Bullets Over Broadway

Today I'm talking to Jim Borstelmann, who made his Broadway debut as a swing in Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989.

Jim went on to appear on Broadway in Chicago, The Producers, Young Frankenstein, The Addams Family, Chaplin, Bullets Over Broadway, and most recently, New York, New York.

Jim was in the original cast of Chicago when it debuted at City Center in 1996, and he transferred with it to Broadway, where he originated the role of the judge.

Let's dive in and see what Jim has to say.

break a leg and then have Monday off and, you know, mend.

What did you learn from Annie working on that show that changed you as a performer after that in the work that you've done since?

For me, what I took from Annie to the producers and then to Young Frankenstein and the Addams Family and Chaplin, all these shows, Bullets Over Broadway was to keep it real and honest.

To not be so performy and fake that the audience does that backup thing.

Yeah.

Jenna Hunterson in Waitress, uh, Ellen in Bullets Over Broadway, and for a while there I felt like Betsy and I needed to have a clause in our contracts that we must not work unless it was together.

[laughs] Because we got to share in the remarkable experience of the Falsettos revival together as Cordelia and Trina respectively, and we starred opposite each other as Edwin Drood and Rosa Bud in Roundabout's most recent revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

And throughout the course of many years, she and I did every concert- Mm ... every benefit, every gala in New York City together.

I just want to add that not only is she currently starring in Death Becomes Her, but I'm just going to read some of Betsy Wolfe's other theater credits, including the Broadway shows and Juliet, Tony Nam.

Falsettos, Waitress, Bullets Over Broadway, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Everyday Rapture, 110 in the Shade, The Last Five Years, Merrily We Roll Along, just a few obscure titles that none of you have ever heard of.

Betsy Wolfe is one of my favorite performers on the planet.

If you listen to my podcast, 500 episodes in, I rarely have the same person on twice.