Moonlight’s ‘Tootsie’ musical opens Wednesday in Vista (original) (raw)
In David Yazbek and Robert Horn’s 2018 stage-musical adaptation of “Tootsie,” just as in the 1982 Oscar-winning film starring Dustin Hoffman, Michael Dorsey-turned-Dorothy Michaels doesn’t hesitate to speak “her” mind, whether it comes to getting acting jobs or getting respect as a woman.
For Michael Paternostro, who plays the dual roles of Michael and Dorothy in Moonlight Stage Productions’ “Tootsie” musical, that forthrightness is part of the appeal of the role.
“I get to do these scenes that are so satisfying,” said Paternostro. “Michael’s getting nowhere and everything is a struggle and he’s hitting wall after wall. Then as Dorothy he can insinuate all these things he’s always wanted to say.”
Paternostro is drawing from both the film character of Michael Dorsey — an out-of-work male actor who disguises himself as a woman to land the female role of Dorothy in a soap opera — and the Michael Dorsey conceived by Horn and Yazbek, a less accomplished actor who ultimately auditions for the part of the Nurse in a stage-musical sequel to “Romeo and Juliet.”
“In this show,” said Paternostro of Horn and Yazbek’s “Tootsie,” “you see Michael Dorsey as a musical actor and he’s in a particularly cheesy musical. It’s like a soap to him.”
In the Moonlight production co-directed by Larry Raben and Noelle Marion, Paternostro is supported by Summer Broyhill as Michael’s friend Sandy Lester; Elizabeth Adabale as his “Juliet’s Curse” co-star and love interest Julie; Dallas McLaughlin as Michael’s playwriting roommate Jeff Slater; Eileen Bowman as producer Rita Marshall; and Steve Glaudini as the show-within-a-show’s director Ron Carlisle.
Glaudini is Moonlight’s producing artistic director. Paternostro says the two of them have known each other since the days when they worked together at Musical Theatre West in Long Beach. “’Tootsie” (the movie) was something Steve and I used to laugh and laugh about,” Paternostro recalled.
This is Paternostro’s third Moonlight production. He last appeared onstage as Lumiere in Moonlight’s “Beauty and the Beast” four years ago. An accomplished pianist, he music directed Moonlight’s staging of “Something Rotten!” in 2022, also conducting an eight-piece orchestra.
A longtime musician, actor and dancer, Paternostro says “The hard part for me is singing” in “Tootsie.”
The cross-dressing? No problem.
“I don’t think she (Dorothy) has to be pretty. Thank God.”
Cast members for Moonlight Stage Productions’ “Tootsie,” from left, Michael Paternostro, Steve Glaudini, Elizabeth Adabale, Summer Broyhill, Chris Hunter and Eileen Bowman. (Allison Tester)
Paternostro hails from and lives in New Orleans, and he’ll perform there onstage for the first time next January at Le Petit Theatre in a production of the comedy-drama “Good Night, Oscar,” a play inspired by pianist/actor Oscar Levant’s appearances on “The Tonight Show” with host Jack Paar in the early 1960s. It was written by Doug Wright (“I Am My Own Wife”).
“I’m anxious to see how Oscar fits me,” said Paternostro. “It feels like it’s going to be exciting. It’s a blend of two things I haven’t done together in a show yet — classical chops and acting.”
Paternostro envisions another project tied to his hometown.
“There needs to be a real live New Orleans musical.” Calling the clarinet the “spirit animal of New Orleans,” he says his Big Easy show would lean heavily on that instrument rather than on the currently favored trombone. “They all just out-blast each other,” he said. “The music’s so the same. I would write the old, more elegant, clarinet-featured New Orleans jazz music.”
But first there’s business as Michael Dorsey and Dorothy Michaels, the two sides of “Tootsie,” to attend to.
‘Tootsie’
When: Opens Wednesday and runs through Sept. 28. 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays
Where: Moonlight Amphitheatre, Brengle Terrace Park, 1200 Vale Terrace Drive, Vista
Tickets: 15−15-15−60
Phone: (760) 724-2110
Online: moonlightstage.com
Originally Published: September 6, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.