Christine Pedi: Oh, yeah. Looking at Elaine Stritch that close. Jesus, Mary. Well, I also had something. This was at nothing like a dame, which was a wonderful event that raised money for the Women’s Newman, uh, uh, health initiative, Phyllis Newman’s Women’s health Initiative, for the Actors Fund. And, uh, they did many of them. And, uh, in a row for many years. I mean, many years in a row. And one year, I think it was the first year I sang I Will Survive as different people, including Eartha Kitt. And they told me at the end of the number Eartha Kit was going to come out. This was years before the alien stretch. And we were on the set of Chicago. And I’m on stage and the numbers over. Thunderous applause. I’m like, thank you. And I bow and I stand up and I’m like. More thunderous applause. And I thought, wow, where did that come from? That’s extra surge of thunderous applause. But I’m looking to the right and to the left, and there’s no earthy kit. And I’m looking to the right. Farther. No, and more to the left. And I’m scooping farther and farther around to see where the hell she might be or if she’s even there. Till finally I look. The stage manager in the wings is, like, giving me a weird gesture. And I’m looking directly behind me in the elevator that Chito Rivera and the Rock the Velma Kelly comes up on in Chicago. They sent her up in an elevator, so she was standing above me. And then she said, how would you like to see the real thing? And I just walked off.

Steve Cuden: And you do her spot on, too. I mean, spot on. It’s very hard if you put her voice next to Your voice and you didn’t see any picture.

Christine Pedi: You.

Steve Cuden: It would be hard to tell. You’re spot on.

Christine Pedi: Well, I hope you can tell the cartoon universe that, because I am available.

Steve Cuden: Well, you know, I, uh, I don’t know if you know, but I wrote 90 cartoons that have been produced.

Christine Pedi: Well, spread the word. I didn’t know. Are any of your friends still alive?

Steve Cuden: You, you absolutely should be doing voiceover work. There’s no question about it, because you can do tons of it. And the, and the really great voiceover actors who I’ve, you know, worked with over time, they all do impersonations of various people. They all do them. They all do impressions. So, uh. Uh, yeah, you should be doing it. That’s where your, that’s where your, uh, your problem of not stepping up and pushing yourself is an issue, right?

Christine Pedi: No, actually, I think it’s the opposite with that, because there’s not. Well, maybe I guess I could, you

Steve Cuden: know, which is a problem.

Christine Pedi: Well, we. Not anymore, though. I send in a lot of. I send in a lot of auditions to la because we all do things, you know, from anywhere in the world.

Steve Cuden: I will spread the word among my friends.

Christine Pedi: Thank you. Please.

Steve Cuden: I can’t guarantee you anything, but I will spread the word. Um, so there’s nowhere to go to train to do impersonations, is there? You just have to have an ear for it.

Christine Pedi: Yeah. People. Well, first of all, people on occasion will ask me to help them. And first of all, I say, why? You know, because it pigeonholed me. Uh, you know, it’s a party trick. And it, you know, it got me working Forbidden Broadway. But that is a very specific. You know, and if you want to be on snl, then you shouldn’t be in musical theater. You know, you should be pursuing improv and other things. But most of these people, I don’t know, you know, I don’t think it’s. They’re musical theater people. So I’m like, it’s not exactly, you know, some of the greatest impersonators. Kevin Spacey was a. Well, he’s not working now, but, you know, I mean, he was a fabulous impersonator. And, and, and Ben Affleck was good too. And I, I’ve heard several of them say they didn’t want to go. Go in that direction. And because it would. People wouldn’t take them seriously. So it. You just have to think about it first. You know, Um, I didn’t. I just did it because I, I didn’t see it as a career. I saw it as just A thing I did well and a really good job. And it just escalated into something, you know, amazing and rare and something that is no longer because Forbidden Broadway is. Although I am dear friends with Gerard Alessandrini and he still writes, the idea of parody lyrics and making fun of people just doesn’t have the reach that it used to because everyone is buttoned up. And, I mean, I guess maybe they’ll put up with it on Saturday Night Live, but if they’re going to a theater to see it, they’ll consider it, uh, inappropriate.

Steve Cuden: Well, people have become very sensitive to having fun poked at them, and it’s just a joke.

Christine Pedi: It can be very, very difficult.

Steve Cuden: M. You know, I know you’ve worked for people like Gerard Alessandrini and others, obviously, over time. Do you. When you do your act, do you write them yourself?

Christine Pedi: I don’t have, like, a lot of material that I’ve written that’s special material around my impressions. Like, I do this funny rendition of Frosty the Snowman that Barbra Streisand sings a la Streisand, and it’s complete with a monologue in the middle about how he’s a victim of global warming. And. And, um, you know, uh, it’s just. It’s funny. I also have a version of her singing. When I go to London, I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts, which is pretty funny. You know, um, it’s got a Don’t rain in my parade. It builds into a Don’t rain on my parade kind of a feel.

Steve Cuden: So how do you. How do you then decide? I’m gonna. I’m doing a performance, you’re doing a gig somewhere. How do you decide which song to choose that fits X number of voices? How do you figure that out?

Christine Pedi: It depends on the city. It depends on how much of a musical theater town they are. If they have had. If they have a big performing arts center nearby, then they kind of know musical theater references more. If not, I’ll pull out more famous ones like Angela Lansbury and Joan Rivers. And although now I don’t know if people know who Joan Rivers is, it’s so devastating.

Steve Cuden: But I think some do, that’s for sure.

Christine Pedi: Well, I know, but you know what I’m saying. It’s like everybody’s got an attention span now. My people are. I mean, there’s no reason for young people today to not know who classic movie stars are because they have access to them in their pajamas before they get out of bed on their phone.

Steve Cuden: I taught at the university level for 10 years. And, uh, somebody who’s 18 years old and a freshman today, today they would have been not born before 2008, and they don’t know anything before that. They might know it if they’re studying it.

Christine Pedi: Right? But I was born in the early 60s, and, you know, Bette Davis was a crone when I was born, but I knew her movies because I wanted to know her movies. And it wasn’t easy, as you and I know. We had to, you know, stay up and watch things while our parents weren’t looking or get a book out of the library and look at glossy pictures of them, you know, um, or later on record it. But now, if you have a slight curiosity about Bette Davis, by the end of the day, you could have total immersion. You could have seen clips, you could have looked at interviews, you could have read stuff. I mean, it’s so much easier to be informed and then to find out what excites you. I don’t know how to process that. Like, I had a girl, I was in a show with, young girl, and she said, oh, uh, I said, you should. You’d be good. And she loves me. She went, I really don’t know that golden era of Broadway. And I thought, okay, well, first, more jobs for another actress. Okay. You know, okay, good. But, um, now, are you sure you don’t want to know it? Because at this particular moment, you’re immersed in Hamilton and, you know, and in the Heights and Jekyll and Hyde and, you know, more contemporary shows. And God bless. You have so many resources to go back and listen to things that I could never get a hold of. Like I have an album called. I think it’s called Showgirl, and it’s a Carol Channing musical, and it’s a gorgeous album cover. Just her eyes, her eyelashes and her lips, you know. And, um, I was going through YouTube looking for one thing, and all of a sudden said, Carol Channing, showgirl. And I thought, oh, maybe there’ll be a song that she sang, like on a local television show. No, it was a live broadcast of the entire show.

Steve Cuden: Oh, wow.

Christine Pedi: With Jules Munchen. And a, ah, live broadcast of the entire show from the Luntfontein Theater. I. I was blown away. This portal into another era before, I think before I was born. I’m pretty sure it was just before I was born. And you know, how would I ever have gotten a hold of that when I was in my twenties? Not at all is the answer.

Steve Cuden: So I think that part of the problem today is that they have, as you point out, so many resources that it’s very hard for them to go to the one thing that’s happening now or to study something that’s happening, you know, from the past, but study it now. So they get distracted by all those many different resources on the Internet and so on.

Christine Pedi: Yeah. And I mean, and in fairness, you know, if you were born, like, in the 60s, like I was, there were really only, uh, three networks. Well, three networks. And it’s only like five full decade. No, 30s, 40s, 50s. There was only five full decades of cinema that had been produced when I was a young. If you’re born in the 60s, you had.

Steve Cuden: You’re talking about with sound talkies.

Christine Pedi: Yes. You have talkies from the 30s, 40s and 50s. And I only had three decades to sort of catch up with. Well, yeah, and now they have, you know, practically 100 years to catch up with.

Steve Cuden: But the other thing was, in those days, um, if a movie was popular, everybody would be talking about it to each other. And there’s still a certain amount of word of mouth in that way today, but it’s much less so because there are so many more things to distract

Christine Pedi: people, and yet there’s still so few jobs for actors. I don’t get it. It’s so bizarre. There were three networks and that was it. And there were, what, four shows on a night and then two full hours. So you had like six shows a night times five, 30 shows a week. And now there’s. That there’s unfathomable how much there is. And yet are there that many more actors? I don’t know.

Steve Cuden: I think part of that is also that they’re not paying what they once did. So people are, uh. They’re having trouble surviving. So clearly there would be a challenge for an actor to make a living today. It’s just become much more spread out in a weird way. And it’s the same thing for writers and directors and all the rest of it, where there’s just. It seems like there’s a lot more opportunity and yet nobody can find work.

Christine Pedi: I was just listening to Dick Van Dyke’s book and the Dick Van Dyke show, which was a miracle. It was. I just watched all, uh, last year. I watched every episode, and it was a joy. And, um, Carl Reiner, who actually, in the book, he’s Dick Van Dyke, says Carl Reiner specifically did not. He wanted the show to be evergreen and a timeless show. So there were no mentions of politics or contemporary things or, you know, other than the obvious things that you Saw like a phone with the cord and, you know, things like that. But, um. And he was right. He was absolutely right.

Steve Cuden: Absolutely right.

Christine Pedi: It adds to the timelessness of it. But Carl Reiner wrote 39 episodes a year. 39, yep. Now on Netflix or whatever, you get eight.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, exactly. And written by many people.

Christine Pedi: Mhm.

Steve Cuden: Not just one person. The autocratic voice, uh, is sometimes available to us in shows, but frequently it’s gone. There’s no autocratic voice. There’s no one single voice that’s giving you everything. And I think in a way that has also weirdly democratized things, and not necessarily in a good way. I think that autocracy in art is a good thing.

Christine Pedi: Well, I mean, you think it at its very heart, that’s what it is. We all start with our own singular vision and voice, and then we have to learn to play well with others.

Steve Cuden: But you’re in a collaborative business. When you go and perform, you need at least a pianist. Right. So you need to collaborate with people, the people that operate the theater and so on. It’s not just you in a space by yourself. And so we are in a collaborative business. And that, that makes it, I think, difficult for a lot of singular artists.

Christine Pedi: Although that’s a tale as old as time, you know, I mean, there’s a lot of singular artists through time who just couldn’t let go of their own vision or, you know, when you’re working with a collaborative, you have to, you know, I mean, it’s. It’s, um, it’s wonderful to have the opportunity. Like when I did Forbidden Broadway, one of the greatest lessons that I learned pretty quickly from Gerard was, you know, cut it, get rid of it. Cut it, cut it, cut it, cut it. Gotta go. Cut it, cut it, cut it. Now, of course, there’s exceptions to that rule where we wish it were cut and it wasn’t, but, um, pretty much for the most part, you know, he, God bless him, overwrote. There was always too much material, like too many stanzas in a song to be specific, you know, and so we’d figure out maybe we can just cut and paste, because this one’s better than that one. Or is this. Once we do it on stage, we realize it sounds better than we thought or, you know, and cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. So when I’m working with anybody who’s a creative who says, all right, get rid of it. It’s really a relief. I. I hate. We all like, you know, what is it? Kill your babies is the term that I think you have to be willing

Steve Cuden: to kill your darlings. I mean, those precious things that every writer writes goes, oh, that’s my favorite line. So one of the things that I was trained in is if it doesn’t move the story forward or expand our understanding of character, cut it. It’s just that simple. So it just gets tighter and tighter. I want to talk for a moment. I would be, um, mistaken if I didn’t talk about SiriusXM and your show that you do five days a week. How did you get that gig in the first place?

Christine Pedi: Sort of because of my. My work at the radio station WFUV at Fordham University when I was a student. My. I have. Two of my dearest friends are from. There are still my dearest friends, and one of them is Paul Cavalcante, who is a major DJ in New York and has not ever had a job outside of radio since. I’ve known him since we were 17 years old. And he was working at Sirius. It was in test markets at the time, and they were setting up DJs for the different channels. And so he recommended me. And I went in and it was September 9, 2001, and they seemed to be happy with me. I did some demos about the Broadway channel, and then they wanted to see me on September 11th to audition for the jazz channel. Okay.

Steve Cuden: Right.

Christine Pedi: And that never happened. They canceled it, obviously, because. Because of September 11th. And, um, so I, uh, just, you know, happily. It took him a while. Took him, like, until the spring of 2002. Uh, and that’s when I started. And I started just before we went on the market. You know, we were still in test markets. And so this is my 24th year.

Steve Cuden: That’s amazing.

Christine Pedi: You still.

Steve Cuden: You still enjoy doing it?

Christine Pedi: Oh, God, yeah. Oh, yeah. I love it. I learned so much.

Steve Cuden: What is it that’s much fun for you? Is it the educational part of it?

Christine Pedi: Well, I get to see everything, which is educational and wonderful. And then I get to re. Because we, you know, I play things over and over again. There’s a certain number of songs and shows that are, you know, because of algorithms and whatever, you know, are always going to be part of the rotation. And I find. What I find is that, uh, you know, after I’ve played, I. Geez, I. What was the one that I. Oh, uh, Send in the Clowns.

Steve Cuden: Okay.

Christine Pedi: For the billionth time. Okay. What more could I have to say about it? Well, I had a little revelation the other day. I don’t know if I was playing Send in the Clowns or the Glamorous life. But I said, I just realized that if he hadn’t written the Glamorous Life as the opening to a little Night Music where she’s on the treadmill, you know, just living the grind of pumping out the shows and getting, you know, packing the luggage and blah, blah, blah, if you hadn’t set that up right at the outset, that mother is tired, you know, then it would not resonate as much at the end of the show when she has him just within her grasp and he slips away. And I never realized what an important piece of information and an important tool that opening number was, because he could have made it an opening number about an actress and her daughter that focused on any number of things, including just that she’s a bit of a narcissist, you know, and she’s, you know, a little flighty, and she loves her daughter a lot. This has implied in it. Mother’s tired. It’s got all the other things in it. You still see her narcissism, M. And you still see her that she loves her daughter and is regretful. But. But, uh, you see all of that ego, but you also see that mother is tired and she needs to stop and sit down and just be. And it just hit me now, after 24 years of playing, you know, little night music, uh, what a smart. Duh. It’s Sondheim. So everything is smart, but how smart it is to set up the show. So when we follow Desiree through the play, we don’t realize it, but subconsciously we’ve got this piece of information about her personality and about her life and about her story that I think has impacted us more than we realize.

Steve Cuden: You’re talking about one of the greatest geniuses of all time being Stephen Sondheim. And there’s almost nothing in anything that he ever did that didn’t belong. There was nothing, uh, inappropriate, nothing out of, you know, sorts. It all made sense. And he was a great, uh. As we know, he was a great puzzle lover. And so his. His stories, musically as well as storytelling, frequently are these great big puzzles, and they fit together like Swiss watches, and they have to. And that’s what makes him, I think, a step above the average Joe. There. There are others that are great, but he’s particularly like that, uh, in an unusual way. My favorite musical of all musicals is Sweeney Todd. That’s just for me. Um, so how does it work? How do you. Do you decide what music is going to be played, or does somebody help you with that? Or how does that work?

Christine Pedi: It’s a sort of a rotation of A list songs, B list songs, C list songs. And then our program director, Julie James, finesses it, goes in and sees where the computer is not, you know, all in powerful and gets it wrong. Um, it doesn’t realize, oh, that show and that show both had Bernadette Peters in it, so we shouldn’t double it up, you know, and maybe this would be a better segue and you know, so she finesses it, um, beautifully and I, I, she and I, I can see where she’s going with certain segues between songs. We have a good, I think, uh, shorthand, just innate shorthand.

Steve Cuden: Does she write the segues or do you?

Christine Pedi: Well, they’re not written.

Steve Cuden: They’re not. You’re, you’re completely off the cuff.

Christine Pedi: Oh, yeah.

Steve Cuden: Oh, I didn’t realize that. I figured you have to sit down and plan it all out.

Christine Pedi: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I just look at the log and as the songs come up, I process thoughts in my head and speak them out of my mouth.

Steve Cuden: That’s amazing. So you are actually sitting there for six hours a day, right?

Christine Pedi: Well, it’s radio magic. That’s all I’m going to say.

Steve Cuden: Okay, that’s radio magic. And, uh, so you know what’s, you know what’s going to be programmed that day?

Christine Pedi: Oh, yeah, we have music logs. That’s not, I mean, everybody on radio knows that. The days of somebody sitting with the stack of records, flipping through them and slapping them on the turntable, I think, you know, that that doesn’t happen anymore. And the reason I miss that because I used to do that is you can do the most gorgeous segue sometimes, you know, you could just A song that ends with just like, like a chorus line ends in a fade out. So you could play a chorus line and then you could start the voice of a song that starts acapella just under that a little bit. If it’s the right song. It’s like cool as hell. Oh, yeah, I do miss that so much.

Steve Cuden: That’s what DJs used to do. All DJs used to. They’d open a song, they’d get the intro to the song, and they’d talk over it right up to the moment where the word started.

Christine Pedi: That’s right.

Steve Cuden: Right.

Christine Pedi: That’s right.

Steve Cuden: That’s, that’s harder to do with the computer, I assume.

Christine Pedi: No, it’s not harder because it’s easier because you can see it visually on a screen that the music’s going to start. But, um, Physical. And we’ve all seen DJs. They’re still around, you know, with LPs, the physical handling of the music, I don’t know, it was just a more full body experience. Being a dj. You felt the music as you touched the record. It just did.

Steve Cuden: So how much of your time away from the show is spent in looking at research of some sort, looking at, uh, books or going to shows? Is it a lot of time to prepare to even.

Christine Pedi: Well, I did a lot of that a long time ago. First of all, I mean, I was a sponge in my 20s and 30s and, you know, 40s. And then when I started, I started really going to a. I mean, I went to a lot of theater, but now I just go to a. I go to everything on Broadway and as much off Broadway as I can with the number of hours that are in the day, and. And so I’m, you know, soaking up information that way. And I. I look at what a lot of other people look at, and I like Instagram and I like my playbill.com and, you know, so it’s not

Steve Cuden: entirely in your head. You are refreshing that. That knowledge all the time.

Christine Pedi: Well, sure. I mean, there’s a lot in my head, though, but there’s a lot. There’s too much. But anyway, there’s a lot in my head. And then I just see new stuff. I mean, what did I see? I just saw there’s a wonderful play off Broadway, and I hope it’s, uh, it lasts because it deserves it, called Gotta Dance. And, um, it’s just the best of Hollywood and Broadway’s most classic iconic dance numbers. And it’s got a cast of thoroughbred dancers. I mean, they’re just unbelievable. And one of the scenes is, uh, the music in the mirror, but they have the scene leading up to it, and like, you’d think I, like, I need to see A Chorus Line again or anything from it again. I’ve seen it enough. I know it well. Well, I’ve seen this show now twice. And that scene guts me. Guts me like I’ve never seen it before. And it’s actually the opposite in. I’ve seen it so many times and I’ve lived so much in the theater, and I know how it feels to just desperately want to work. And I knew it then when I knew it early on when I was in my 20s, 30s, and 40s, but for some reason, watching a young person sing it, you have another reaction to it this time around. My reaction is this business is gonna cut your heart out, you know, I just wanted to scream. Um, and so I. I just learned something new about myself and the business. Learned something new about A Chorus Line and how it forever and always gives back, no matter where you are in your life, especially if you’re a performer. I learned something about, again, the timelessness and the badassness of the choreography. So that was born out of show, of going. Of, uh, going back and, you know, keeping up with what’s going on. Even though this was a throwback to. It was a sort of a revival in a sense.

Steve Cuden: So it would be hard to do the show the way you do it if you weren’t constantly seeing things and reading playbills and so on.

Christine Pedi: Yeah, I have to see things. I have to see who the hell the new people are too. We’ve done many of them and hopefully we’ll do more. Called the Wicked Stage Songs about Show Business. And I get four musical theater, uh, Broadway cabaret performers, and we each sing two songs about show business. Faith Prince has done it, but Jasmine, Amy Rogers, who. I didn’t know when I did the first one that who she was. And she was in the fifth or sixth one because she came onto the scene into my, um, scope. A.J. shively, um, John Riddle. John Riddle was in Frozen and AJ was in paradise, uh, what is it? Paradise Square. And, um, you know, the. One of the. One of the Harmonists, um, Zal Owen, he was in it. You know, that’s how I see who the new amazing people are.

Steve Cuden: And it’s evident. That’s why I’m amazed that you’re doing it, you know, freeform and not sitting down and preparing. That’s just amazing to me because you do so much of it.

Christine Pedi: I have a big mouth. I have a big mouth. I won’t shut up.

Steve Cuden: And a lot. Clearly a lot of information in your head.

Christine Pedi: My friend Jason Grah, he was just performing. Uh, it was so funny because he says he goes through cycles of listening to Sirius. Like, he’ll listen to the 70s channel for like six months to a year. You know, he just does that. And so now he’s back on me and he’s saying, and he knows me. This is my friend. We haven’t seen each other in years. We don’t talk a lot, but we had such a compact, long daily with forbidden Hollywood. Um, you know, connection to each other, it’s just cemented forever. And the thing is, he’s in his car and I’m talking to him every day. He’s not talking to me every day. I’m talking to him every day. And this has happened with other friends who I haven’t seen in ages, but who are good friends. Just we don’t have the contact anymore. But they get. They hang out with me and, um, I’m a little jealous because I’d like to hang out with them without leaving my apartment or my car. You know what I mean? Um, and so Jason is saying, you know, oh, you’re so intimate and you have such stories. And I’m like, it’s just the same person I was in the dressing room. Really?

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s. And I think that’s your secret is that it’s very intimate. You’re talking to people like they’re right in front of you. And I think that is the secret of why the show works so well. Uh, including obviously, the glorious music that you play, which is very heavy part of it. It would be a different thing if it was just wall to wall music and there was no one in between to talk about it.

Christine Pedi: Look, I love radio and I’ve loved it since I was a kid. And I like it to this day. And I listen to it to this day. And the. It’s. It’s not so much listen to what I have to say because it’s important as it is. Let’s enter the song together with this on our mind. I want you to step into the song with this mindset. And you’re busy. You’re washing the dishes or Swiffering or putting, uh, a gas in the car. And you’re not thinking about, uh, 76 trombones. The way, you know, with any kind of depth or whatever. You have a friend escort you into the song with a different mindset. Then it’s sort of like a forced, um. It’s like giving somebody an assignment almost, but they don’t have to write it or, you know, get a grade on it or anything. It’s, um, it’s artistic building up. Maybe your artistic dexterity.

Steve Cuden: You’re. You’re like a docent for. At a museum for the music.

Christine Pedi: Well, maybe. I mean, yeah, they’re probably fancier than me, but. Yeah, that’s a really good. This kind of. Yeah, I like that you’re.

Steve Cuden: You’re. That. You are the person that sort of escorts you to the, to the.

Christine Pedi: Yeah. Notice this.

Steve Cuden: Notice that because out of context, many of those songs don’t make any sense out of context. You need the context of the play. And by the way, for the listeners, if you’re wondering about Jason Grah, he’s been a guest on this show. As well.

Christine Pedi: Oh, you must have laughed your ass off.

Steve Cuden: Oh, he was hilarious. You know, he’s. Yeah. I, uh. Please check out Jason Groh, if you’re listening. And speaking of friends of yours, Dueling divas. How did that come about? Seth Radetzky.

Christine Pedi: I think that maybe they were just looking for Saturday programming and thought, let’s see what kind of, you know, what kind of, uh, mischief we can unleash here. I mean, we are so different. I mean, we are literally. We are literally metabolically wired different.

Steve Cuden: Not just are you in the same studio or are you working at a distance?

Christine Pedi: Well, no, we used to be, but, you know, with COVID everything has become just sit home in your pajamas. So, um. But, I mean, not only is he connected to a slightly different style of Broadway. Not so different. I mean, we have many, many, many things we concur on. Um, but, um, you know, he hates my. He doesn’t hate. But he. No, he just doesn’t like My Fair lady, you know, so that’s just. If we do, we could duel on that subject for the rest of our lives. But not only that, we are so such polar opposites. He is, like, attention deficit, physically wired. Like, you know, bouncing off the walls, going from task one to task two to task three. Me. Ocd. I could sit in front of the computer. I could sit. I don’t. I could sit there with a needle and thread and thread like, you know, cranberries for the Christmas tree. I could do that for hours and hours, like a task. I could repeat it over and over and over and over again.

Steve Cuden: And, um, he’d be gone in three minutes.

Christine Pedi: Oh, he’d be out of there, out of there. And I just could sit and sit and sit and sit. And I have the perfect dog for it because he’s sitting here with me now. He hasn’t moved. This is Clarence.

Steve Cuden: He’s been so quiet. He’s been very good.

Christine Pedi: Yes, because he’s perfect. Look at how he loves me.

Steve Cuden: Uh, that show is also not planned out. No, you just talk.

Christine Pedi: We just talk. We’ve seen a lot. We’ve been in a lot of shows. We know a lot of people. Our brains work. My dog licked me a little too much. Give me a minute. I need a tissue. It’s a little too much. Love y. Anyway, yeah, we, um. We, um. Yeah. No, we don’t know. I mean. No. I mean, well, I mean, I might say, oh, you know, this is so. And so. I want to tell my such and such story.

Steve Cuden: Right.

Christine Pedi: Or. Or, uh, you know, at the most. It’s that.

Steve Cuden: But there’s not. But it’s not, it’s not programmed out.

Christine Pedi: No. He takes over the microphone, it turns on and he goes. And then he’ll, you know, sometimes he’ll ask me like a, a question, a trivia question, like how many Broadway shows have, you know, female names in the title? Or how many Broadway shows open or set in the outdoors? You know, it’s something, some silly trivia thing.

Steve Cuden: Um, well, you, you also have a much more laid back vocal quality. And he is at a million miles an hour.

Christine Pedi: I can’t, I, I can’t even. And I’m an imitator, okay? I’m an impressionist. I can’t do it. I can’t get the muscles in my mouth to move quick enough to talk as fast as he talks. I don’t know how he does it. I don’t know if his tongue. Even when I do it now I’m looking at, thinking about what my tongue is doing. Maybe he doesn’t move his tongue at all. Because if you don’t move your tongue at all, then you get more. I don’t know. But then your teeth have to be. I don’t know. I don’t know how he does it. I don’t know how he does it.

Steve Cuden: I don’t know how. So I think fast, but if I speak as fast as I think, it just comes out in a mush and it’s all. But he’s just as clean as can be. That’s amazing.

Christine Pedi: Absolutely. Cracker Jack. Clean as a whistle. And somebody sent me a thing about adhd, which I have to send them because it’s that they, they already know what you’re going to say before you finish saying it.

Steve Cuden: Yes.

Christine Pedi: And, um, that’s where the. And cut came from. I’m sure of it. You know, he always goes and cut. And it’s true. I think it’s a wonderful coping mechanism for somebody who already knows what you’re getting. And they do. So many of them are just. They really do have an extra accelerated ability and enhanced sense of, uh, uh, instinct. And um, it’s like Robin Williams as

Steve Cuden: maybe, you know, moving at a million miles an hour with just stuff coming and coming and it’s all clear, you can understand it and it’s not mushy. And uh, that’s amazing because I can’t do that either. I don’t have that ability to talk that fast.

Christine Pedi: I know sometimes when I’m talking slow, I must drive him up the wall. And I just can’t get. I can’t get the thoughts to my mouth quick enough.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, but it’s a great contrast. That’s why it works.

Christine Pedi: I’m glad to hear it.

Steve Cuden: I’m glad to hear, uh, works wonderfully because the chemistry. You clearly like each other. If you disliked one another, it would be another story. But it’s obvious.

Christine Pedi: He is an incredibly generous soul. And especially, you know, he loves talent, and he loves to reward talent, but. And not reward. That’s not the right word. He loves to nurture. Um, it, uh. And he really goes out of his way when an opportunity. When he sees an opportunity for somebody. He is so incredibly generous. He really, really is. And, you know, he has a, like a cranky ass. Ah. Phony, Ah. Persona at times. Just every now and then. You know what I mean? Um, but that’s. It’s the core of who he is. He’s the most generous person.

Steve Cuden: Well, and he comes off as incredibly sincere. He’s. He’s not. He isn’t a phony.

Christine Pedi: Oh, no. He. Oh, no. The person you hear on the radio is the person you get. I mean, I like to think I’m that way, but I’m. I’m nicer on the radio than I am in person. You know, I mean, um. Although Seth might be nicer on the radio than he is in person. I mean, God, we don’t want to be meaner on the radio than you are in person.

Steve Cuden: I suspect we’re all nicer on the radio than we are in person.

Christine Pedi: But I think. But no, he is. But at the end of the day, he is. And I. And again, I do. I like to think I am. I am Just want to be who I am. And I, you know, I try not. I try not to keep. Make it slick.

Steve Cuden: Occasionally. You definitely. You can hear you when you’re on. On the show. You can definitely hear the wheel spinning. We can hear you thinking.

Christine Pedi: Oh, yeah. Oh, uh, I can. I know you can because there’s long pauses of me going. It’s kind of like, you know.

Steve Cuden: Do you know what that’s called? That’s called anticipation. And that just keeps you in suspense. And that means what?

Christine Pedi: What?

Steve Cuden: What? Tell me, tell me. And so that’s a fine thing. Uh, and Seth, on the other hand, it’s just spewing out. It’s just blah, blah, blah.

Christine Pedi: No, because he doesn’t. Because he has all the information. Because he’s such a. He’s just got a higher iq, you

Steve Cuden: know, at a higher iq. At a faster gear.

Christine Pedi: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, for sure. Well, I’ve been having just the most spectacular fun show, uh, today on Story Beat, and I, you know, we’re gonna wind the show down a little bit. So I’m, uh. You’ve told us all these great stories along the way, but I’m wondering, do you have a single story you can share with us that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just plain funny?

Christine Pedi: In Forbidden Broadway, you have to, um. My mantra was, if your head and your genitals are covered, you can go on stage. Meaning there’s a lot of quick changes. Sometimes you don’t always grab the bracelet and the ring and the glove and the purse and the. You know what I mean, the accessory. But these are breakneck, you know, changes that are done in 10 seconds, 30 seconds. You know, a lot of them are really quick. So there was a number that was a Beauty and the Beast number. It was set in Times Square. Be depressed. Be depressed all about how Disney was cleaning up Times Square, and it’s really squeaky clean now. So the Beast was on stage, Belle was on stage in a big yellow dress, and Lumiere, and I was on stage as the teapot. Now, I exit early while they finish up the song. And it’s, I don’t know, I’m going to say, maybe 15 to 20 seconds to change. I have to drop the teapot, step out of it. I have to put on, uh, like, a slip dress, okay? Just little spaghetti straps, and it’s made of a stretchy material. Think of, like, a bathing suit, a women’s bathing suit. Uh, and it has a little cushion on the inside tacked in to make it look like I have a little bit of a belly, because I was coming back out as a hooker from the Broadway play the Life. And so I had to step out of the teacup. And I have told this new dresser, I step into the dresses and I pull them up, because people like to roll costumes up and have them and put them over your head. But this material would not drop down with ease. It’s easier to pull it up by the straps, and then it’ll be nice and smooth as opposed to pulling it over your head and then over your shoulders and over your boobs and over your hip and then find the straps, which will have gotten lost. So I said, I step into it. Well, I walked into the wings. Nope, I step out of the teacup. He’s standing there with the dress all rolled up for me to dive into it. And now, of course, in doing so, the little Cushion has flipped over. Like, the dress got all wound up and inside out. And I put it on, and it is wadded up around my middle like a belt. My genitals are not covered. I did not have a wig on yet. So I wasn’t going on stage. Stage. The song is over, by the way. There’s three Disney characters. I’m supposed to come on stage and say, what are you doing in my neighborhood? You know? Well, I wasn’t doing it. And they’re just sitting there waiting for me to interrupt them. I’m telling you, my genitals and my head weren’t covered. I wasn’t going out, okay? I’m. I’m not approved, but it wasn’t going to happen. And, uh, so I just. I just. I just said to the dresser, who now was sweating bullets, I just said, just take it off. Just take it off. Take it off. Just fix it. Just fix it. I made him go slow. At that point, I heard goodbye, and Belle just left. And then I hear oh, goodbye, and then the beast leaves. And I think Lumiere was the only one left on stage. Anyway, it was just. It was the worst. It was. It felt like Gone with the wind was playing. And I. I had. They, you know, hadn’t. It felt like a three and a half hour movie. I could not get dressed fast enough. And it was a nightmare. But anyway, that was like my favorite quick change nightmare. But I’ve done other quick changes. To give you an example of the insanity, we did an Oklahoma number. Old revivals, you know, Old revivals. Da da da da da da da da da. And I’m Aunt Eller, and I’m in a gray wig looking like Mrs. Norman Bates, right? And I have on this pinafore, orange pinafore with a heavy woolen, um, you know, plaid skirt under it and a big puffy shirt. And what happens is, the number’s over. Old revivals. Yow. Blackout. One of the cowboys rips. This is all sewn together, what I have on. So he rips the velcro. I spin out of this dress. He exits underneath it. I have a full Liza Minelli red sequined pantsuit on. And there is a dresser who has run on stage and kneels in front of me with the Liza Minnelli wig with a piece of glow tape on the back of it so I can make sure that I get it on the right direction and that is done. That all takes place. And then I stand center stage, and that all takes place during this amount of time. Dun dun um, dun dun dun dun um dun dun dun dun. Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Liza Minnelli lights up. So in what I just did, two cowboys disrobe me and a dresser runs on. I pick up a wig, I put it on, I find center stage, and I do it. So that’s pretty fast. I think it was eight seconds.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Christine Pedi: Um, maybe less so. It runs the gamut.

Steve Cuden: And that stuff that goes on off stage in the changes is stunning.

Christine Pedi: How they do it, it’s as hard as learning. Uh, ask an understudy in Forbidden Broadway. They can know their harmonies and their blocking and their whatever, but if they don’t know where to drop this outfit and where to step into another outfit and where to. Where the everything is kept. It’s like a cockpit of a plane. You just have everything the exact same place. And if you don’t have that routine set and established, it’s never going to work.

Steve Cuden: And that it is literally, uh, like a magic trick. And it’s time. It’s all timing. I love those kinds of stories. Um, so last question for you today, Christine. Um, you’ve shared just a ton of advice throughout this whole show that people can take and think about and use in their own lives and careers. But do you have a piece of advice that you like to give to those who come up to you and say, how do you have a career? How do you do this? Or maybe they’re in a little bit, trying to get to the next level.

Christine Pedi: I just tell them to calm down. I know they don’t want to hear it because they think it’s now or never, and this is my prime. And. But it doesn’t matter. You have to unclench, and you have to calm down. It’s not going to change or make anything better by being too. By clutching onto something, the desire for something, the needing of a part, the worrying that, you know, there’s a lot of stress in this business about if I take this part, then I won’t be able available to take that other part, which is going to pay more money, which is you have to juggle a lot of things. And believe me, I was offered two Broadway shows at the same time. So, you know, there’s a lot of stress in this business. Uh, you always think you’re doing something wrong. Like, there’s a playbook that maybe everybody else is reading, but you’re not. And, like, you’re your playbook. You know, your emotional template, your physical template, your physical needs, your emotional needs. They’re yours. They’re the way you got to do it.

Steve Cuden: So when the pressure comes for you, what do you do? How do you handle?

Christine Pedi: The best story is a story I’ve told a lot, which is that when I was auditioning, remember what I said in high school, I made a decision senior year. If I didn’t get the lead, I wouldn’t do the play. And I don’t know why I did that because I was not a very decisive person and I’m not one now. But I just knew that it wasn’t going to fuel me or make me feel better by being in the chorus again. I think I just knew. Well, years later, I had been going to open calls for five years. Five years, non equity calls. Didn’t have my. Had my equity card. Finally got it. But, uh, no. Did I have it? No, I didn’t have it. Didn’t have my equity card. So I was going to open calls hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of girls. And it was hard, you know. And then you go in and you sing 8 bars or 12 bars or 16 bars. And I could not. I could not get arrested in five years. I got two jobs. One day I just assessed it and I said this, I can’t do this any. This anymore. This is not getting me anywhere. All it’s doing is causing me gas money that I have to pay to drive into the city and precious hours of my life. And nothing is moving forward. And I am not going to go on another audition until I have an agent who is going to give me an audition time like a civilized human being. That’s it. I’m not doing it. No more open calls. That’s it. And I made the decision and it didn’t make any sense because how was I going to get an agent? I had no experience, I had no resume. So what was this declaration that I was making? I didn’t care. I’m not going to do it. It’s done. I didn’t clutch to it and say, oh, but it may be if I just do. I just said, nope, finished. That part’s over. I’m not leaving the business. I’m in the business. I’m just not doing that. The next time I opened backstage and was looking through backstage, the first thing I saw was forbidden Broadway auditions, non equity open call. And I looked and I think because I was in a relaxed place of, I’ve released that anxiety from my life, this came into my life and I looked at it and I just said, okay, but this is the last one. Because I knew that show was, uh, a good fit for me. Even though I’d never done impressions. And I just said, all right, this one, I’ll try. And it was the last one. And it was the beginning of a family. Not just a life as a performer, but a forbidden Broadway family, you know, And I have to believe that by unclenching and relaxing the F down, you know, just relaxing and just allowing myself to perceive a world where I didn’t have to do that anymore, even though I didn’t have the answer, I also was letting go of the problem, you know, to see, you can’t pick something up if you don’t put something down. We only have so much we can hold. And so I was putting that down. Sure may not make sense, and you may change your mind.

Steve Cuden: So the midpoint of most great stories are where the protagonist takes charge of his or her destiny. And that’s what you were doing. You were taking charge of your destiny. You made a decision. This is it. I’m gonna give this one last shot. And I. And your attitude went. When you went in was probably different than it had been in the years previous.

Christine Pedi: Yeah, because I’m not doing this anymore. So when I went in, it wasn’t like there wasn’t even a subconscious. Oh, God, here we go again.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, yeah, it’s. How many times have we heard stories of people who were ready to give up and they go in for an audition and they no longer care, and that’s when they get cast?

Christine Pedi: This was a variation on that theme.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh, yeah. Christine Petty. This has been so much fun for me. I can’t thank you enough for your time, your energy, and your wisdom today on all this great stuff. And for those that want to know more about Christine, just get SiriusXM and listen to the on Broadway channel 9 to 3 every day. Thank you so much.

Christine Pedi: Yeah, I have a website. It’s christinepetty.com. i am my own webmaster. Don’t judge me. And I gotta change my bio. Um, and I’m also a cameo artist, which I love to do. Me and Clarence do cameos for people.

Steve Cuden: And you also do master classes still. Yes.

Christine Pedi: Yo. Yeah, I love them. Yeah, I coach, too. I do coachings. I love coaching.

Steve Cuden: So anybody that’s interested, check out christinepetty.com and, uh, you know, you can have your very own class.

Christine Pedi: Yeah, that’s how to find me. Don’t go to Facebook, just go to christinepetty.com and there’s my emails. There it comes right to my personal inbox. And yeah, I love coaching. I love it.

Steve Cuden: I urge anyone that wants to take a Christine Petty masterclass. All you gotta do is find christinepetty.com Christine, thank you so much for being on the show with me today.

Christine Pedi: Well, thank you so much. And I’m happy to know that I was, uh, involved in part of your history, too.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s Story Beat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to? Your support helps us bring more great Story Beat episodes to you. Story Beat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be the unforgettable.