An unlikely subject for a Broadway musical, the late Tammy Faye Messner is the focus of a new biographical show set to open Thursday (November 14) at the Palace Theatre in New York. Featuring music by Elton John and lyrics by Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters, the musical takes us into the life of the woman who was married to eventually disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, but whose own views diverged from the TV preacher. She was inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community, preached compassion for those stricken with AIDS, and broached taboo subjects. It now makes sense why John would want to be involved with Tammy Faye.
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“He’s just so enthusiastic and so interested in all of it, and really cares a lot about this particular story,” says Michael Cerveris, who portrays televangelist Jerry Falwell in the show. “I think he felt, like a lot of gay men in the ‘80s, that whatever else she did, and all of the tons of money that people donated to this theme park and to the ministry, her message was pretty consistently, ‘Everybody is welcome and everybody deserves to be embraced.’ Especially if you call yourself a Christian. She had a gay pastor who had AIDS on their program in the ‘80s, which was just unthinkable at the time. So for Elton, I think this story is really important personally.”
Reevaluating Tammy and Elton
Cerveris has a connection to the material. He grew up in West Virginia and saw The PTL Club on television. He wasn’t a fan, “dismissing it and thinking they were ridiculous cartoon characters, and also part of the Christian nationalist thing that we’re dealing with [today],” he recalls. “They were part of what introduced that into the national discourse. I never had a lot of positive thoughts about them, but as I’ve learned more about her, she was a different character in that whole thing. I think in a lot of ways [she was] similar to Elton in that they don’t want to spend their time on Earth figuring out which side is going to win something. They’re more interested in bringing people together, and having them leave with a song in their heart in what could seem like a cliched, trite thing. But when you’re around people like that, you feel like maybe there isn’t really anything better than that.”
The Tony- and Grammy Award-winning actor, singer, and musician also grew up with the music of Elton John. When Cerveris recently listened to early John albums like Tumbleweed Connection, Honky Château, and Madman Across The Water from the ’70s, he says he had not remembered how much pedal steel guitar was played on them.
“He was doing Americana long before it was called Americana,” Cerveris noted of John, “with a British person’s, foreign national’s perspective on things here, but obviously a real passion and love for the sounds and feelings of American music. It’s been interesting to recognize that when I was listening to Captain Fantastic and all of those records, I was being indoctrinated into Americana music and feeling a real connection with that stuff. As I’ve grown older, I’ve returned to that.”
Playing with Influences
Cerveris is referring to his Americana group Loose Cattle, which formed in 2007 and just put out their third album, Someone’s Monster. While the band has been labeled country rock, they have brought in different styles of music from folk to blues to Cajun. And in the way they blur genre lines, Cerveris has been trying instill his performance as Falwell with some extra musical panache.
“It’s been interesting because little by little, with the music director’s encouragement and Elton’s encouragement, I’ve been bringing a little more rock and roll and gospel-y fundamental stuff into Jerry’s songs,” Cerveris explains. “I’m starting to merge the worlds a little more, at least sonically. But talk about somebody [Falwell] who’s the antithesis of bringing people together and lifting them up.”
The Broadway actor says he also found inspiration in reading John’s memoir Me, which traces his personal and musician evolution and shows how much passion he has for music.
“To be around somebody like that who’s given his life to music and has always wanted to do it to connect people, and to lift people up and make people feel good and be happy, is really inspiring,” Cerveris says. “He was giving a little pep talk to the company after a run-through, and it was really great. At the end of it, he just started singing one of the songs just out of nowhere. It reminded me of when you’re in Ireland or Scotland and you’re in those dark, little working man’s pubs in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, somebody just starts singing a song. It’s that thing where music is just so much a part of you that it’s just a natural expression. Sometimes when talking isn’t going to be enough you have to sing something. Being around somebody like that whose life is about music—it doesn’t even matter what music they do—anybody who lives it and breathes it like that is an inspiration.”
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