Broadway babies
Best buddies take stages by storm
H, to be young, on Broadway and getting notes from Robert De Niro. In other words, how nice to be Hudson Loverro, who plays the kid in “A Bronx Tale,” the hit musical directed by De Niro and Jerry Zaks.
“I get asked questions about Bob, as the whole cast calls him, all the time,” says Hudson, who turns 10 in February. “He’s very involved.”
But as the fourth-grader makes clear, it’s not all about Bob: Hudson’s much more excited to be making his Great White Way debut across the street from where his BFF, “Falsettos” star Anthony Rosenthal, 12, is making his.
At Sardi’s, over cookies and in overlapping sentences, they tell The Post how they met.
“It was about a year-and-a-half ago, and we were at the stage door at ‘Finding Neverland,’ waiting for autographs,” Hudson says. “Anthony was tapping ...” “I tend to do that,” Anthony says. “... and we started tapping together, and that built into a conversation, and we became best friends automatically!” Hudson concludes.
Soon after, they were cast in Paper Mill Playhouse’s “AChristmas Story,” Hudson as whiny little brother Randy and Anthony as his understudy. (“He never went on,” Hudson says, “but he would have been amazing!”)
They have lots in common: Both were born in California, are a quarter Italian, moved around a lot and say their sisters inspired them.
Watching his older sister onstage in Kansas, Hudson says, he asked himself, “Why am I not doing that?” He was 5.
“Ever since I was walking, I was dancing with my sister,” Anthony says.
Several years ago, his family saw “Mary Poppins” with Christian Borle. NowBorle’s playing Anthony’s gay dad in “Falsettos.”
“It’s depressing!” Hudson says about the show. “But heartwarming and funny. And Anthony was
amazing, of course.” Anthony shrugs. “You could say it’s about a lot of things,” he says. “Loss or pride or the AIDS crisis. But it’s really about family, and what it is, and what love is.”
Their own families have followed them to New York — Hud- son’s to Manhattan, where he attends public school, and Anthony’s to Queens (he takes classes online). Both boys plan to stick with acting, but they don’t expect it to be easy.
When “Falsettos” closes Sunday, Anthony says, “I’m just gonna live life and audition and hope something comes up again.” In the meantime, he’s writing songs and making YouTube videos.
Both he and Hudson say the only way to succeed in theater is to be passionate about it.
“You have to trust in yourself,” Hudson says. “I’ve had many auditions lately, so I might hear back from them, I might not. That’s how it goes in the theater, you know?”
Bob De Niro, take note!