There are classical themes that seem to interest and attract playwrights in each succeeding generation. Certainly Shakespeare was aware of the class distinctions of his time in urban England, and he came up with the Capulets and the Montagues to illustrate how teenagers are affected by their early influences and pre-set conditions. For instance, Juliet and her Romeo (and Maria and Tony in “West Side Story”) were taught to “stick to their own kind” when bonding with friends and even falling in love. They find big time trouble when they meet by chance and inexplicably discover a force that attracts them to each other. 

In 1967 a book was published by nineteen year old S.E. Hinton who wrote as a teenager for and about teenagers. Called The Outsiders, it spoke to and inspired them. Hinton’s book is set in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The central character is Ponyboy Curtis (played by Brody Grant) who has two older brothers (Brent Comer and Jason Schmidt) and a best friend called Johnny Cade (Sky Lakota-Lynch) A beautiful young teen named Cherry Valance (Emma Pittman) will trigger the rift that grows intense and violent between her affluent world and the one in which Ponyboy’s people are known as Greasers– The Outsiders.

With a bounty of excellent characters, the novel by the eighteen year old Hinton has now sold over 15 million copies in many languages, As a stage show, it is difficult to dramatize because of its abundant population, and its moving story has many settings in and around Tulsa.  But a vast team of writers, composers, arrangers, choreographers, and lyricists have joined director Danya Taymor for this musical production on Broadway which comes to us from its success at the La Jolla Playhouse. It is a monumental achievement and a tribute to all of its creators as well as to its smoothly integrated cast of young actors. The staging is inventive and complicated and often involves exuberant and intricate movement made even more extraordinary by the many smaller supporting roles that are sung, danced, and acted by excellent understudies and swings. The performance I saw was the Wednesday matinee of April 17, and it ran in show-stopping fashion through its two and one half hour playing time. 

The weakest area of the material would be its score. To my ear, it sounded more like film background music, though its lyrics are often eloquent and are written by Justin Levine, who is credited as co-author of the book plus music and lyrics as well as Music Supervision, Orchestration and Arrangements.

In 1967 when Playwright Hinton was 19, she wrote an Op Ed for the NY Times: “Teenagers are for real. Give them something to hang on to. Show that some people don’t sell out, that not everyone can be bought. Do it realistically. Earn respect by giving it.”  She put all that to good use by writing this play.  Now here we are, almost half a century later. It’s still valid, and her story lives on.  I recommend it highly.

There is a note in the Playbill for Corruption the current occupant of the Mitzi Newhouse Theater in Lincoln Center.  It’s by the play’s author J.T.Rogers and in it he tells us that his play is about “there and then”and that it is relevant to today in the “here and now.” It deals with the corruption and scandal that colored 2011 in regard to abuse of power by a particular media company. It’s his contention that it is prophetic of a renewed form of corruption that is infecting today’s world as well. He is attempting to teach us to the very specific details of the upheaval in Publisher Rupert Murdock’s world brought about by chicanery and deceit that runs rampant in our current world. It’s a warning bell, and it is earnest and alarming.  To my mind however, it is more of a series of shoutouts involving characters from 2011 who spend most of their time attacking each other ending each verbal thrust with an exclamation point. 

Seth Numrich, Dylan Baker, Saffron Burrows (T.Charles Erickson)

The characters are all real people from Rupert Murdoch’s world.  It’s the playwright’s contention that we can learn from history why we are facing such a divisive current world and warning us to be more diligent in learning from the past. These real people include dozens of those who are cohorts or adversaries in the political society of today. It’s an angry play– one which makes its points with a hammer and tongs; and after 90 minutes of its long first act, I found myself more irritated than moved by its relentless arguments. The playwright seems to be saying that we are doomed if we don’t very soon start to pay attention to the forces that are on a course to destroy the democracy that we fought so hard to enlighten this 21st century.

The cast (T.Charles Erickson)

The play is loaded with dense dialog some of which is lost in the heavy British accents which this cast of talented featured actors rely on. It’s difficult to learn from the program notes which actors are British, for almost all have considerable American credits, achieved at many of our prestigious regional theaters. Mr. Rogers wrote the play after reading Tom Watkins and Martin Hickman’s book Dial M For Murdoch which dealt with these happenings in Britain in 2011. What attracted Mr. Rogers to the material was his enjoyment at discovering the real events of the abuse of power by a particular media company who decided that by raising share prices they could bend the government to their will which threatened democracy itself. The play proposes that theatre is where we can still come together and look at our history to better understand the present. He felt we in America were caught in the middle a similar threat to our democratic ideals. I’ve always avoided politics which made me the wrong fellow to view this very angry play, and I can only report that it was splendidly mounted, made good use of a functional set comprised of movable sections that adroitly allowed for a variety of settings. The large company of thirteen actors played some 35-40 characters (some prominently featured some supporting bit players). Bartlett Sher’s direction constantly flowed, but I was never quite sure who was who and was certain only that though I heard a lot of rhetoric but felt little emotional involvement. 

This elaborately titled musical is based on a novel of the same name by Sara Gruen which was a best seller and served as the source of a film with Reese Witherspoon and others. It’s now been produced by a consortium of individuals, theatre lovers, management firms–over fifty of them!– with Jessie Stone credited as Director. Choreography is by Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll, and there is supervision and arrangements of the musical score by the Pigpen Theatre Company–which has to be a first. It features an extraordinary company of singers, dancers, actors, and essentially acrobats whose nimble bodies bend, twist, turn, and literally fly through the air to the gasps of pleasure and astonishment from all of us who sat stunned at the results. If all we were asked to do was watch the dazzling scenery and costumes whirl by, we could turn off our minds and not listen to the songs whose words and music make a frail attempt to tell us a story and to elicit some emotional connection to the characters who populate it. Then we could shout “Wow! What a dazzling musical comedy this is!” The problem here is that it’s dazzling enough…. but is it a theatre piece or is it a circus?

There is a character called Mr. Jankowski, there is a horse, a lion, an orangutan and an endearing elephant–all possessed with personality. But I regret to say I would need at least one more viewing of this gorgeous show before attempting to tell you its story. Is there a story to a spectacle? To a circus? If there is, I need help in deciphering it. I can say that Grant Guskin, Isabelle McCalla, Gregg Edelman, Sara Gettelfinger, Paul Alexander Nolan, Stan Brown and all the others manage without benefit of a cohesive book to make us enjoy it even though I still felt like an outsider looking in at the end.

The book by Rick Ellis throws in a line here and a short scene there to lure us back to the story, but all it did was make us wait for the magic of the spectacle to return. I admit my view of the show is not the popular one; the end of show babble as we left the theatre seemed favorable as we hit the street. We’ll have to wait to see if the show has legs. If it does, I apologize to those of you who embrace it.  Mr. Ellis spent seventeen years (from 1982 to1999) as Creative Director of ad campaigns for more than three hundred Broadway shows.Then he joined the Disney Company as Creative Consultant and was helpful in setting sales records for so much of that studio’s product. Clearly he was first rate at capturing the essence of a film’s appeal. His challenge will be to attract a vast audience to this musical in a Broadway market. 

In the beginning, there was the novel by Nicholas Sparks. Same title as the musical which is based on the book–a runaway best seller. A consortium of over twenty producers (investors) joined Kevin McCollum and Kurt Deutsch in adapting it into a Musical, and now here it is playing at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on Broadway. That is no mean achievement, particularly as it features a creative staff of disparate first timers Bekah Brunstetter on Book and Ingrid Michaelson as Composer of the music and lyrics. There are two directors, Michael Greif and Scheme Williams,. Each get equal billing so I can’t imagine who contributed what to the highly attractive visuals. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a pairing as it’s my experience that the Director is the one with final word on casting, design of scenery, costume, and lighting, There are often assistant directors on board along with choreographers, and here there is Katie Spelman. But The Notebook is not a dance musical, so I assume her work has more to do with movement than with dance. In fact, all the elements in this show are fresh and new; and I report here that a young and eager audience at the performance I attended on March 21 responded as vigorously as if it were a rock concert.

The stage was artfully designed and lit, and the story was very well acted by a company of singer-actors who delivered first rate characterizations telling the tale of a struggling romance that weathers adversity and culminates in the touching conclusion. The production is brave and daring by casting the two lovers with actors who embody the couple over three periods of their lifetime without regard to the actors’ different skin tones, heights, and builds. The shared humanity of the players is all that is required.

At least six actors play other supporting characters.  Andrea Burns is featured as the nurse caring for the oldest Allie as well as playing her caring mother in earlier times. She has a short musical solo that is very moving–a gentle song called “Don’t You Worry.” At least four of the twenty songs are sung by the Joy Woods playing Middle Allie, and they end with that familiar last note with head thrown back, throat put into belt mode, with that final note that always earns a roar of approval. There is a sound designer listed in the program, but here we are in a Broadway theatre and unable to understand much of the spoken dialogue in the more intimate book scenes and many of the lyrics. We don’t long for major amplification, but voice projection would help a lot.

Of course it’s possible that the Broadway of old is simply disappearing, and the young audiences who are beginning to discover this new sound may want something totally different onstage. They certainly seem to have embraced subject matter that would have been the property of high drama in the past–stories like “West Side Story”–or the seamy side of life as in “Chicago”. I Melody and laughter and exciting dance will always be welcome, but I wish ‘The Notebook” luck in appealing to a mass audience.  As of right now, it’s become difficult for a new musical to find enough of an interested public to manage the high costs of this new age. The composers and lyricists of the Golden Age are just about gone, and the group coming on to replace them will need to progress as Rodgers moved on from Hart to Hammerstein, or as Fred Ebb moved on from Paul Klein to John Kander. I hope there are people out there feeling as I do about the importance of melody and lyrics in musical theatre which America helped to invent and flourish. It’s true that Steven Sondheim opened doors for the highly original Lin-Manuel Miranda. We have the performers now. We have the directors and choreographers and designers. What we need now are more lyricists and composers who can send us soaring.

The New Group is offering us a play called The Seven Year Disappear by Jordan Seaver. Directed by Scott Elliott, it is now running at The Signature Pershing Square Theatre on West 42nd Street for a limited time only. It is an odd piece of work with a cast of just two played by Cynthia Nixon and Taylor Trensch as a very odd mother and son.  It is all set simply on a stage backed by half a dozen large video screens of different sizes that is remarkably fluid and allows us to move through the seven years during which mother had disappeared leaving the boy alone to get through his growth years on his own. 

Miss Nixon has personally matured as an actress of a certain age. In this play she plays a mother in her fifties who returns to help her son understand why she had to leave him and who his father was.  Because both actors are dressed in black jumpsuits in collusion with the minimal staging with no concern for changing characters and scenes or the issues of their later days, it’s all a bit murky. We were offered only a one card program, though we were invited to learn more by scanning a QR code or visiting the site tng.theater/program.

Though both actors often give engaging performances, the volume of their angry interactions and racing dialog makes much of it indecipherable. Occasionally the script will contain insight or wit, but for the most part it is just a loud howl of a battle. 

In the glorious days, a star like Ethel Merman, Gwen Verdon, Alfred Drake, or a favorite of mine, Chita Rivera (whom we just lost), could lift mediocre material to the level of entertainment magic; or they could make memories for us that would last a lifetime when playing material by a dozen first class playwrights and composers.  I was one of the lucky ones who was exposed to the magic of those legitimate stage stars that affected me in ways that no television, film, or opera star could ever achieve. I have enormous respect for all the hundreds of performers whose work I’ve enjoyed during the great Golden Age of live theater that lasted for some seventy-five years from the 1920s until the recent past. Now, with the advent of AI and amplification, there’s still a lot of live theater being offered, but it is reaching out to a new audience that seems more interested in qualities other than raw talent and unique personality. There doesn’t seem to be a new generation of writers talented for the musical stage, so each season we now get a slew of revivals of gems from the past. In the case of Once Upon a Mattress, the material here is not flawlessly gemlike; but it does offer a constant flow of lighthearted banter in this Encores! staging by Lear Debessonet.

In the beginning, this musical romp began life as a simple sketch to entertain in a theatrical summer camp called Tamiment. It was developed slowly by composer Mary Rodgers who joined forces with Marshall Barer on lyrics with book writers Jay Thompson and Dean Fuller.  The four of them spent months developing it until it began to resemble a proper–if slight–stage musical. Finally, after playing it to a long list of potential producers, it opened off Broadway at the Phoenix on Second Avenue. It had mixed reviews but built audience approval which led to its transfer to Broadway in April, 1959. It managed a 450 performance run due mostly to the growing attention garnered by its young star, Carol Burnett, who was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Actress of the 1959 season.  The supporting cast in this current production is absolutely smashing with stalwarts like Michael Urie as Prince Dauntless and Harriet Harris as his mother, Queen Aggravain. David Patrick Kelly, Cheyenne Jackson, and others keep the laughs flowing.

But once again, it’s Princess Winnifred as played by the remarkable Sutton Foster, who carries the show over the finish line. It’s astonishing to watch the gifted Sutton Foster who has beautifully played Marian in The Music Man, (Drama League Distinguished Award) Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes (Tony Award), and the lead in Thoroughly Modern Millie (Tony Award) transform herself once again into this goofball of a heroine who makes her entrance soaking wet after swimming the moat that protects the Queen’s castle. She is loose limbed and hilariously flexible, and has a voice that obeys her every command to wrap itself around every lyric.  

Andrea Hood’s costume designs have personality, and David Zinn’s scenic designs are spot-on as they slide on and off and up and down seeming to also be having a good time. I attended a matinée designed by management to close this brief run with a “family showing” so the theater seemed chock full of kiddies–some looking two or three years old. A good beginning that will hopefully become for them a life-long habit of theater attendance. I didn’t start till I was twelve, but I am so very happy that I saw that matinée of What a Life in 1939!

I spent some time in Sarasota in January as the Asolo Repertory Theatre is celebrating its 65th season. The Producing Artistic Director Peter Rothstein has announced an ambitious collection of theatrical fare in its beautiful Asolo Theatre that offers subscribers a great lineup of musicals and plays to “entertain and challenge” them. In November of 2023 Crazy For You, a Gershwin musical from the 1920s, arrived  under the direction and choreography of Denis Jones; and in January Artistic Director Peter Rothstein staged a new production of Inherit The Wind as a powerful drama with an excellent cast of more than twenty-five regional members of Actors Equity plus apprentices. 

Mark Benninghofer and Andrew Long (Sorcha Augustine)

An American classic from the 1995 Broadway season, this sizzling drama was written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. It dealt with the 1925 Tennessee Governor’s signing into law the Butler Act that disallowed teaching of any theory of human evolution except as taught in the Bible. The bill made headlines and served as the cause for the appearance of Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan to legally represent the government vs John Scopes, a biology substitute teacher who lectured a class from A Civic Biology which cleared the way for prosecution. 

Thirty years later when Joseph McCarthy began his verbal attacks against suspected communists, Lawrence and Lee wrote this play to dramatize “when intellectual artistic spirit” is again being corseted .  For the play, the two lawyers were renamed Drummond and Brady, and Scopes became Gates. 

David Breitbarth, Ryan Schmidt, Mark Benninghof (Sorcha Augustine)

The first two are lawyers and old time friends who are now trying to understand how two such disparate viewpoints could co-exist, but each still affirms his rival’s humanity. Even so, the powerful court of public opinion rains brimstone and fire over this trial. 

Director Rothstein has staged this very large company with amazing fluidity. There are so many characters who pop in and out to interject a question or a comment, and his ability to maintain focus is remarkable. Also, as hymn singing is so vital to the religious factions, his use of it to introduce each act is fortunate and effective. 

Andrew Long and cast (Sorcha Augustine)

Mark Benninghofen plays Drummond as a very human being whose convictions are clear and recognizable. Andrew Long’s Brady is big and booming. He equates power with size and ultimately wins his case but loses his life to a previously intimated heart condition because of the energy with which he proclaimed throughout . There is hope at play’s end that reason will ultimately prevail, but watch out! There is always danger lurking, and this play advocates that we remain aware and alert. 

The physical production is absolutely first rate. Kate Johnson’s scenery is fluid and moves effectively and quietly with great effect. Fabian Aguilar’s costumes are helpful, and the lighting design by Philip Rosenberg always contributes and supports. It was a pleasure to note an interested, involved audience clearly enjoying good work being well done. 

What we have here on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre is a consortium of over FIFTY “producers” who gathered together to sponsor a musical comedy–something to which they could take their mothers-in-law, little family members, teenagers and their teenaged dates, and friends who might get a kick out of their efforts. Their target audience was the vast majority of good folks who rarely see live theatre, unless it is presented in their kids’ schools or in their local drama club’s auditorium. What they relish is undemanding mirth and merriment, preferably something announcing itself as “a new musical” (meaning not a revival), something with a professional sheen to it. In order to achieve this there would be sprinkled with them a familiar name or two among the creative credits. In this instance they’ve hired pop writers Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman whose credits are heavily weighted with recognition in other areas of the musical world.  Mr. Manilow has mentioned that Harmony on which he is the composer and arranger is the “most rewarding creative experience” of his career. Mr. Sussman has enjoyed a half-century collaboration with Mr. Manilow during which they have produced over 200 songs that have been featured in many films, many of them best selling hits.

Their musical begins with a greeting from an ex-Rabbi played by Chip Zien who was welcomed by the audience who knew and liked him in Into The Woods and many other theatre pieces on and off Broadway. Sierra Boggess and Julie Benko joined him as the book began to involve other characters who helped to tell the story of how he had joined together a group of singers into an act known as “Comedian Harmonists.” It was formed in 1929-1930 and became an international success until 1935 when Germany, becoming Nazified, forbade this group, which was comprised of six members three of whom were Jews, to appear anywhere on German controlled soil. The memory of the “Comedian Harmonists” became soon forgotten and had pretty much remained so until now. 

The group and its story were new to me, and I wish that this true tale had been rewarded with a score and lyrics that could match the power of the story along with a book that presents its cast with subtlety and insight and even humor when needed. But Mr. Zien and the female supporting cast all played with shouts and more shouts as the tensions mounted. The original score was composed of splashy rhythmic variations to which Choreographer/Director Warren Carlyle supplied acrobatic floor thumping choreography most effectively. The twenty plus songs were energetic and bombastic, but the far too predictable Sussman lyrics were simply not stage worthy. ”This Is Our Time” is one subject better served By Steven Sondheim in one of his scores; and though the orchestrations and staging are all lively, they are more the sort we’re more accustomed to in revues than in book shows because they do not enhance the plot; nor do they offer any wit, wisdom, inspiration or even much fun. Here is a show with a little known story worth telling, but it proves once again that over fifty producers do not make one with the vision of a Ziegfeld, a Hal Prince, a Cy Feuer, a Robert Fryer, an Alex Cohen or even a David Merrick.  

The dazzling company of 24 gifted singers, dancers, and actors under the remarkably inventive direction and choreography of Josh Rhodes have brought to the St.James Theatre on 44th Street a production that is musical theater as we wish it would always be — exciting, inventive, entertaining. I call the company ‘dazzling” because it is consistently sharp, and at the matinee I attended, a leading character called “the Lady of the Lake’ was played by one of the Ensemble company, whose star quality is usually reserved for — well, —  stars!. Her name is Gabriela Enriquez, and she is gorgeous, blessed with a satiny soprano voice, and her body moves with precision and grace. I don’t know how often she gets to play this role, but she fits into the long running company of principal players so smoothly that it proves she’d been paying attention when the staging was created for the Opening Night back on October 31. 

The Playbill lists the show as “having been lovingly ripped off from the original screenplay of the motion picture “Monty Python And the Holy Grail” which in turn was written by six comic writers including Eric Idle who wrote book, music, and lyrics for the stage version with some work on the score done with John DuPrez. It showed up onstage in 2005 in London and on Broadway where it played over 1500 performances followed by a popular American national tour. It was a big winner for Mike Nichols who staged it. It received 14 Tony nominations winning in three categories including Best Musical. The Nichols version opened in London in 2006. It’s not been on Broadway since 2009, and it is certainly welcome again now that the world needs to laugh more than ever,

The musical spins a tale of Arthurian legend and the Knights of the Round Table – Galahad, Robin, Lancelot, the Black Knight Prince Herbert, and Not Yet Dead Fred, all joining Sir Not Appearing and the Lady of the Lake. King Arthur is around to tell us tales. The King is played with great panache by James Iglehart who knows how to play with power while not forgetting that this is all a comical romp. Much of the score helps to remind us that this is a spoof. More than twenty songs are sung (and smashingly danced) with titles like “I Am Not Dead Yet,” “I’m All Alone Now” (he’s not), and one that’s become a standard, “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life.”  The lyrics and the tunes earn laughs and contribute mightily to the merriment. It’s all Broadway at its best.

Most of the acting  company doubles and triples.  Christopher Fitzgerald,  Michael Urie, Taran Killam, Jimmy Smagula, and Nik Walker all pop up whenever needed in roles that are male and occasionally female.. The supporting actresses in the company do great work as Ensemble spending most of their time changing gowns, but each delights us. 

The set is heavy with walls, gates, stairs, all looking majestic. Walls drop down, floors slide off, flowers and snow fall from above. The gowns worn by the Lady In The Lake and all her supporting ladies, are magnificent – brilliant colors fill the large stage and it all looks expensive and lush.  When needed to be dark and scary, it is that too, so credit goes to scenic and projector designer Paul Tate dePoo III, lighting designer Cory Patty, and Costume Designer Jen Caprio.  But it’s the director Josh Rhodes, as commander in chief of all creative departments, continues his growing list of beautifully directed and choreographed stage pieces,  

A series of conflicting dates meant I had to wait until December 17 to see this musical at the Classic Stage Company where it opened in October and was extended to run through December 17th. I didn’t anticipate much magic, for the show was chiefly remembered as the one in which Barbara Streisand made her debut on Broadway in a small featured role as Miss Marmelstein. Her performance was the talk of the town even though the cast included her future husband, Elliot Gould, as Harry Bogen and Lillian Roth as his mother. The novel by Jerome Weidman on which it was based graphically told the story of the driven Harry Bogen who was capable of love–but only for money and ruthless control. The product of the surge of immigration to the United States of European Jews in the 1920s, Harry was hardly the type of character to endear himself to an audience of musical comedy fans who were accustomed to melody and mirth in the musical theatre that entertained them. So Jerome Weidman’s novel was an unlikely source for a Broadway musical. But by the 1960s audiences had begun to respond to difficult material, and as far back as 1957 they had welcomed “West Side Story” and “New Girl In Town” and others that featured interesting counter-heroes and heroines. It certainly paved the way in the 1980s for “Sweeney Todd” and his fascinating vis-a-vis Mrs.Lovett.

But to return to this production at the Classic Stage Company. For starters, the director Trip Pullman and choreographer Ellenore Scott were not known to me, and they both brought the most original movement that serves the material brilliantly. And on the small stage and with what I assume is not a limitless budget, they have assembled an ensemble and principals that are without exception first class. To keep things moving and visually stunning, they have made use of their talented cast to move furniture, light lights, turn tables into beds, and generally make the basic tables and chairs serve as everything needed to back the cast in over twenty musical numbers with astonishing variety. Harold Rome wrote both music and lyrics, and though there are few single hit tunes, there are many impressive theatrical sounds with revealing lyrics that support exciting stage movement.

Miss Marmelstein is notably still there, and as belted out to us by Julia Lester she is still a major force. Santino Fontana is smashing as the highly demanding Harry Bogen, and Judy Kuhn is fine as his mother–a woman whose disappointment in her son is palpable. There is unity in the consistency of all the supporting cast and how easily these performers slip into and out of the Ensemble when needed.  As an audience we stood as one to cheer them all at the final bows. Jerome Weidman, whose novel sired this powerful musical drama, would have admired his son John’ adaptation and the glorious score that now accompanies it.

This musical tribute to director/choreographer Graciela Daniele is beautiful to look at and mostly delightful to know. It was created musically by Michael John LaChiusa for Daniele–his good friend and colleague. They first worked together in 1993 when the composer/lyricist had just begun work on his adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde. They met; he played her one song–the opening number–and she said “Yes!” It’s now thirty years later and this current show at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre in Lincoln Center is soon concluding its very rewarding run. There are many lilting melodies and some very engaging lyrics with which it tells us, in 90 uninterrupted minutes, much about how Daniele as a poor girl in Argentina was influenced by a demanding Mother, a very vocal grandmother, and a charming Aunt (called “Tia”). Graciela tells us the story of her life through actress Priscilla Lopez (now in her seventies) in the present tense in her own late 70s. Graciela as a teenager growing into young adulthood is played by Kalyn West. This is a musical tribute remembered as a strong group of women with little room left for the occasional man as father, grandfather, and two mustached suitors. 

Eden Espinosa, Kaylan West, Mary Testa, Andéa Burns Photos by Julieta Cervantes

An excellent cast has been assembled, with particular pleasure offered by Priscilla Lopez who brings warmth, honesty, and imagination to the role of Daniele in her older age. She also moves so beautifully, it was no surprise to see her agility and grace when her memories demand a step or two. Tía is played by always welcomed Andréa Burns who seems to delight us each season with her glorious voice, her ability to get nuance into every role she plays, and to dance up a storm when her character needs to kick up her heels. There are some 16 numbers listed in the Playbill, and I found that some of the later ones were more than one act could comfortably handle, but it was Daniele herself who directed and choreographed the entire evening. It is just a suggestion, but I felt an editing eye would have been helpful.  

Andréa Burns, Mary Testa, Priscilla Lopez, Eden Espinosa Photos by Julieta Cervantes

The sets, and particularly the lighting by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhower were notably eloquent and gave the entire musical an ambience that seemed to say “Thank you” to Daniele the Artist for enriching our theatre so handsomely over these past thirty five years.   

I had worked with Director Peter Flynn a number of times, both as an actor and as author when he staged two workshop productions in New York of a musical to which I’d written the book. I’ve seen many other samplings of his inventive staging in several  premieres and revivals in New York and in regional theaters all over the USA. But I’d never been to the highly regarded Olney Theatre Center in Olney, Maryland, and I was visiting friends in Virginia on November 10, so as it sounded nearby to my ignorant ears, I accepted Peter’s invite to see his latest project.

Occasionally out of town productions have minds of their own; and, in this case, the dreaded Covid came calling; the central character, Tevye, had to be replaced with Howard Kaye. In the case of the Rabbi, a supporting character, Sasha Olinick, would play the role. All previews were canceled, and now Saturday night November 11 would be the first performance, the Opening Night! As my Virginia hosts, non-show biz good friends, were included with me and my companion, I thought it best to offer our condolences to Peter and hope for better luck next time. But he sounded so disappointed that it only took a moment for us to agree to come, anyway.  After all, the Olney Theatre is only about an hour and fifteen minutes from where we were in Virginia, so off we went on our 500 mile round trip from New York to see “Fiddler” fiddle on the roof. I only  tell you all this because the evening became a NIGHT to REMEMBER!

The Olney Theatre is housed in a complex–a grand one that offers ballet, concert, classroom, education, food and drink. The theatre itself is housed just off the main central space in which literally hundreds find seats and settle to wait with us for the story to be told.  Onstage the characters take seats in a reception room on Ellis Island, and from this intriguing prologue, which ends as the orchestra completes the overture, one of the characters rises and addresses us. The play begins. 

We are immediately connected and involved when a fiddler emerges from the  crowd as an observer who will affect us throughout our time together. Howard Kaye as Tevye rises from the crowd of recent immigrants being processed on Ellis Island to begin the tale of his home and of his experiences as father to five young daughters, three of whom will weave in and out of the story. The other recent arrivals to America become the young boys who will join them as suitors, his wife Golde, the town matchmaker–a force called Yenta, played by Cheryl Campo–and all the other inhabitants of the village.

Stein’s book uses source material from Sholem Aleichem, and he has created a compelling tale of villages like Anatevka which was home to its poor but hardworking Jews–all of whom were about to be deported, or simply destroyed. While played by a large cast of gifted actors of several ethnic and racial origins, the opening Peter Flynn has staged in the prologue navigates us to a shtetl in Russia. Traditions, family, home, and what makes a disparate group project the values that bond all who came before and all who will follow. Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock have composed a score with melody and lyrics that probe the heart and explore the complex emotions that are universal. When this giant of a musical first payed in Japan, Joseph Stein was asked if American audiences had related to it, because “it I so Japanese in its values.”

I had never seen the work of any of these actors. I can only tell you that the three suitors to three of Tevye’s daughters, the young actresses who played them, along with the lovely performance of Rachael Stern as their mother, Golde, were all remarkably accurate in creating a family of very real people. Papa Tevye was always present, and Mr. Kaye hit a home run moving with ease and creating magic with his musical numbers, bringing to them a very different kind of power for Tevye than original star Zero Mostel who was brilliant but achieved his goal with more comical tools.

Another major contributor to the dazzling success of this revival is choreographer Lorna Ventura.Throughout  the evening her large cast is in constant motion and set pieces like the bottle dance set in a tavern is a truly stunning showstopper. I must also mention Christopher Joustra’s control of a wonderfully amplified orchestra hidden below us. From the opening strains of the Fiddler to the grand finale, I can’t recall a better performed score. In conclusion, this was a constantly surprising and glorious evening of musical theatre from the aptly named Golden age of Broadway. 

There was once a play called The Days of Wine and Roses by J.P. Miller, and in 1962 it was filmed starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. Now, sixty years later, Adam Guettel has written music and lyrics for an adaptation that is just concluding an off-Broadway run of eight weeks at the Linda Grossman Theatre. Craig Lucas’ book sticks closely to the very moving story, and as it is  sung through some twenty songs it becomes a play with music more than the more commonly called “musical”. Though it boasts a supporting cast of seven excellent actors to inhabit and deliver the friends, colleagues, and relatives, almost the entire score is acted and sung by the two central characters with the occasional inclusion of their daughter.

Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara in Days of Wine and Roses Ahron R. Foster

As the couple played by Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James, the results are memorable. These two artists, who have played everything from farce to tragedy in dozens of New York and national outings, have offered us a glimpse of what it means to be an onstage star in the manner of the theatre’s Golden Age. The public  then was invited to revel in the work of Gertrude Lawrence, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Alfred Drake, Bert Lahr, John Raitt, Tallulah Bankhead, Katherine Cornell, Helen Hayes, the Lunts, Ruth Gordon and a dozen others whose names alone lit up the sky and could fill a theatre for an entire season. The years of television, movies, and streaming have now created instant stardom, but most of the magic seemed gone. Well, it came back yesterday at the Atlantic Theatre.

The audience that shared the matinee of The Days of Wine and Roses with me seemed to revel in what went on up there on the small but vital stage at the off Broadway Linda Gross Theatre. As Dr. Frankestein once shouted, “It’s alive!” Part of the pleasure came from the variety of the seven supporting players. Some of them covered several roles, all of them impeccably, and so convincingly that I honestly can’t tell you who played what. Byron Jennings made a vivid and unforgiving father to Kelli O’Hara’s character, but most of the others played whatever was required of them. Ella Dane Morgan handled Lila when that character turned seven in the later part of the play. She joined her mother and father in three of the musical moments and sang sweetly though she needs to watch her way clearly singing  the lyrics. 

I return, however, to the remarkable clarity with which Michael Greif’s direction keeps focus as the basically one-room set turns smoothly into street scenes, a hothouse, a bedroom, and more. And to D’arcy James and O’Hara who send us back into our own real worlds tremendously moved and–even more remarkably for a musical–provoked, disturbed, and engaged.  I salute this company, its two leading players, and the theatre management for choosing and assembling this marvelous late addition to the 2023 season of New York theatre.  

Chita Rivera with Patrick Pacheco

When I was a “baby agent” back in 1954, my job as a new recruit was to discover young performers, composers, writers. directors, and any others with talent for musical theatre–the special area to which I was assigned. I was to sign those I found gifted to agency contracts and then to nurture and advise or just to  help open doors for them. My job was to visit the workshops where their early efforts were on display; or I was to hold auditions, to visit the community theaters, to seek those very special talents that would eventually join the masters–the great stars and major writers who were supplying Broadway with the musicals people wanted in the new Golden Age of Broadway which followed World War II. It’s always good to be young when you enter the world of work; it was especially good for those of us who were determined to have a life in the theatre.

On one rainy night in 1954 I stumbled in to a dingy off off Broadway theatre where a whole bunch of newcomers were strutting their stuff in a show aptly called “The Shoestring Review.” It had been produced for all of $18,000 which meant it did not rely on spectacle to put it over. It did allow bright talents like writer Michael Stewart to announce his arrival on the scene,  and it featured a small cast of disparate types including the highly original Chita O’Hara (that is Chita Rivera who tried on several names before she wisely stuck with two of her very own.) She had been trained as a ballerina but before she got started on that career, destiny placed her into a touring Broadway musical theatre chorus, where she found herself totally at home. How she landed in a dancing role that required her to sing and to use major comic chops as a comedienne is captured with all the surprise and fun that she felt herself as she blossomed into a triple threat. I offered my agency services, she accepted me, and we remained client and very happy agent for the next 20 years. It’s all there in this honest and greatly detailed account of the sixty year saga of a remarkable  life well spent. 

I am proud to have been a footnote to all of it, and it is a joy to note that she has now shared with us her varied experiences that included love, marriage, motherhood, prestigious awards, much success, and time for meaningful friendships and connected life  with her brothers and their own families. At ninety, she is still a force and I highly recommend you take the time to sit back and relish this very special memoir of a well lived life.