Shervin Lainez
Multi-faceted performer Ana Gasteyer is probably tired of explaining to yahoos like us how she’s a jazz and theater singer in addition to being a legendary alumna of Saturday Night Live, but the lady’s killed it on Broadway and elsewhere, so you’re just going to have to believe it. Ever heard of Elphaba in Wicked? Yeah, she did that. Gasteyer even has a couple albums under her belt, and once she comes to Santa Fe to perform alongside her fellow musician/actor/Sirius XM DJ Seth Rudetsky for Broadway Confidential (7 pm Tuesday, May 10. $49-$89. Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W San Francisco St., (505) 988-1234), we’ll all know the truth. Still, we wanted to know more, so we somehow convinced Gasteyer to give us a call.
How did you originally come to theater-style singing and how did comedy ultimately beat out a Broadway kind of life, at least in the beginning?
Singing in general was the first thing I did well, the thing I thought I was supposed to do when I grew up. My parents were classical music nerds, and musical theater was part of that in my household. I did grow up listening to jazz records...a lot of female jazz vocalists on the radio, on the record player. I went to Northwestern as a voice major, a traditional classical voice major. I did one year of music school and was like, ‘I do not want to do this, I’m not a traditional singer.’ I found the improv people—because Chicago is the birthplace of improv—graduated with a degree in musical theater; moved out to LA and did the Groundlings [improv troupe], but I always sang as a music tool; I always wanted to be in a band, but I don’t think I could have articulated that back then.
When I came to New York to do SNL, by virtue of being in New York, I went to theater all the time. I love the theater, and casting directors sniffed around: ‘Here’s a funny girl, we’ve seen her on TV,’ and they’d call me in for things. And I re-fell in love. After SNL, which is wild and crazy, the idea of doing something as disciplined as theater was really appealing to me.
One can only assume you’ve become plenty comfortable performing live by now, but comedy and singing can be such different beasts. Does one practice inform the other, and do you find yourself leaning more toward one or the other?
You kind of answered the question in the question. Musicians and comics have so much in common. Classical music can be so rigorous and disciplined that people can lose their spontaneity, but certainly for me, [music and comedy are] hugely married. This particular show is my favorite show to do because Seth is such an exceptional musician, and he’s also so exceptionally funny, and he’s very collaborative and very fun. Any time he asks, I just say yes. He gets me telling stories I shouldn’t be telling in public.
It’s such a storytelling night. It’s very collaborative, it’s very relaxed and engaged, like his radio show. Seth was a writer for the Rosie O’Donnell Show in the ‘90s. We met in the NBC gym because we were working on the same floor. There was an immediate familiarity. We became friends almost instantly, and he championed me when I left SNL considerably. He helped me navigate my way into the Broadway community. He’s a deeply generous soul.
I read an interview wherein you jokingly said your brand might be confusing to people, and I admit I’d only known you as a comic before now. Is there some part of you that enjoys surprising people with your singing chops?
For sure, yeah, and I would love to continue to surprise them in different ways. In some respects, in this particular situation when people come in knowing I sing because I’ve been doing it for such a long time—I have two records out, I’ve done five Broadway shows, three of which were musicals—it’s awesome when people discover it, but it would be awesome when people know it in advance. I think that’s one of the great aspects of my chosen career path, but I don’t make decisions around it needing to be radically different each time. I understand it, because the medium of television is so much bigger than the medium of theater. I was on a highly visible television show for years, but I don’t think it’s that unusual the more I get to know performers. Tina Fey wrote a Broadway show. There are things that people do that surprise you. Steve Martin is a banjo player. I just saw Sean Hayes in Good Night, Oscar, and he is so triumphant playing ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’ I joked to him, ‘How did you fake that?’ And he said, ‘You would be shocked how many people don’t know I play the piano.’
I feel fortunate that I have put in the time to refine it. You’re a better singer when you do it more. Broadway in many ways is the thing that brought me up to speed. Eight shows a week is just an impossible muscular standard. You end up good.
