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May 28, 2014 | www.gaycitynews.com
IN THE NOH
Enduring Cowboy, Divas Below 54
KENN DUNCAN
MICHAEL BLASE
Leslie Uggams, Katie Finneran, and Kate Baldwin dish, but Randy Jones really dishes
Randy Jones in the late ‘70s, just before the Village People hit big, and, with Remy Zaken, in “The Anthem” at the Culture Project’s Lynn Redgrave Theater.
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BY DAVID NOH
or those who lived through the 1970s, we are now experiencing a moment in time of an unprecedented nostalgia — like the ‘70s had for the 1930s — for an economically depressed but far more fun era, which mixed innocence and decadence with such thrilling insouciance, all of it pre-AIDS and preReagan/ Giuliani. And, from that glittering disco ball epoch, there is no more iconic figure than Randy Jones, the Cowboy from the Village People. He’s returning to the New York stage for the first time in years in “The Anthem,” an Off-Broadway musical inspired by Ayn Rand’s novel (through Jul. 6, Culture Project’s Lynn Redgrave Theater, 45 Bleecker St. at Lafayette St.; cultureproject.org). “I play Tiberius, the evil overlord,” Jones told me over dinner and a few vodkas at BBar. “The script is by Gary Morgenstein and tells a story not unlike a Shake-
spearean or even classic Greek tragedy, with people at war, killing each other. My brilliant director, Rachel Klein, describes it as discotopia, a dystopic society in the future with a rigid code wherein everybody is for community and the greatest crime is individuality. The music is very synth-oriented, incredibly arranged, and is by the gifted Jonnie Rockwell, who’s also a respected physician on the Upper East Side!” Jones, who’s more used to doing one-night stands all over the world, confessed to finding a legit play’s schedule grueling: “People don’t see me out and about as much and are wondering if I’m okay. I’m MIA during the rehearsals and run of this because it’s so demanding but I just have to do this because I want to prove to myself that I can do it. My agent said, ‘When was the last time you did something in New York?’ I want to show people I can do something besides sing ‘YMCA.’ “I so often have to leave my cute wonderful husband I’ve been with for 30 years, Will Grega, that it’s nice to be based in New York for a while. He’s a VP at Bank of America, but with this rehearsal process, we’re like ships that pass in the night. We come and go, which sounds like something on Rentboy.com. But life is good, and I’ve been so blessed to have a 40-year career. I came to New York and two years after joined the Village People, and now they sing our songs at all the major baseball games, in video machines in just about every casino. And I’ve managed to survive somehow and maintain the exact same positive, pleasant, and upbeat perspective that I’ve always had.” True, indeed, for Jones, a true gracious Southern gent from North Carolina, has always been one of the nicest people in this town. And the dish he can shovel, all of it accompanied by his endearingly unbridled cackle! He was always in the right place at the right time, like when he went to Hollywood to appear in Allan Carr’s mythic “Can’t Stop the Music,” and leased Joan Collins’ Coldwater Canyon house. He befriended legends like Rock Hudson, whom he found instantly lik-
able and so perfect that, even when he passed out on a chair at a party, the drink he dropped fell to the floor with nary a spill. Lucky Jones met my favorite director, George Cukor, toward the end of his life: “I would visit him at his fabulous house and we’d drink cocktails and I’d sit at his knee, and this man who directed ‘The Women’ and had a hand in ‘Gone with the Wind’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’ would tell me stories, with his little legs crossed, in his slippers. And not in the bedroom — he never got that – but I’m not saying that I might not bring someone over as he always liked cute company, even a couple, so he’d have a choice. You know he was famous for his protruding jaw, and I remember once, maybe he said it to impress the company I brought, ‘You know how I got this jaw? From sucking big cock!’ I also remember I left but the couple stayed [laughs].”
On May 9, a press preview was held at 54 Below featuring headliners from their daz-
zling spring season. I grabbed the chance to sit down with three of my favorite ladies. Katie Finneran will be at 54 on May 28-31 (54below. com) and described her show as “about loving New York and loving my work as an actress. Every show I do, that community of people becomes my family, and this is about my journey to find the love of my life, my husband, and what went on before and after we had children, and how to combine the two loves of my life, career and family. Finneran, a two-time Tony winner whose comedic chops are already legendary, names as her influences Carole Lombard, Carol Burnett, Meryl Streep, “and nobody’s better than Maggie Smith.” Her one-scene appearance in “Promises, Promises” was the bright spot of that show: “I heard Sally Kellerman on the radio once and I sorta liked the way she talked and took a
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IN THE NOH, continued on p.35