(HOLMDEL, NJ) -- SiriusXM radio host Seth Rudetsky is bringing Seth's Big Fat Broadway LIVE! concert series to Bell Theater in Holmdel on Saturday, August 10, 2024. Rudetsky's first guest is Broadway's Mandy Gonzalez (Wicked, Hamilton, In the Heights). This up-close and personal concert series is a mix of the greatest hits from the star's Broadway career plus intimate, behind-the-scenes stories from their Broadway career along with Rudetsky's funny, insightful and revealing questions. Showtimes is 8:00pm.
“Even if you’ve seen these stars in concert, my series will be like nothing you’ve seen them do!” said Rudetsky. “Yes, they sing all their hit songs, but they also recreate the roles they’ve done in high school, the jobs they wish they’d have gotten and the roles they’ll NEVER get a chance to do! It’s all unscripted and never the same!”
Gonzalez started out as a backup singer for Bette Midler. She made her Broadway debut in Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida and later starred as Elphaba in Wicked, Nina in In the Heights and Angelica Schuyler in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit, Hamilton. Her TV credits include Only Murders in The Building, Quantico, The Good Wife and Madam Secretary.
Beginning in October, Gonzalez will be the alternate to Nicole Scherzinger in the starring role of Norma Desmond in the revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard.
“Mandy Gonzalez is one of the best singers on Broadway,” said Rudetsky. “She created one of my favorite roles in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Tony Award winning musical, In the Heights. Lin is such a fan that he cast her as one of the Schuyler sisters in Hamilton, a role that she played for years. She will be singing songs from ALL of those shows! No joke, her voice is so incredibly strong that her nickname from her peers is literally ‘The Beast.’”
Rudetsky has played piano for more than a dozen Broadway shows including Ragtime, Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera. He co-wrote and starred in Disaster!, which the New York Times called a “triumph.” He is currently the afternoon host on SiriusXM’s ‘On Broadway’ channel and the host of Seth Speaks. He also has a weekly column on Playbill.com, hosts Seth’s Big Fat Broadway Cruises and tours the country doing master classes and performing his show, “Deconstructing Broadway.”
“If you love Broadway and if you love comedy, I’m really excited for you to see my series!” said Rudetsky.
The series continues on September 7 with Sierra Boggess, who created the role of Ariel in The Little Mermaid on Broadway. Adam Pascal, a member of the original company of Rent, is Rudetsky’s guest on October 12, J. Harrison Ghee, who won the 2023 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for Some Like It Hot, will appear on November 9, and Krysta Rodriguez from Broadway’s The Addams Family and TV’s Smash, will perform on December 7.
Bell Theater is located at 101 Crawfords Corner Rd, Holmdel, on the ground level. Tickets are $65 to $85 and are available for purchase online or by calling at 732-531-9106, ext. 14.
Housed at the iconic Bell Works complex in Holmdel, Bell Theater is Central New Jersey’s newest home for the arts. With 300 seats and plenty of free parking, the theater offers an electrifying slate of performances that include professional Broadway musicals and plays, concerts, comedy, jazz, and family entertainment. Bell Theater is curated by the Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal Park, one of New Jersey’s leading nonprofit arts organizations supported by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
