Jason Alexander has been training for this moment for most of his life.
Before he became a household name on “Seinfeld,” he was a big name — and Tony nominee — on Broadway.
Alexander, best known for his Emmy-nominated role as George Costanza on The Show About Nothing, grew up with a love of show tunes he credits to his older half-sister’s album collection. This ended up preparing the actor for his appearance on Broadway Podcast Network’s “The Great Broadway Game Show Competition.”
Hosted by actor-director Todd Graff, the podcast sees a group of Broadway veterans play a theater-themed version of “Name That Tune.” Alexander was joined on his episode by Tony winner Donna Murphy, “Law & Order” actor J.K. Simmons and more.
“You’d have to kind of beat me away with sticks to keep me from it,” Alexander, 62, said of joining the show. “I wanted to say to Todd when he called and told me about it ... ‘You stole my idea.’ I was two weeks away from having that idea.”
The trivia show is available on all major podcast outlets.
For any curious “Seinfeld” fans, Alexander is certain he’s “much better” at theater trivia than any revolving around the landmark NBC sitcom.
“When you’re a kid, you think your older sibling’s music collection is the coolest stuff in the world,” explained Alexander. “And my sister was a child of the ‘60s. So it should be The Beatles and The Stones and Dylan and Joplin and all, I guess. ... ‘Man of La Mancha,’ ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ ... And I grew up thinking this is the coolest music on the planet, right? So my entire record collection for the most part up until I was maybe college age, was all-cast albums and soundtracks. And so you now call me and go, ‘Hey, we’re doing a game show. We have to figure out show tunes.’ I got my time.”
It’s almost time for Alexander to make his long-awaited return to the stage, this time as a director for a nonmusical adaptation of “The War of the Roses” as well as “The Cottage” — penned by up-and-comer Sandy Rustin and described as a “wonderful, fun, crazy comedy” — as well as a new musical he can’t yet talk about.
Of course, that all depends on the trajectory of COVID-19.
“It’s hard to see the pandemic with an upside of any kind. I personally know of people who had lovely careers who just could not tough it out,” said Alexander, contending that the past two years have really shown just how devoted the theater world is to its own.
“There is something about the brotherhood and sisterhood of people who know what it means and know what it takes to get up eight times a week and do something that has no safety net for an audience, where you have to make that magic trick work, or it fails. And it’s not just the actors, it’s the whole machinery of those shows, it’s cast and crew and creators,” said Alexander.
The theater world’s mid-pandemic donations — of money, goods, time, and virtual performances and readings — were all ways to “maintain this connection to each other in some way and set that devastation out.”
There’s nothing trivial about that.
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