By SHARON EBERSON
Wanna find out
Who’s naughty or nice
And not have to ask
If Santa checked twice?
If you’re thinking it’s Scrooge,
It could be, that’s true.
But I’ll tell you right now:
It’s Cindy Lou Who, that’s who!
And who should be seen
As the adult Cindy Lou?
It’s Lara Hayhurst, in a first …
So, Lara Hayhurst, what should audience expectations be when they come to see Who’s Holiday!, your solo CLO Cabaret show opening on Friday?
“Definitely ‘naughty.’ Definitely R-rated. There is probably no curse word left behind,” said the musical comedy stalwart and North Allegheny High School grad.
At this time of year, we can usually expect to see Hayhurst at the Byham Theater, in Pittsburgh CLO’s A Musical Christmas Carol. She has been three times a caroler and, in 2019, the Ghost of Christmas Past. That Pittsburgh holiday tradition, which began its run in 1990, boasts two-time Tony Award-winner Michael Cerveris, returning as Ebenezer Scrooge for the second straight year.
It is one of many theatrical ways to celebrate Christmas with the whole family, including Pittsburgh Public Theater’s lavish and hilarious A Christmas Story: The Play, now its second year, with the killer core cast of Tim McGeever as the Old Man, John Shepard as Adult Ralph, Jamie C. Agnello as Mother, Hope Anthony as Miss Shields and Sebastian Madoni as Ralphie, directed Michael Berresse.
Let’s just say Who’s Holiday! is an adults-only alternative to the usual holiday night out.
In the hour-long solo show, middle-aged Cindy Lou resides in a beaten-down trailer in the snowy hills of Mount Crumpit. As she prepares to host a Christmas Eve party, she recalls the night when she first met the Grinch, and the turn of events her life has taken for the past 40 years.
The story, told in rhyme and with rhythms inspired by Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, has a hard-fought history.
An early production was faced with cease-and-desist orders from the estate of Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel before playwright Lombardo’s team won a 2018 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals. It was decided that Who’s Holiday!, “which brings bestiality, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and prison culture to a place a lot like Whoville, is parody and therefore ‘fair use,’ ” according to Deadline.com.
Award-winning actress Lesli Margherita originated the role off-Broadway, and just happened to be playing Miss Adelaide in CLO’s Guys & Dolls when the company announced Who’s Holiday! was coming to the Greer Cabaret December 1-31.
Hayhurst declared herself a huge fan of Jennifer Simard, who did an early iteration of the show, and Margherita, who made it her own. So when Hayhurst saw an Instagram post this past summer of Margherita pointing to a poster of Hayhurst and asking, “Who is this imposter?,” the new Cindy Lou sent her a message, saying, “I’m the imposter. I have some huge stilettos to fill.”
“And she was so gracious and gave me a couple tips,” Hayhurst recalled during a break in rehearsals Saturday. “The one that has stuck with me, was, ‘It’s literally the hardest thing you’ll ever do.’ And that kind of hit me at the time. I was like, ‘It’s an hour-long play. How hard can it be?’ And yet she’s right.”
Preparations for Hayhurst have been virtually nonstop since October, because she happens to live with the director – her husband, Trey Compton.
They met as 12-year-olds at Act One Theater School in Glenshaw, and these days make their home in New York, when one or the other isn’t working myriad regional roles, including for Pittsburgh Musical Theater and Pittsburgh CLO.
For Hayhurst, who was hilarious in the title role of An Untitled New Play by Justin Timberlake, the Matt Schatz comedy at City Theatre last year, doing a solo show adds to a resumé that includes assistant stage manager for Audra McDonald’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, a COVID compliance officer and an animal handler with Berloni Theatrical Animals.
She warned that Max, the Grinch’s dog, has a part in Who’s Holiday!. And no, thankfully, it’s not played by a real dog. She has plenty on her hands memorizing a show done in rhyme, and possibly offending every person in the elegantly appointed cabaret theater.
Working with her husband has helped her change her usual routine of “fly by the seat of my pants” memorization.
Compton previously directed his wife in Grease at PMT, but this rhyming script presents many new challenges. Starting on October 1, Hayhurst adopted her husband’s method of learning a page a day, then each day, reciting what she had learned previously, plus the newest page.
“It really set me up for success,” she said.
Their mutual trust in “the vision they are trying to create” has reminded Hayhurst of their days together at Act One or in high school, “when we would just go home at night on fire with creative energy and just spitball ideas and create all these things. It kind of has felt like that, which is really, really cool.”
Also “so cool,” she said, has been working with “someone who knows every single trick I have in my bag. There have been times, just because he knows what I can do so well, he’ll be like, ‘What if it’s a Britney impression here?’ … So he has been able to unlock a lot of things in myself that either I forget, or I’m not thinking of.”
Although the Greer space has a new look, the venue and members of the management team such as Tim Brady are familiar to Hayhurst, who roller-skated there as a muse in the CLO Cabaret production of Xanadu.
“It’s so beautiful, but you know what? The same floor is still there! I walked through all the renovations, but they left the same concrete floor, and I immediately got PTSD of trying to roller skate on it.”
What’s really new for the venue, and the Pittsburgh Cultural District, is an adults-only Christmas-themed show, based on a children’s beloved book.
CLO must have seized on something that was missing, because tickets for Who’s Holiday! were selling out fast.
“There is so much beloved, yet very wholesome Christmas content in Pittsburgh that some people have come to expect. That includes my own beloved Musical Christmas Carol, which I obviously won’t be a part of this year, but can’t wait to go see and support all of our friends. And there’s The Nutcracker, we have the beautiful [Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley] happening at City Theater … I think Pittsburgh is excited about the prospect of something alternative to do for the holiday season, something to break the stress of the families and the obligations and the shopping and the this and the that to sort of just let loose and have fun.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
CLO Cabaret’s Who’s Holiday! is at the Greer Cabaret, Downtown, December 1-31, 2023. Tickets: visit https://pittsburghclo.culturaldistrict.org/production/90310 or call 412-456-6666. NOTE: This show contains adult content.
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