Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers
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While Ziegfeld produced Show Boat, the next venture for Hammer -
stein was truly a family affair. Sweet Adeline ushered in the 1930s at the Hammerstein Theater with book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. It was produced by Arthur Hammerstein and directed by Reginald Hammerstein. The music came from Kern, who was becoming part of the Hammerstein family. In the early ’30s, the team of Kern and Hammerstein, famous both individually and together, would not only handle the music, lyrics and book, but would also serve as co-directors on the hit show Music in the Air.
As the decade progressed, however, Hammerstein was drawn to the silver screen and the grandeur of Hollywood and motion pictures. For the rest of the 1930s Oscar Hammerstein II was notably missing as one of the major contributors to Broadway. He would, however, return to theater in New York, to work on an all–African American opera called Carmen Jones, which was favorably received. It was shortly thereafter that he would meet up with his former Long Island neighbor, and fellow Columbia University alumnus, Richard Rodgers.
Together, Rodgers and Hammerstein would become the most influ -
ential American musical team of the century. Their pairing began with a musical adaptation of the book Green Grow the Lilacs, written by Lynn Riggs. The musical, initially called Away We Go! , would be ready in March of 1943, and open at the St. James Theater under a new name, Okla homa. It featured songs such as “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”
and “People Will Say We’re in Love.” Some 2,122 performances later it closed on Broadway, setting a record at the time as the longest-running musical in Broadway history. Oklahoma would subsequently tour for over a decade. But it was more than a major hit musical. Like Show Boat, 15 years earlier, Oklahoma was a landmark show, changing the face of Broadway musicals again. The combination of serious drama and music carefully integrated into the story once again set the show aside from the 57
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more familiar light Broadway fare. Additionally, the cast was largely com-prised of singers who could also act, rather than the reverse, bringing some of the best musical performances ever to Broadway. The show garnered many awards, perhaps none greater than a special Pulitzer Prize.
Oklahoma was obviously adapted for the screen and once again enjoyed tremendous success.
While it would be a challenge to follow up on such a masterpiece, Rodgers and Hammerstein would enjoy great success with Carousel in 1945 and Allegro in ’47. But it was in 1949 that they would procure the rights to the best-selling James Michener book Tales of the South Pacific, which they would combine with Michener’s Our Heroine to create the musical South Pacific. Rodgers and Hammerstein also shared producing credits. Featuring timeless standards like Younger Than Springtime and Some Enchanted Evening, and with Mary Martin in the starring role, South Pacific played over 1,900 performances in its initial run and would be revived to tremendous success on Broadway. Like Oklahoma, it would be staged by touring companies and in regional theater forever. It would also bring the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein their second Pulitzer Prize.
The next show was based on Anna and the King of Siam, a 1944
book from the diaries of a British governess in the Royal Court of Siam (now Thailand) in the mid–1800s. The book had been made into a dramatic film in 1946. This time it would become a blockbuster musical (the only kind of musicals written by Rodgers and Hammerstein) called The King and I, featuring the songs “Getting to Know You,” “Shall We Dance?,” “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” and “Hello, Young Lovers.” The King and I opened at the St. James Theater and ran for 1,246 performances.
Again Rodgers and Hammerstein also produced the show, which starred Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brenner, with choreography by Jerome Robbins, who had conceived and choreographed On the Town just seven years earlier, thus launching his own Broadway career. By the time he first worked with Rodgers and Hammerstein, Robbins had already worked with Leonard Bernstein and Sammy Cahn and was established in a career that would continue for decades, with numerous hit shows. More about Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz, better known as Jerome Robbins, in upcoming chapters.
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3. The Music of Broadway
If Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific and The King and I were not already enough to hang their hats on, the team of Rodgers and Hammer -
stein would have one more mega-hit show, this time based on the singing von Trapp family’s true story of escaping the Nazis in World War II by climbing over the Alps. The Sound of Music, like their other hugely successful shows, was a story of significance. It included beautiful and joy -
ous music that served as an integral part of the show and the storyline.
The songs, including “Do-Re-Mi,” “Edelweiss,” “My Favorite Things,”
“Climb Every Mountain,” and of course the title song, “The Sound of Music,” not only evoked images of the show, but took on a life of their own .
Unfortunately, Hammerstein would have little time to enjoy the remarkable impact of The Sound of Music, which ran for 1,443 performances and has since been revived for Broadway several times. Hammerstein passed away in August of 1960, at the age of 65. On a night in Sep tember of 1960, the lights on Broadway were turned off in memory of the great lyricist, who was called “the man who owned Broadway.”
Richard Rodgers (and Lorenz Hart)
Richard Rodgers was born in 1902 in Queens, New York, to a wealthy Jewish family. His father was a doctor and his grandfather had become wealthy in the silk trade. Rodgers took to the piano at the age of six. While vaudeville and Yiddish theater were the impetus for many young Jewish writers, composers and performers, Rodgers was weaned on Broadway theater and operettas, which his family took him to see often as a youngster.
By the time he was 17, Rodgers had a published song and was writing amateur musical revues. It was during his family’s summer vacations on Long Island that he got to know Oscar Hammerstein II, who encouraged the young Rodgers to keep on working toward his musical goals. And Rodgers did just that, teaming up with a school friend, Lorenz Hart, or Larry, who wrote lyrics for Rodgers’ melodies.
Rodgers and Hart first teamed up at the age of 18, while they were both attending Columbia University in upper Manhattan. They started out by writing songs for several variety shows at the school, thus honing their skills and familiarizing themselves with each other’s style while generating the attention of some professional composers. It was through 59
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such networking that they met Lou Fields, formerly of the famous vaudeville comedy team, Weber and Fields. At the time Fields was in need of songs for an upcoming show called Poor Little Ritz Girl. So, in 1920, Rodgers and Hart had their first Broadway writing assignment. The show only lasted for three months on Broadway and was quickly forgotten, but it was a huge step for the young songwriting duo. In fact, Fields was so impressed with Rodgers that when he went on tour in Europe with Fred Allen and Nora Bayes, he asked Rodgers to come along and conduct the orchestra. Only 19 years old at the time, Rodgers left school and went on the tour.
Rodgers and Hart would continue together for years to come. Hart, like Rodgers, came from a Jewish family with money. He attended private schools prior to Columbia University. Hart had a strained relationship with his strict father, and after his father’s death, he spent several years living with his mother. Far less grounded than his partner, Hart spent time traveling, partying and drinking. In a closeted era, he was fairly open about his homosexuality but was forever seeking someone with whom to share his life.
His emotional ups and downs were reflected in his lyrics, at times being sarcastic or caustic, while at other times simply longing for love.
In the classic “My Funny Valentine,” Hart writes about wanting someone who, not unlike him, was not particularly attractive, and then responds with the words he wants to hear, a request not to change. His personal life was reflected in many of his songs, such as “I Wish I Were in Love Again.” Despite his inner turmoil, and
because of it, Hart’s lyrics were considered among the most touching, and sometimes most biting, of the era between the two world wars.
Rodgers and Hart would hit their stride with the 1926 sketch comedy The Garrick Gaieties, featuring several stars and an actor named Lee Strasberg, who would later change the craft of acting. The show was unique in that it was a satirical revue based on the popular “Follies,”
poking fun at the very business in which they would thrive for some 26
Broadway shows.
Along with the New York Yankees, Rodgers and Hart were probably the most successful team from 1925 through 1943, sometimes writing three or four Broadway shows in a single year. Among their many musicals was a second version of The Garrick Gaieties in 1926, as well as A 60
3. The Music of Broadway
Connecticut Yankee in 1927, Present Arms in 1928 and several hits in London including Evergreen, which ran for over 250 performances in 1930.
After a five-year stint writing for films, Rodgers and Hart returned to the theater with Jumbo in 1935 starring Jimmy Durante and On Your Toes in 1936, starring Ray Bolger, which ran for over 300 performances on Broadway. Babes in Arms, in 1937, would become one of the team’s biggest hits, featuring “My Funny Valentine” and “The Lady Is a Tramp.”
Like Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, while writing songs integral to the script, also had a knack for penning popular hits that had a life of their own outside the theater walls, songs that would ultimately became classics.
Five Broadway shows later, they would usher in the 1940s with their most significant musical, Pal Joey, starring Gene Kelly and featuring
“Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” Despite some mixed reviews by critics, the show was a success and an even bigger hit when brought back again in 1952 and in subsequent revivals. Together Rodgers and Hart would write By Jupiter as their last play together in 1943. By this time, Hart’s drinking, his emotional turmoil and frustrations were taking a toll on the collaboration. Hart was no longer as reliable or responsible as he had been, and the team suffered. Supposedly Rodgers would also have his own bout with alcohol, but he kept it under wraps, and it did not take a toll on his career.
Rodgers and Hart were offered the opportunity to write the score for Oklahoma, but at this point Hart was neither emotionally or physically up to the task. Thus began the teaming of Rodgers and Hammerstein, as discussed under the career of Oscar Hammerstein II (above). Hart did return to write another song with Rodgers for the revival of the show A Connecticut Yankee, but shortly thereafter he disappeared from Rodgers’
life and then from the public eye. Hart passed away of pneumonia shortly after the opening of Oklahoma in 1943.
Amazingly, Rodgers and Hammerstein were able to follow up one triumphant show with another, from Oklahoma to Carousel to South Paci fic to The Sound of Music. Collectively, the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals earned 34 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards and two Emmy Awards. Time magazine and CBS
News cited Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1998 as being among the 20
most influential artists of the 20th century. Yet, their pairing was one of 61
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two amazing collaborative unions in the career of Richard Rodgers, which spanned some 50 years.
Following his lengthy partnerships with Hart and Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers wrote another show called No Strings in 1962 in which he attempted to be his own lyricist. While the show was not very successful, it did include the hit song “Love Makes the World Go Round.”
He would then try to team with a few other lyricists but could not find anyone the likes of the two composers with whom he had worked for so long. Rodgers died in late December of 1979.
During his long illustrious career, Rodgers married Dorothy Belle Feiner and had two daughters, Mary and Linda. One of Rodgers’ grandsons, Adam Guettel, apparently following the musical lineage, was a boy soprano at the Metropolitan Opera at the age of 13 before switching his career to that of a composer. His score and orchestrations for the 2005
Broadway hit The Light in the Piazza won him two Tony awards. Another grandson, Peter Melnick, served as composer for Adrift in Macao, which debuted at the Philadelphia Theatre Company in 2005 and was produced Off Broadway in 2007.
George and Ira Gershwin
The sons of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Israel and then George Gersh owitz were born in the late 1890s and grew up on New York’s crowded Lower East Side. George was the first of the brothers to show interest in music when he began playing the piano that was originally supposed to spark musical interest in his older brother Israel, better known as Ira. It was George who would leave school as a teenager to pur sue his songwriting career in Tin Pan Alley while Ira would remain in school and go on to college. George would also be the first to get his work published, in his late teens with songs such as the “Rialto Rag” and his first big hit, at the age of 21, “Swanee,” with lyrics by Irving Caesar.
At roughly the same time, Ira was asked to write lyrics for a show called Two Little Girls in Blue, co-produced by Vincent Youmans, which he wrote under the name Arthur Francis. It was while on their way to Broadway that the Gershowitz brothers would change their name to the less ethnic-sounding Gershwin.
George first saw Broadway success as he began writing the music for George White’s Scandals, in 1922, part of the ongoing series of less 62
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spectacular, but highly entertaining Ziegfeld-esque revues. Gershwin wrote for the first five of the thirteen reviews that would include performers the likes of W.C. Fields, Alice Faye, Bert Lahr, Ray Bolger, Rudee Vallee, Ethel Barrymore and Ethel Merman. Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” was among the songs written for one of George White’s Scandals.
It was in 1924, when the brothers teamed up on the first of 14 Broadway musicals, that they would hit their stride. It was a musical comedy called Lady Be Good starring Broadway’s newest song and dance team, Fred and Adele Astaire. Cashing in on the popularity of vaudeville, the show was about vaudevillians. The 1925 follow-up, Tip Toes, featured the same creative team, except for a change of directors. Having enjoyed two hits in a row, the creative team (including the same director, John Harwood) went for the trifecta, and Oh Kay! was born. While this show was not at all about vaudeville, it was nonetheless another hit musical, starring Gertrude Lawrence.
The Gershwins were off and running and would work again with Fred and Adele Astaire in Funny Face, which also included a young Betty Comden (see Chapter 4) in the cast. By the start of the 1930s, the Gershwin Brothers were synonymous with Broadway hit musicals. Girl Crazy not only launched the decade for the Gershwins, and featured the hit song “I Got Rhythm,” but it also became the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer Prize. Three film versions were made of the popular show.
Following Strike Up the Band and Of Thee I Sing, the brothers would team on their final show, adapted from the 1925 novel Porg y by DuBose Heyward. In what would be billed as a “folk opera,” George, Ira and DuBose Heyward (as librettist) would ultimately create a Broadway show about African American life in the Deep South called Porg y and Bess. Set in Charleston, South Carolina, at the turn of the century, in an area called Catfish Row, the story is about Porgy, a crippled beggar who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, and falls in love with Bess, a woman of ques-tionable reputation. Bess, however, is the mistress of Crown, a gambler, who kills a man in a fight that erupts from a craps game. He flees, but returns to Bess, only to find she is with Porgy. A fight ensues and Porgy kills Crown and lands in jail. By the time he gets out of jail, Bess has left for New York, and Porgy sets out to find her.
The show’s gambling, murder and drug-dealing portrayed African 63
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Americans in a manner that offended some, and there has long been controversy around the show, even as it is restaged in parts of the country to celebrate 75 years since the original play
opened on Broadway. Conversely, the show was also heralded for drawing attention to the struggles and difficulties of life in the Deep South. Porg y and Bess was a show about a world the white theater-going audiences of the 1930s knew nothing about. It was a ground-breaking story that also brought a fusion of musical styles together in one show including blues, gospel, jazz and that of Tin Pan Alley.
Ironically, the Gershwin brothers almost never got to write their most culturally significant work. The Metropolitan Opera had com -
missioned George Gershwin to write a grand opera back in 1930. Gershwin wanted to write the show based on the book Porg y and have an all–African American cast. However, the Met was open only to white performers. Meanwhile, Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern, also inter ested in bringing Porg y to the stage, suggested using Al Jolson in blackface to make a musical comedy. Ultimately, Gershwin decided to decline the Met’s offer and instead teamed with Heyward to write the show for Broadway where he was able to assemble an all–African American cast.
Porg y and Bess opened in the fall of 1935. Many critics heralded it, but audiences in a segregated world did not flock to see the performances.
The show closed after just 125 performances, and a frustrated George Gershwin headed to Hollywood. Sadly, he would die just two years later.
Over time, the show, featuring the songs “Summertime” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So” had many renditions worldwide featuring star performers from Cab Calloway to Sidney Poitier to Sammy Davis, Jr., to Maya Angelou all taking roles. While the musical gained greater acceptance, segregation would still persist, making it difficult to stage Porg y and Bess in many communities for years to come. It was, however, revived for over 300 performances on Broadway in 1953. Interestingly, it opened at the Ziegfeld Theater. This was fitting, considering that Ziegfeld was one of the Broadway producers of his time who did not succumb to racism or segregation in his shows.