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Meanwhile, the 1970s saw a number of experimental and nontraditional musicals make their way to Broadway. This was, in part, due to the late ’60s box office success of the counter-culture hit Hair, which did not follow linear story lines and threw many of the conventions of theater out the window. In addition to the changing style and face of Broadway, the names and faces of the cast and creative teams were also changing. A down economy meant that fewer new shows were opening on Broadway, and as a result many of the established performers picked up and moved to California to focus their attention on film and television.
Nonetheless, there were still hit musicals, and two of the most significant brought the music of Schwartz back to the Broadway stage. Godspell was actually a college project that emerged as one of the longest running Off Broadway shows in history, opening in Greenwich Village and moving to the Promenade Theater, which is technically on Broadway at 76th Street, but is not considered a “Broadway theater” as are those in the main theater district. The musical, featuring parables presenting Bible stories, drew criticism for the hippie-esque clothing and pop-culture manner in which Christ was portrayed. The music, however, by Schwartz, infused gospel, rock and other styles into the score along with Episcopal hymns, which won over audiences night after night. Along with a very successful cast album, the song “Day by Day” became a major hit. While Godspell ran for just over 500 performances on Broadway, it saw some 2,600 overall staged performances in New York City before going on tour and becoming a very frequently staged musical by local theater troupes. It was also made into a successful film.
Pippin, meanwhile was also initially a college project, this one by Schwartz himself. It is the story of the son of Charlemagne (Charles the Great), King of the Franks in the A.D. 700s. Like Godspell, Pippin tells the stories through a series of events, this time using a commedia dell’arte performance style originally developed in Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries. The style of performance features an improvisational comedic approach incorporating masks and costumes, often clown like. The success of Godspell, and the conviction of Bob Fosse to take a chance, helped bring Pippin directly to Broadway where it ran for 1,944 performances.
Schwartz would go on to write the music for a number of other Broadway musicals over what is now a career that has spanned six decades.
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6. Jewish Themes, Legends and Life in the 1960s and 1970s One of his biggest hits is Wicked, the current box-office smash, discussed later in the book. Schwartz is also one of a few elite lyricists who have had the honor of topping 1,500 performances with three musicals, the first of which being Pippin and the most recent being Wicked. In between would be the more difficult one to recall, even for those with Broadway trivia expertise. It just happened to be Doug Henning’s The Magic Show, which topped 1,900 performances in the mid 1970s. Schwartz wrote ten songs for what was primarily a vehicle for Henning’s talent with a thin plot line built around his amazing slight of hand. Schwartz would also pen the lyrics for a number of films including the Disney hits Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Prince of Eg ypt.
And then there was Marvin Hamlisch. While Hamlisch was far better known for more than 50 film scores, his claim to Broadway fame was being part of one of the most successful shows in musical history, A Chorus Line.
Born in New York City to a Viennese-Jewish couple, Lilly and Max Ham lisch, young Marvin was playing piano by the age of five and accepted into The Juilliard School Pre-College Division at the age of seven. After graduating from Queens College, he started writing film scores, including some for early Woody Allen movies including Take the Money and Run and Bananas. It was, however, in 1974, at the age of 30, that Hamlisch would be asked to write the music, with lyricist Edward Kleban, for a show about 19 dancers auditioning to be part of a chorus line. The auditioners would become the show and the audience would get to know them intimately as they bared their souls on stage. This inside look at the trials and tribulations of Broadway dancers resulted in A Chorus Line, which was initially produced by Joseph Papp Off Broadway at New York’s Public Theater. The demand for tickets was so great that the show moved to the Shubert Theater on Broadway where it held forth for over 6,100 performances, shattering all previous Broadway records as 6.5 million attendees took in the groundbreaking production.
While Hamlisch would go on to write the music for the autobiographical They’re Playing Our Song, The Goodbye Girl and a handful of other Broadway shows, nothing could match the magnitude of A Chorus Line. The musical earned Hamlisch a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize, to go along with Emmys, Grammys and Oscars, a feat which only Richard Rodgers had previously accomplished.
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The Definitive Musical Team of the ’60s
(and Beyond)
The music of composer John Kander and the lyrics of Fred Ebb were also prominently featured in the theaters in the 1960s as the duo joined forces on the first three Broadway musicals in their long and prosperous partnership.
Kander hailed from Kansas City, Missouri, where he began studying music at an early age. After college the young Jewish musician moved to New York City and attended Columbia University where he received his master’s degree. It was also in New York that Kander would get his first taste of Broadway as a rehearsal piano player for West Side Story.
Ebb, meanwhile, was a New York Jew, born and raised in the Big Apple. He too earned a master’s degree from Columbia University. However, despite their shared alma mater, Kander and Ebb did not meet until several years later. Ebb, while working odd jobs, such as bronzing baby shoes, began writing lyrics for nightclub acts and theater revues as well as for the musical From A to Z, which had a short run on Broadway in 1960.
It was in 1962 that Kander and Ebb first met. Together they would forge a career that would last five decades. Prior to their Broadway success, the two sat down and wrote songs together, two of which were recorded by an up and coming vocalist named Barbra Streisand. One of the two Streisand recordings, “My Coloring Book,” became her second single.
In 1965, the duo had their first Broadway show entitled Flora the Red Menace, based on the novel Love Is Just Around the Corner by Lester Atwell. Flora focused on a young fashion designer seeking work during the Great Depression. She finds herself drawn into the Communist Party, in part because of the man with whom she has fallen in love. While the show lasted only 87 performances on Broadway, at a loss of some $400,000
(which was very significant for 1965), it also featured another up and coming female star, 19-year-old Liza Minnelli, in a Tony Award–winning performance.
From that point on, it was onward and upward for Kander and Ebb as they took on the score for Cabaret, which opened in 1965, ran for over 1,165 performances and won the Tony Award for Best Musical Score. In 1968 they teamed with David Merrick and Gower Champion to compose 140
6. Jewish Themes, Legends and Life in the 1960s and 1970s words and music for The Happy Time. Also in ’68 they would provide the music and lyrics for Zorba, adapted from the novel Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. Zorba played for over 300 performances in 1968
and again for over 300 more performances in 1983.
Once established, the team of Kander and Ebb stepped up again for the musical version of a 1926 play about the gangsters of the era in the city of Chicago. The musical simply titled Chicago opened on Broadway in 1975 with Bob Fosse serving as director and choreographer. Much like the sleazy atmosphere that was the backdrop for the Berlin night -
club in Cabaret, Chicago was a musical about the underworld and Roxy Hart’s journey to vaudeville stardom despite killing her ex-lover. Once again there was also a master of ceremony, this time with a vaudeville flair. The show ran for just shy of 900 performances starting in 1975 ...
but it wasn’t finished. Chicago would return in 1996 as Chicago: The Musi cal and win the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. It would proce
ed to run for more than 5,400 performances and is still going strong as of the writing of the book, putting it in the top ten all-time longest running Broadway musicals.
As for Kander and Ebb, following Liza Minnelli’s The Act in 1977, I would be fortunate to work with them on Woman of the Year in 1981.
They would later usher in a new decade, the ’90s, with Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1991. They continued to work together for years to come, until Fred Ebb died of a heart attack in 2004.
Along with Broadway musicals, Kander and Ebb penned the music and lyrics for films and television specials, including those for Liza and for Frank Sinatra. They also have the distinction of writing the most notable song for the city they called home, recorded separately by both Sinatra and Minnelli, “New York, New York.” They were called by some the Rodgers and Hammerstein of the second half of the 20th century.
Under the Spotlights
The 1960s and ’70s were also a time when Jewish performers were once again prominently featured under the spotlights, as they had been back in the days of vaudeville. Along with Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, Phil Silvers, Bea Arthur and other established Jewish stage performers, 141
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there were newcomers such as Streisand, mentioned earlier, who made their mark on Broadway.
One such newcomer to the Broadway stage was Lauren Bacall, whose film career had begun over 25 years earlier and included The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, Key Largo and How to Marry a Millionaire. Bacall first hit Broadway in the early ’60s in Goodbye, Charlie and the Abe Burrows com edy Cactus Flower. But her triumph of the Broadway stage was yet to come.
Born in 1924 in New York City to Polish-Jewish immigrants, Bacall took her mother’s name since she had little contact with her father after her parents’ divorce. Working as a theater usher, she was discovered by a modeling agent and became a fashion model in the early 1940s. While modeling, she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. By the age of 20 she would begin a long and celebrated film career. But Broad way was always a passion of Bacall. Then in 1970, she would enjoy her most celebrated stage performance in the Charles Strouse, Lee Adams, Comden and Green hit musical Applause. Bacall brought with her to Broadway the Hollywood elegance and grace that had established her as a film star. Rave reviews and a Tony Award clearly indicated that Bacall had indeed made a major impact. Ten years later I would have the pleasure of working with her when she took on the leading role in Woman of the Year, for which she once again walked away with a Tony Award. The show, meanwhile, ran for 770 performances.
It was also during the 1970s that Joel Katz followed in the footsteps of his father, nightclub and Catskills performer Mickey Katz. As it would turn out, the younger Katz would eclipse his father’s show business success under the name Joel Grey. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1932, Grey started performing when he was ten. After landing understudy roles in Come Blow Your Horn and Stop the World — I Want to Get Off, Grey would win over audiences and critics in his mid–30s as the emcee at the sordid Kit Kat Club in pre–Hitler Berlin in the musical Cabaret. In fact, Grey won a Tony Award for his supporting and very memorable role. He would later be called upon to reprise the role for the film version. For his efforts he won an Oscar. Grey then returned to Broadway in his signature role once more when the musical was revived.
The next significant role for Grey had him starring as the legendary George M. Cohan in 1968. The show, simply entitled George M! ran for 142
6. Jewish Themes, Legends and Life in the 1960s and 1970s only 427 performances, but it established Grey as a serious triple threat, singing, dancing and acting his way to critical acclaim and a Tony Award nomination (he lost to Jerry Orbach in Promises, Promises).
After another Tony nomination for his role in Goodtime Charley in 1975, Grey would be cast in the Jerry Herman musical The Grand Tour.
Although the show was not a box office hit, it was an ambitious effort set just prior to World War II, about a Jewish man who finds himself having to team up with an anti–Semite in order to stay one step ahead of the approaching Nazis.
After the 1987 revival of Cabaret, as well as his appearance in a revival of the hit musical Chicago, Grey would land in the hugely successful hit Wicked. While Grey also made his share of feature films and television appearances, he is best known as one of the elite stars of Broadway. A true song and dance man in the style of many greats who came before him, Grey has been recognized by both theatergoers and by his peers for his on-stage prowess. He is also known for his charitable work for organizations such as the Children’s Defense Fund. In keeping with the family’s show business lineage, Grey’s daughter Jennifer became a screen actress, best known for her role in the 1997 film Dirty Dancing.
Kevin Kline, Goldie Hawn, Bebe Neuwirth and other Jewish performers were also seen on Broadway during this era, while establishing their television and film careers. One stage actress who was always considered for Jewish roles was Terri Sue Feldshuh (pronounced Feld-shoo), better known as Tovah. Unlike the early Yiddish theater performers, Tovah, also born in New York City, did not know about poverty during her youth, growing up in an affluent community.
Also unlike many of those who preceded her, she would first change her stage name to the less ethnic-sounding Terri Fairchild before deciding to go instead with her Hebrew name, Tovah, and return to her real last name, Feldshuh.
Her first Broadway experience was seeing Gwen Verdon in the original run of Damn Yankees in 1955 as a very young child. She knew at that time that this was something she definitely wanted to pursue. Years later, she would make her own Broadway debut in the show Cyrano, in 1973, which had a shorter run than Cyrano’s nose. Nonetheless, it was a starting point for the young performer. “I was in a little more than the chorus, with 14 lines,” says Feldshuh.6
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It was in Yentl, however, first Off Broadway and then on Broadway, that Tovah made her mark, generating critical acclaim, audience attention and a Tony Award nomination. Feldshuh appeared in other Broadway shows and expanded her career to films and television. She would then establish herself in the record books for bringing the life of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to the stage in Golda’s Balcony, the longest-running one-woman show in the history of Broadway, lasting nearly 500 performances. It is a role for which she became forever associated.
In contrast to the many Jewish performers who changed their names to be “less Jewish,” Tovah benefited to some degree by keeping her Jewish name. “When you see name Tovah Feldshuh, assumptions would go along with that name. I would work hard and master these roles, but people assumed I had a foot in the door,” explains Feldshuh.7 However, she did later acknowledge that when it came to Jewish roles in plays such as Kissing Jessica Stein and Golda’s Balcony, among other shows, she was thought of immediately. Conversely, when Neil Simon or a director was looking for a non–Jewish, or “less Jewish,” actor to play a Jewish character for more mainstream appeal, she had a much harder time landing such roles. Nonetheless, she did land her share of non–Jewish roles in several shows including Lend Me a Tenor and She Stoops to Conquer, where she performed Off Broadway with Nathan Lane.
Feldshuh, whose Jewish identity has always remained a significant part of who she is, also weighed in on why the Jewish people gravitated to the entertainment industry and theater in particular. From her perspective, the Jewish immigrant population in America wanted to participate and have a voice in their new world. “For centuries, the Irish were mauled by the British, so when they emigrated to the United States, they became cops and elected officials. They wanted to have some control over their environment. Similarly, the Jews in Europe were denied entry into so many aspects of society that when we arrived here, we took the opportunity to participate in the media, not only entertainment, but the newspaper industry as well,”7 explains Feldshuh about the Jews making sure to have a voice, fair representation and some control over the message. “We didn’t want the
message to be about the country clubs that denied access to Jewish people. We wanted it to be about opportunities for everyone to reach the American Dream and we wanted to be champions of that dream,”8 she adds. The media and the stage (and later the 144
6. Jewish Themes, Legends and Life in the 1960s and 1970s screen) provided the opportunity to be part of the message. In fact, Feldshuh also explains that theater allowed the Jewish people to present the message using two things the Jewish people are very good at: storytelling and humor. “We were always great storytellers, and we could be self-deprecating before others could deprecate us,”9 says Feldshuh.
Tovah also notes that as a child she was taught to ride a horse at a young age. As she points out, the Cossacks and military leaders in Eastern Europe rode horses and wielded great power, especially over the Jewish people. “It was important to get up on a horse not just as a means of assimilation, but as a way of showing that the Jews had arrived in a place of power from which we were once murdered in the old days,”10 explains Feldshuh.
Tovah Feldshuh continues to have a tremendous commitment to both the theater and to her Jewish heritage, to which she remained dedicated through her tireless involvement in numerous Jewish organizations and causes.
From Streisand playing Fanny Brice to Mostel in Fiddler to Tovah Feldshuh as Golda Meir, the Jewish presence was indeed felt through the performers on the stages of Broadway in the 1960s and ’70s.
JOSEPH PAPP
One key contributor to Broadway in the 1960s and ’70s was Joseph Papp. The sheer determination to bring quality theater to the people of New York City epitomized Papp’s long career. Often very critical of Broadway, claiming those who were involved were in it for the money, Papp nonetheless had a major influence on Broadway and helped save it when box office numbers dropped in the ’70s.
Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers Page 18