She Will Entertain You

Here she is, that five-foot-two bundle of dynamite, Kate Reinders! This young woman from Spring Lake, Michigan (whose last name is pronounced RHINE-ders) is doing Gypsy again. This time, though, she’s not the mere newsboy she was in 1992 at Western Michigan’s Cherry County Playhouse in Muskegon. Now, she’s Dainty June in the Broadway revival that’s one of the most anticipated of the 2002-2003 season.

Eleven years ago, Cathryn Anne Reinders was a pre-adolescent who played the violin and took ballet, and never gave a thought to musical theater. But her mother — “who is nothing like Mama Rose, I promise,” she says — saw an ad for theater camp and suggested that her daughter enroll. That led to Reinders’ auditioning for Gypsy. The director used her fiddling skills to make her Violet and her Violin (as opposed to the usual Clarence and his Clarinet) in the Uncle Jocko scene. Since that production, Reinders has never been as deeply involved with the violin or ballet. “After Gypsy,” she says, “I knew theater was for me.”

Producer Neil Rosen knew it was, too. When his choreographer suggested that that he do Annie the following year specifically for the young talent, Rosen agreed. And, after that, Reinders played Annie Warbucks, Mary in The Secret Garden, and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz — all by the time she was 17. She was set for Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods in 1998 “but the theater had economic problems,” she says. “They had to cut one show and thought that Into the Woods was the one that the audience knew least.” Still, Reinders got to play the Narrator in Joseph.

It was all very professional, for the Cherry County Playhouse in Muskegon is an 1,800-seat venue — a real movie palace of old, with handsome Spanish and Moorish architecture. Better still, that Gypsy starred no less than Rita Moreno as Mama Rose (and her real-life daughter, Fernanda Gordon, as Louise). Only a year would pass before Reinders was standing center stage in Annie.

She enrolled in the University of Michigan’s musical theater program but wasn’t there for long because Allen Fitzpatrick, her Daddy Warbucks in Michigan, introduced her to his agent. Soon, Reinders auditioned for the Broadway revival of The Sound of Music and was cast in the tour as a nun and an understudy for both Liesl and Louisa. What did she learn from that 10-month experience? “Room service rocks and always put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on your door,” she says with a wide grin.

Reinders then understudied again, for Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. She went on just once, in New Haven. “I guess the show had problems,” she concedes, “but that’s not what you see when you’re in your first Broadway show.” After that, she became the answer to the fetching trivia question, “Who’s the only person to be cast in the two White roles in Into the Woods?” You see, director James Lapine cast her not only as Milky White but also as Snow White. As it turned out, Reinders didn’t play either role, for Snow White was eliminated from the show and Milky White was played by Chad Kimball. But, once upon a time, there were plans to have Snow White and Sleeping Beauty close the revival as they did the original production. “They told me they were only cutting the characters for the L.A. tryout,” says Reinders brightly, before ominously adding, “which I didn’t believe for a second. I knew they wouldn’t be in it at all.”

Meanwhile, Reinders had her hands — and feet — full trying to stay on all fours and make a marvelous Milky White. “I just couldn’t do it,” she rues. “I couldn’t turn my head, which always had to be down, or even move my neck, so I quickly knew I’d never be able to do eight a week.” Kimball took over to her everlasting gratitude and respect. Reinders understudied Cinderella, Rapunzel, and the Little Red Riding Hood role that cruel business had prevented her from taking in Muskegon. She went on as Red about 15 times, especially in Los Angeles, where youngster Molly Ephraim wasn’t permitted to do eight a week because the local child labor laws are more stringent than New York’s.

In an era when a performer is lucky to get one Broadway show, Reinders actually had her choice of two this season, for she was in the production of A Year with Frog and Toad that premiered in Minneapolis last year. “I was a bird, mouse, young frog, mole, and squirrel,” she says, ticking them off on her fingers. “I loved doing them, but we didn’t know the show was going to Broadway. So, when I heard that Sam Mendes was auditioning for Gypsy, I asked for time off and they were nice enough to give it to me.” It wasn’t an inconsiderable amount of time, because she had to fly to London to try out for Dainty June. “Sam wasn’t coming to me,” she says with a shrug. She sang everything that the young miss has in the show and took the opportunity to express her point of view about the character.

“I feel that, since June has been playing vaudeville since she was three, she’s seen a lot,” says Reinders. “June also knows that she’s the talent and that she’s been taking care of her mother and sister. No matter what her mother makes her wear, she’s already an old soul, someone who’s been through a lot. I wanted to show that side of her — the exhausted and tired side — and Sam agreed. I think it’s really worked. Sometimes I find emotions coming out of me, anger and frustration, that I didn’t even know were there before.”

Of course, she’s more than a decade older than June is in the show. “Being small for my age was a real advantage here,” she says. As she sits backstage during an entire second act in which she has nothing to do, she has time to ponder her future. “Of course, I know my size and demeanor will be a disadvantage someday,” she says. “I’m not going to grow anymore.”

She admits to spending a good deal of that second-act off-time hoping that she can meet singer/songwriter John Mayer. “I saw him on the street a few months ago,” she says in a sad voice, “and I had to look away because I was hyper-ventilating so much. He saw me looking at him and knew I knew who he was, but he just walked by. I really blew it. Some people have said to me, ‘Well, invite him to the show. He’ll have to be impressed that you’re on Broadway!’ But I say, ‘Do you think playing this part is going to get me a date?'”

********************

[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@aol.com]