Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers (32 page)

In 1999, Mayer joined forces with Dick Scanlon, Jeanine Tesori, Richard Morris and myself to bring the 1967 film
Thoroughly Modern Millie
to the stage for the first time. From the tryouts in La Jolla, California, to opening night at the Marquis Theater on Broadway in 2002, Mayer worked diligently helping to bring a show that was a little too long for 185

Jews on Broadway

a musical (at three hours) down to a more manageable length (two and a half ). He also worked with three Millies in the process. Kristin Cheno -

with was the first Millie, but she had television and film projects that pre cluded her continuing in the show. Erin Dilly was the next Millie.

But Dilly as Millie did not make it to Broadway. When she took ill, her replacement, Sutton Foster, took over the role. I recall, upon seeing Fos -

ter perform, Mayer exclaimed, “There’s Our Millie!” And sure enough, Foster, who was thrust into the role and landed ever so quickly on Broadway, ended up walking away with the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical.
Millie
, meanwhile, was awarded Best Musical.

As for Mayer, while
Millie
ran for over 900 performances, he would move on to
Spring Awakening
, the coming-of-age musical for which he would win a Tony Award for Best Director. Most recently, Mayer joined forces with Billy Joe Armstrong, lead singer of the rock band Green Day, to bring the band’s mega-selling album
American Idiot
to Broadway. The show, which gained momentum in Berkeley, California, moved to the St. James Theater on Broadway in March of 2010, marking three original musicals, and five Broadway shows total, in a span of just eight years for Mayer.

ANITA WAXMAN

No, Broadway producers need not be members of the good old boys’ club. Anita Waxman, along with partner Elizabeth Williams, certainly proved that point during the first decade of the new century.

Waxman, who hails from California, turned to theater after a lucra-tive corporate career in which she was the founder and chairman of Howe-Lewis International Incorporated, a very successful management consulting and executive search service firm. In 1998, she met the Southern-born Williams, who had already been involved in a few Broadway productions, including
Into the Woods
and
The Secret Garden
.

The pair ended the 1990s with a revival of the historic musical
1776

and a revival of the tragedy
Electra
before making their mark by bringing four shows to Broadway in 2000,
The Real Thing
,
The Music Man
,
A
Moon for the Misbegotten
, and
The Wild Party
. The shows combined for two-dozen Tony Award nominations. They added two more in 2001

includ ing the hit
Noises Off
, followed by five more over the next couple 186

8. The New Millennium Sees Broadway Breakthroughs

of years, topping even the prolific David Merrick who launched shows at a frenetic pace in the 1960s. In 2004 they were behind the original musical
Bombay Dreams
about a boy from India who dreams of escaping the slums for movie stardom in Bollywood. The musical ran for 284 performances.

In recent years, Waxman and Williams have gone their separate ways, but you can anticipate that they will continue to have a hand in upcoming Broadway productions. In fact, Anita Waxman, as of the writing of this book, is involved in the forthcoming stage production of
An
Officer and a Gentleman
, based on the popular film starring Richard Gere.

CAROLE SHORENSTEIN HAYS

Another prominent producer in recent years is Carole Shorenstein Hays, born and raised in San Francisco. Seeing musicals with her parents in the 1950s got Hays hooked on theater. She would later follow her dreams to New York City where she attended New York University.

Carole’s dad, a successful real estate mogul, was friends with George Steinbrenner and Jimmy Nederlander, who mentored Carole from a young age. “When it comes to theatre,” she says, “I learned everything from Jimmy Nederlander. He is masterful. There’s no better theater person.”5

Her first taste of Broadway was in 1979 when she worked with me on Jerry Herman’s
The Grand Tour
. A few shows later she was on her own producing
Fences
in 1987. After producing a string of Broadway shows including
Take Me Out
;
The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife
;
Caroline
,
or Change
; and
Doubt
; and amassing five Tony awards, Hays went full circle bringing
Fences
back to Broadway in 2010. Knowing and working with Hays over the years, I can attest to the fact that she is, not unlike myself, always thinking about the next potential hit show.

DARYL ROTH

Another of the most celebrated women behind the scenes on Broadway is Daryl Roth, who was named by
Crain’s
magazine as one of the

“100 Most Influential Women in Business.”

Roth grew up in a Jewish home in Wayne, New Jersey. Being within an hour of the city, her parents took her and her sister to see Broadway 187

Jews on Broadway

shows often during the 1950s. Despite her love of Broadway, she followed a different career path, establishing herself as an interior decorator before venturing into the theater as a producer in her 40s with the 1989 Richard Maltby, Jr., David Shire show
Closer Than Ever
, an award-winning Off Broadway musical revue. Just two years later, she would get a taste of Broadway with
Nick and Nora
, which, unfortunately lasted less than two weeks. Since her inauspicious Broadway debut, Roth has emerged as a prolific producer with more than her fair share of successful shows including
Proof, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Curtains, August: Osage County
and
Caroline, or Change
.

While producing a string of Broadway hits over the past 20 years and bringing six Pulitzer Prize–winners to the stage, Roth also found the time to revive a landmark building on 15th Street in Manhattan, in the heart of Union Square, where she established the Daryl Roth Theater.

The Off Broadway venue opened in 1996 with the seven-year run of
De
La Guarda
. She has since expanded and added DR2, which has featured children’s theater.

Among Others

The new century marked a marvelous opportunity for young Jewish playwrights, lyricists and composers to make their way to Broadway. Lisa Lambert, an actress and writer from Washington, D.C., made her mark on Broadway and won Tony Awards for Best Composer and Best Lyri -

cist for her work on
The Drowsy Chaperone
in 2006.
Chaperone
spoofed musicals of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s with a show-within-a-show dream sequence featuring the infamous Man in the Chair, who serves as the narrator of this original musical comedy that first gained momentum in Toronto over several years.

Another Tony Award–winning Jewish-born newcomer to Broadway in recent years, Rachel Sheinkin, won the prestigious honor for writing the book to the quirky comedy
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling
Bee
. Sheinkin’s road to Broadway began with her graduating with a master of fine arts from Yale University and continued with her fellowship at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
Spelling Bee
originated from an improvisational work of actress Rebecca Friedman in an improv workshop. Little 188

8. The New Millennium Sees Broadway Breakthroughs

by little, the show grew and Sheinkin was brought in to help transform improv into an actual script with the help of James Lapine and William Finn. From Massachusetts workshops to Off Broadway success and on to a lengthy Broadway run, the musical highlighted the writing of Shein -

kin while still including opportunities for improvisational material.

The Addams Family
: Funny, They Don’t Look Jewish

Unlike
The Producers
or
Wicked
, the reviews for
The Addams Family
were not good. But unlike days of old where such negative press would have instantly sunk a new show, the modern era of technology and promotion, plus a very popular television family, coupled with a few stars including Nathan Lane, and a few Jews who believed in the project (Marshall Brickman, Jimmy Nederlander and Jerry Zaks) have made
The
Addams Family
a box office hit grossing over $6.5 million in the first six weeks.

One of the reasons for such success, and certainly not a target of the critic’s wrath, is Bebe Neuwirth. When Beatrice “Bebe” Neuwirth stepped into the role of Morticia Addams, she bridged the two media in which she is best known, television and Broadway.

The daughter of a mathematician and an artist, the Jewish-born actress hails from Newark, New Jersey, where she took up dancing at the age of five and went on to train in both dance and music at the famed The Juilliard School. She made it to Broadway in the 1980s in
A Chorus
Line
followed by the revivals of
Little Me
and
Sweet Charity
, winning her first of two Tony Awards for the latter. Despite her highly acclaimed Broad way skills, she became forever known as Lilith Crane from her role on the top-rated television series
Cheers
, which spilled over to occasional appearances on the spin-off
Frasier
. She also won two Emmys for her role as Lilith and even brought some of her Jewish identity to the role.

Lilith turned out to be Jewish somewhere during the long run of
Cheers
, to the surprise of even Bebe Neuwirth. The name Lilith also turned out to have a historical reference in Jewish folklore as the demonic first wife of Adam. For those who recall the sitcom character Lilith, there were those on each series (
Cheers
and
Frasier
) who also thought Lilith to be somewhat demonic.

189

Jews on Broadway

Returning to Broadway in the mid–1990s, Neuwirth won a Tony Award for her role in the revival of
Damn Yankees
. But it was in the musi cal revival of
Chicago
that she was finally able to establish her Broadway identity and move away from being forever known as “Lilith.” Neu -

wirth would appear in the revival first in 1996 and then return in 2006, after mounting her own Off Broadway production called
Here Lies Jenny
in 2005, inspired by the music of Kurt Weill. Now in her third decade on Broadway, Bebe Neuwirth has proven herself to be a legitimate multi-talented stage performer.

It might also be noted that Neuwirth appeared in Barry Levinson’s film
Liberty Heights
, playing the Jewish mother in a semi-autobiographical story about a family growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s.

Bring On the Jews

From the Yiddish theater that started the 20th century to
The Producers
that ushered in the 21st century, the Jewish people have never stopped contributing to Broadway in a major way. Since the Tony Awards were first given out in 1947, 69 percent of composers, 70 percent of lyricists and 56 percent of librettists have been Jewish.6 Add to this total the numerous awards for directing, acting, choreography and playwriting as well as the many Jewish producers stepping up to accept awards for Best Musical or Best Play, and you have an unprecedented contribution to Broadway.

But perhaps it was the song in the comedic musical hit
Spamalot
that best summed up the Jewish influence on Broadway:

You Won’t Succeed on Broadway

by Eric Idle and John Du Prez

(used by permission)

ARTHUR: Have you heard of this “Broadway”?

ROBIN: Yes sire ... and we don’t stand a chance there.

ARTHUR: Why not?

ROBIN: Because Broadway is a very special place,

filled with very special people, people who

can sing and dance often at the same time.

They are a different people, a multi-talented

190

8. The New Millennium Sees Broadway Breakthroughs

people, a people who need people and who are

in many ways the luckiest people in the

world. I’m sorry Sire, we don’t have a chance.

ARTHUR: But why?

ROBIN: Well ... let me put it like this....

In any great adventure

If you don’t want to lose

Victory depends upon

The people that you choose

So, listen, Arthur darling

Closely to this news

We won’t succeed on Broadway

If we don’t have any Jews.

You may have the finest sets

Fill the stage with Penthouse pets

You may have the loveliest costumes and best shoes

You may dance and you may sing

But I’m sorry Arthur King

You’ll hear no cheers just lots and lots of boos

ENSEMBLE: Boo!

ROBIN: You may have butch men by the score

Whom the audience adore

You may even have some animals from zoos

Though you’ve Poles and Krauts instead

You may have unleavened bread

But I tell you, you are dead

If you don’t have any Jews

They won’t care if it’s witty

or everything looks pretty

They’ll simply say it’s shitty and refuse.

Nobody will go, sir

If it’s not kosher, then no show sir

Even goyim won’t be dim enough to choose

Put on shows that make men stare

With lots of girls in underwear

You may even have the finest of reviews

MINSTREL: You’re doin’ great!

ROBIN: But the audience won’t care sir

As long as you don’t dare sir

To open up on Broadway

ARTHUR/PATSY: If you don’t have any Jews

191

Jews on Broadway

ROBIN : You may have dramatic lighting

Or lots of horrid fighting

You may even have some white men sing the blues

Your knights might be nice boys

But sadly we’re all goys

And that noise that you call singing you must lose.

So, despite your pretty lights

Naughty girls in nasty tights