Amber Petty has the daunting task of bringing ambitious college senior-turned-Christian Grey sub Ana from the pages of 50 Shades of Grey to the New York stage in the sidesplitting parody 50 Shades! The Musical, and boy does she exceed any and every expectation. Petty’s Ana is not only hilarious, but she’s our guide into this crazy world of sexual dominance in Seattle. She is saying what we are thinking; her facial expressions would be the ones any one of us would make in the same situation; and her voice—holy smokes. Below, BroadwayBox catches up with Ms. Petty—who it turns out is just as funny offstage—to talk about the show, the crazy book it’s based on and the Google search she regrets.
1. The pop song that reminds me of Christian and Anastasia’s relationship:
“Slave 4 U,” by Britney Spears comes to mind, or if "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" by Elton John and Kiki Dee had more references to hand cuffs, that would be perfect.
2. The prop in 50 Shades! The Musical I needed to Google:
Oh, I had a plethora of weird Google searches on my computer when I started this show. But a "spread bar" or "spreader bar" was the biggest mystery to me. Also "golden shower misting." It's worse than you think it is, don't look it up.
3. The sexiest characters in all of literature:
Growing up, my favorite author was John Steinbeck and he does not have a lot of sexy story lines. Unless you find Depression era labor struggles sexy. Weirdly, Tyler Durden in Fight Club is a sexy character, as completely messed up as he was. But that might be influenced by Brad Pitt’s super low hanging pants from the movie.
4. The TV show that I had to sneak to watch growing up:
My mom was pretty lenient in letting me watch things, but for awhile we couldn't watch South Park, so I'd sneak and watch it downstairs. I did later watch the South Park movie with my mom when I was a teenager. A warning: watching a movie featuring a talking clitoris with your mom is not a great idea.
5. The craziest audience reaction we’ve had at 50 Shades! The Musical:
Christian Grey has a big reveal moment in the show and after all the shouting and applause from the audience died down, an old woman, whose voice was very similar to Hans Moleman from The Simpsons, slowly shouted out "I want what he's got!" I wish she would come to every show.
6. If I had to write a newspaper feature about my time in 50 Shades! The Musical, the title would be:
"I Never Knew I'd Making a Living from a Soft Core Porn" the Amber Petty Story.
7. When I really think about it, the craziest plot point in 50 Shades Of Grey has to be:
If we're talking about crazy plot points, I'll have to include the whole trilogy. So other than the fact that Ana gets threatened with a gun by Christian's former submissive, an old boss of Ana tries to kill Christian by sabotaging "Charlie Tango" his helicopter, or that the series nearly ends with a complicated kidnapping and extortion scheme. But I think the craziest thing of all is that the very last chapter of the last book ends with Ana and Christian having sex in the red room while Ana's pregnant with their third child. After finishing, Ana says "the baby's kicking. I guess she likes sex already." The book ends talking about their fetus's love of banging.
See Amber Petty bring Anastasia from the page to the stage in 50 Shades! The Musical at the Elektra Theatre.
