Hello Birdie! Rock ’n’ roll musical makes first Broadway comeback with Cedar Rapids natives onstage

Catherine Blades doesn't really know what it's like to live in New York City.

“I know the theater,” she says. “I get on the train and go to the theater, then come home. I don't really have much time at all, but I don't mind. Once the show starts running, I'll have time in the day. It'll be nice.”

That day has come.

It's a day she's been dreaming of through all the shows she's seen in New York, all the roles she's played at Theatre Cedar Rapids and Washington High School, and her stint in the national touring production of “The Music Man.”

Oct. 15 she makes her Broadway debut.

Blades, 17, daughter of Chuck and Amy Blades of Cedar Rapids, is in the first Broadway revival of the hit musical comedy “Bye Bye Birdie.” She plays teenager Deborah Sue Miller and is the understudy for the lead swooning teen role, Kim MacAfee.

The play originally opened April 14, 1960, starring Dick Van Dyke, Chita Rivera, Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. Dick Gautier played Conrad Birdie, an Elvis Presley-type heartthrob heading off to the Army. But before he leaves, he is going to bestow a goodbye kiss on contest winner Kim MacAfee of Sweet Apple, Ohio, setting the whole town in an uproar.

Nearly 50 years later, John Stamos, Gina Gershon and Nolan Gerard Funk (as Birdie) headline the cast that stars not one, but two Cedar Rapids natives.

Timothy Shew is playing Mayor Garfein some 35 years after appearing in his first show: a Cedar Rapids summer musical production of “Bye Bye Birdie.”

“I was a teenager - one of the ‘Telephone Hour' kids,” says Shew, 50, a 1976 Cedar Rapids Kennedy graduate who now lives in New York City with his wife and son. “I could do that 35 years ago. I can't pull that off now. I'm the old man now,” he says with a laugh. “I've come full circle.”

He started at the top for his Broadway debut, too, joining the cast of the venerable musical “Les Miserables” in 1987. He soon stepped into the lead role of Jean Valjean, which he played more than 1,600 times between Broadway and touring productions, including a stop at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City.

“That's one (role) that's near and dear to my heart,” he says.

“Bye Bye Birdie” has been playing to preview audiences since Sept. 10 in the recently renovated Henry Miller's Theatre. The highly anticipated revival already has teens screaming during the preview performances, Blades and Shew report. And afterward, the stage door becomes “a mob scene,” Shew says, “with barricades and people lining up six or seven deep waiting for the stars to come out.”

After all the years and shows Shew has experienced in his career, he says opening nights are still “a rush,” attracting “theater patrons, bigwigs and producers.” Blades is hoping to meet Chita Rivera tonight. Blades' parents also will be there.

“They allow us to have a couple tickets for the significant people in our lives,” Shew says, “so it's a really supportive audience. That's really, really helpful.”

Blades is living with a cousin in the city and is being tutored through next week. Then she'll take high school classes online through Kirkwood Community College, which will transfer to Cedar Rapids Washington, where she is a senior. After graduation, she hopes to go to college in New York City and continue auditioning for shows.

Juggling her schedule of school, rehearsals and performances has been the most challenging aspect of realizing her dream, Blades says.

“It's exhausting, getting up and going to school, rehearsing and doing the show. Eight shows (a week) is a lot, but it's fun,” she says. “I miss home a lot. I knew I was going to miss Iowa, but I'm ready to be in New York.

“I didn't realize how much I'd miss Cedar Rapids. I talk to my folks every day and text my friends all the time.”

Despite that little twinge of homesickness, she quickly puts on her happy face and says the whole Broadway experience has been “really amazing.”

FAST TAKE

What: “Bye Bye Birdie” Broadway revival

Starring: John Stamos, Gina Gershon and Cedar Rapids natives Timothy Shew and Catherine Blades

Where: Henry Miller's Theatre, 124 W. 43rd St., New York City

When: Oct. 15 through Jan. 10

Show times: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 2 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday; some exceptions during the holidays

Tickets: Lowest price weekdays $86.50 to highest price holidays $141.50 at www.byebyebirdieonbroadway.com