Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers (15 page)

After a brief post-war stint in Hollywood, Kingsley would return to write for Broadway in the 1950s. His dramatic works included
Darkness
at Noon
, based on Arthur Koestler’s novel about the Moscow Show Trials of 1938 and Communism.

Broadway During the War Years

Clearly, the war years took their toll on Broadway as many young men were called into military service and many women were doing their part to help the war efforts at home. Funding for Broadway shows was hard to secure and, still reeling from the depression years, more and more people were opting for a less expensive form of entertainment, the movies.

What was at one time over 250 productions staged in the late 1920s was 84

4. Group Theater, Acting Teachers and Life During Wartime
now down to 72 Broadway shows in the 1940-41 season. Some theaters were even forced to shut down, while others were transformed into movie houses and even used promotions like “free dish nights” to attract customers. This promotional idea lasted through the war years and on into the 1950s and featured one piece from a set of dishes given away to each paying customer. To make matters worse, the area around Broadway, particularly 42nd Street, was featuring burlesque shows and becoming a haven for prostitution, gambling and other undesirable activities, making it less appealing for families to attend shows at night.

The war nonetheless brought together the people of the United States, including the left- and right-wingers, who stood behind their nation. More than half a million Jewish soldiers were part of the United States Armed Forces and fought in World War II. In support of the war effort, the American Theater Wing recruited numerous volunteers, many from the Broadway shows. The Shubert Brothers donated their 44th Street Theater, and this became home to the Stage Door Canteen, which was opened by the Theater Wing to provide food and entertainment for the servicemen on leave from the war. Thousands of servicemen from all over the world visited the famed Stage Door Canteen, and many of the Broadway performers of the era donated their time to sing, dance or put on sketches. In time, there were nine stage door canteens operating in several cities and in three countries, all helping lift the spirits of the Allied troops. By late 1945, after the war, when the stage door canteens ran their final shows, it was estimated that some 20 million servicemen and personnel helping the war effort had been entertained by the dedicated volunteers while having a meal or at least a cup of coffee.

A series of sketches presented to factory workers, also doing their part for the war effort, was another part of the Theater Wing’s dedication to helping during the war years. Featuring Broadway actors, along with various other singers, dancers and comics, these shows, called
Lunchtime
Follies
, became very popular. The shows, while entertaining, also served to rally workers behind the common cause. Moss Hart was one among a number of Broadway writers to volunteer to write for the
Lunchtime
Follies
.

Across the country, the Hollywood Canteen was also providing servicemen with food and entertainment. John Garfield and Bette Davis were instrumental in launching this West Coast version of the Stage Door 85

Jews on Broadway

Canteen. Garfield had attempted to enlist in the military on two occasions but was turned down due to heart damage.

The United Service Organization (USO) was also instrumental in providing the servicemen with entertainment, starting with Camp Shows in 1941, and the government gave ample support to the cause. Many stage and screen performers joined in on these performances staged in various parts of the world.

While some of Broadway’s finest were doing what they could to entertain the servicemen in these difficult times, others were serving in the military. Among the half-million Jewish troops serving in World War II were several names that would be featured prominently in Broadway’s future, including Mel Brooks (
The Producers
), who saw action de-activat -

ing mines in the Battle of the Bulge, Neil Simon (who wrote more than 20 Broadway hits including
Biloxi Blues
about his World War II military training) and Sid Caesar (
Little Me
).

Meanwhile, despite the falling number of shows, there were still nearly 11 million people, including many servicemen on leave, taking in Broadway shows in 1943. Along with Irving Berlin’s patriotic hit,
This
Is the Army,
another show featuring a significant number of military personnel was called
Winged Victory.
Written and directed by Moss Hart,
Winged Victory
ran for 212 performances at the 44th Street Theater.

Something for the Boys
, featuring plenty of singing and dancing designed to boost the morale of American troops, saw nearly 450 performances before being made into a film. Of course there were also mainstream fav -

orites, such as another version of Ziegfeld’s perennial follies, which in 1943 starred Milton Berle. At age 35, Berle was in the prime of his long career and provided much-needed comedy during a very stressful time.

The 1943 version of the Follies played over 550 performances.

Daniel Kaye Kominsk, the son of Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants, better known as Danny Kaye, was also making audiences laugh on Broadway in the early ’40s in the Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin, Moss Hart comedy
Lady in the Dark,
which ran for over 450 performances at the Alvin Theater. Kaye then starred in the Cole Porter, Herbert and Dorothy Fields comedy
Let’s Face It
, which delighted audiences for more than 550 performances. The show included some songs written by Kaye’s wife, songwriter Sylvia Fine, who became well known for writing very witty, extremely fast-paced songs for her husband and other performers.

86

4. Group Theater, Acting Teachers and Life During Wartime
Coming off his classic role as the cowardly lion in
The Wizard of
Oz
, Bert Lahr was another Jewish performer from New York City who entertained audiences during the war years. Born Irving Lahrheim, the young actor dropped out of school at 15 to make a name for himself on the burlesque circuit in the 1920s and soon made it to Broadway in the 1927 show
Harry Delmar’s Revels
. He was in a number of revues in the 1930s including some of Ziegfeld’s, and in the 1940s, he was featured in
Seven Lively Arts, Meet the People
and
Make Mine Manhattan
. While he would forever be immortalized as the cowardly lion, Lahr became regarded as one of the all-time great clowns of American theater, contin -

uing the Jewish humor of the early days of Yiddish theater and certainly of vaudeville as well as the Jewish clowning that had been prevalent in Europe in the previous century. Later on in his long career, Lahr would also take on some serious roles, such as appearing in
Waiting for Godot.

However, he was best remembered on Broadway for his comedy.

A musical talent to make his mark on Broadway during the war years was composer Kurt Julian Weill, born in the Jewish quarter of Des -

sau, Germany, in 1900. By the age of 15, Weill was adept at the piano and already studying music composition, music theory and conducting.

By the early 1930s, he had established himself as a successful composer in Germany. Being Jewish, however, Weill was forced to flee from Nazi rule in 1933 and settled in Paris. Just two years later Weill and his wife made their way to New York City, where he adapted his works to suit the American style of musicals.

Weill’s string of Broadway hits would begin in the late ’30s with
Knickerbocker Holiday
opening at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. He would follow with several successful shows through the ’40s including
Lady in
the Dark
, with Ira Gershwin and Moss Hart,
One Touch of Venus, Street
Scene
by Elmer Rice and
Love Life
and
Lost in the Stars.
Sadly, Weill, who, like many others, joined in the volunteer efforts during the war years, died of a heart attack in 1950. It was a few years later that his
Threepenny Opera
would emerge as a huge Broadway hit. The show had made its way to Broadway very briefly in 1933 after being triumphant throughout Europe. Its return in 1954 opened in March and ran for some 2,611 performances, making it, at the time, the most successful musical of all time. The show featured the “Ballad of Mack the Knife.”

While Weill and other Jewish composers, lyricists, playwrights, 87

Jews on Broadway

directors and performers teamed up in many configurations throughout the ’30s and ’40s, there was one successful show during the war years that brought together four highly significant new talents to the Great White Way.
On the Town
, which opened during the end of the year holidays in 1944 introduced the writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the music of Leonard Bernstein and the choreography of Jerome Robbins to Broadway.

COMDEN AND GREEN

The musical writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green stepped into the spotlight with
On the Town,
only they did it from off-stage
,
both having had less than stellar acting careers. It would serve as the debut for one of the greatest musical teams in Broadway history.

While many thought they were married on one another, they were not.

Comden and Green were essentially a New York–born writing team who met in 1938 through mutual friends and went on to write numerous hits for Broadway and later on for Hollywood.

Both frustrated by their lack of acting roles, they formed their own acting troupe that performed in Greenwich Village at a club called the Vil lage Vanguard. While their shows were well received, they both became tired of trying to find material that they wanted to perform on stage. Therefore, they decided to try their hand at writing music and lyr ics for their own shows. At some of their shows, Green invited his musician friend Leonard Bernstein to accompany them on piano. It was Bernstein, however, who invited them to work on the book for his ballet entitled
Fancy Free,
which he had composed with a young choreographer named Jerome Robbins. From this ballet, a Broadway musical emerged with a simple plotline about three sailors on shore leave pursuing three young women around New York City. This simple show was renamed
On the Town
, and featured music, dancing and an optimistic love of life that made it the triumphant musical hit of 1945 at the Adelphi Theater.

The show also featured the classic song “New York, New York” and had Comden and Green performing on stage as part of the original cast.
On
the Town
would enjoy two revivals and become a major motion picture as well.

Comden and Green would go on to write
Billion Dollar Baby
in the 88

4. Group Theater, Acting Teachers and Life During Wartime
same year, 1945, and collaborate with Bernstein again in 1953 on
Wonderful Town
, also about life in New York City, with an un-credited Jerome Robbins handling choreography along with the legendary George Abbott.

Wonderful Town
, starring Rosalind Russell, ran for over 550 performances at the Winter Garden Theater. Among the subsequent Broadway musicals from the team of Comden and Green were
Two on the Aisle
,
Peter Pan
,
Subways Are for Sleeping
, and the huge 1956 hit
Bells Are Ringing
, in which they once again teamed with Robbins on a show set in New York City.
Bells
rang for over 900 performances at the Shubert Theater. Comden and Green will be discussed again in later chapters, as I had the honor of teaming with them on the 1991 musical
Will Rogers Follies
.

LEONARD BERNSTEIN

On the Town
also brought a 27-year-old Leonard Bernstein to Broad -

way. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Bernstein, born in 1918, learned to play piano in his early teens. Despite lack of encouragement from his father, who wanted his son to pursue other interests, Bernstein followed his dream and honed his musical talents, studying at Har vard and other universities. Encouraged by Aaron Copland among others, he wrote his first symphony,
Jeremiah
, in 1943. He would soon land a job at the New York Philharmonic as an assistant conductor. However, in late 1943, Bernstein got his break, filling in one evening for conductor Walter Bruno, who took ill. Conducting the New York Philharmonic orchestra over network radio in a critically acclaimed concert made Bernstein an overnight sensation.

Bernstein went on to become a legendary conductor, but also received his fair share of well-deserved critical acclaim for composing several Broadway musicals. Following
On the Town
, Bernstein wrote the music and lyrics for a musical version of J. M. Barrie’s
Peter Pan.
Then came
Wonderful Town
for which he won a Tony Award, and a musical version of Voltaire’s satire
Candide
that came and went quickly in its initial run on Broadway before returning for a successful revival in 1974.

Of course
West Side Story
would immortalize Leonard Bernstein on Broadway and in film, rounding out what would be one of the most significant musical careers in American history.

Leonard Bernstein never lost touch with his Jewish identity that 89

Jews on Broadway

was instilled in him at an early age through his parents. His 1943 symphony,
Jeremiah,
was about the story of the Jewish prophet who wrote about the destruction of the first temple and the exile of the Jewish people into slavery. In 1945 he was commissioned by the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City to write a liturgy for the Sabbath service, which was entitled
Hashkiveinu
, and in 1961 he wrote a symphony called
Kaddish
.

While he maintained a secular quality in most of his compositions, Bernstein’s work was influenced by Jewish history and stories from the Old Testament.

JEROME ROBBINS

The fourth of the luminaries to emerge from
On the Town
as a major Broadway force was Jerome Robbins, who today is considered by many as the first and foremost name associated with Broadway choreography.