Exit Stage Left

In a past life I was somewhat obsessed with Rosie O'Donnell. Okay, not somewhat. My fixation was on par with the current preoccupation with Keith Olbermann or Aaron Sorkin... and, no, I'm not a lesbian. It started during the summer of '93 when I saw her interviewed on Arsenio Hall (seriously?!) promoting A League of Their Own and it was all sort-of downhill from there, tumbling into near-stalker-like behavior. However, once her talk show went off-air I sort of lost interest and I actually swung to the complete opposite end of the spectrum: I thought she had cracked up and gone crazy, she certainly drove me crazy. The whole Taboo debacle embarrassed me as a theatre-goer and aspiring producer and I paid little attention to her after that. So, when it was recently decided that Rosie would replace the departed Meredith Viera on "The View" I wasn't interested in watching but then a couple weeks in my curiosity got the better of me. I Tivo'd one episode which quickly turned into a season pass. I rarely watch the whole show, and just tune in for"Hot Topics" and to watch Rosie decimate that idiot, Elisabeth What's-Her-Face, publicly and on an almost daily basis. Occasionally, however, there's cause to stay-tuned for the whole show.

The thing I liked most about Rosie's former daytime talk show was her shameless promotion of Broadway musicals. At least once a week she would feature a live performance from a Broadway show and frequently interviews with its cast. Aside from the Sunday New York Times and Playbill.com it can be difficult for a theatre dork such as myself to get her fill of theatre news through traditional media outlets. At the time her show aired I'd never traveled to New York, nor seen a Broadway production. Her daily show was a way for me to be a voyeur into world of which I so badly wanted to be a part. I may not have seen The Producer's on Broadway, but when I saw Matthew Broderick sing "I Wanna Be a Producer" it was almost life-changing and most certainly life-affirming (not to get too sappy, or anything).

I'm not sure how Rosie's contract with ABC and "The View" is structured, but I'm certain she has some editorial control because since she's been on-air the broadcast has echoed her past program in bringing attention to many current productions playing on Broadway. And, while I think Rosie can be a bit of a loud-mouth and should probably learn when to keep quiet occasionally, when it comes to promoting musical theatre I hope she never shuts up.