Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers (28 page)

Devel opers had come and gone, throwing up their hands in dismay at the challenge that stood in front of them. Commercial office buildings might provide jobs, but at night lurked a seedy crowd that frequented the peep shows and porn theaters. The key for Disney was not simply to add structures, but to transform the ambiance and infuse entertainment that could jump-start the neighborhood in a positive uplifting Disney manner.

Ironically, despite the decline of the area, much like the lost city of Pompeii, classic, elegant art nouveau theaters sat unscathed in the midst of the chaos. One of those theaters, built in 1900 by Oscar Hammerstein, called the Theatre Republic, featured a Venetian-styled façade with a grand exterior staircase leading to the first of two balconies. It was elegant with a dome ceiling. The theater had opened shortly after the turn of the century with the show
Sag Harbor
featuring Lionel Barrymore. In a short time, the Republic would become home to vaudeville shows and to
Abie’s Irish Rose
, one of Broadway’s longest-running productions of the 1920s. But in the ’30s the depression made it difficult to stage major productions, so it was taken over by Billy Minsky and turned into Minsky’s Burlesque featuring Gypsy Rose Lee. In 1942, Minsky’s, however, would close, and by the 1970s the theater would sink to a new low, emerg ing as the city’s first XXX theater.

Nonetheless, the classic venue would return in the 1990s as the New Victory Theater, a full-time performing theater for children and their families created by a non-profit organization dedicated to cleaning up 42nd Street. While this major renovation and reopening of the classic 161

Jews on Broadway

theater had no connection with Disney, it certainly indicated that changes to the area could be achieved.

Another classic old 42nd Street theater, the New Amsterdam, sat right across from the old Republic, and it would serve as the anchor for Disney’s redevelopment plan. Much like the senior Oscar Hammerstein had built up the theater district at the turn of the 20th century, Eisner and his associates were determined to transform the theater district on the verge of the 21st century.

The New Amsterdam Theater was built in 1903 with a seating capac ity topping 1,700. The lavish theater was opened with Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, which played for a couple of weeks before giving way to the theater’s first original play called
Her Own Way
, by Clyde Fitch. From
Mother Goose
to
Ivan the Terrible
, musicals, revues and serious plays called the New Amsterdam Theater home over the com ing years. Then, starting in 1913 and continuing through the late 1920s, the numerous renditions of Ziegfeld’s Follies became the most not able tenants of the New Amsterdam. However, the depression years took their toll, and in 1937, following the Sigmund Romberg and Otto Harbach musical comedy
Forbidden Melody
, the theater would close, just as it had opened, with a Shakespearian classic. This time it was
Othello
.

Of course, a transformation of the theater district by Disney meant more than just rebuilding and renovating a theater and cleaning up the area. Along with a signature Disney Store, it meant staging productions that would draw an audience and bring family entertainment to the street which had gone from Follies and frenzied revues to down and dirty. During this same time, Disney was enjoying a rebirth of their animation excellence.
Cinderella
,
Sleeping Beauty
and
Snow White
had given way to
Beauty and the Beast
,
The Lion King
and
Aladdin
. The new generation of baby-boomer children were delighted by these animated films. The question was: Would these movie mega hits work on stage with real act -

ors? Would they generate the same excitement from a young audience?

Only time would tell. But the brass at Disney were not taking any chances. They opened
Beauty and the Beast
out of town, in Houston, and followed the results closely before moving it to my own Palace Theater in 1994. And they were very pleased with what they saw as the show played for over 5,000 performances, making it into the all-time top-ten for performances by a Broadway musical. Needless to say, I was very 162

7. Young Playwrights with a Message, Inflation, Disney and Me
pleased as well. Yes, Disney’s second wave of classic children’s favorites would indeed provide the new entertainment on 42nd Street.

After the major three-year, multi-million-dollar renovation project, the New Amsterdam would open once again some 60 years after the
Ziegfeld Follies
with
The Lion King
, in 1997. Disney had signed a 99-year lease and now had their own Broadway Theater and, along with
Beauty
and the Beast
, their second smash-hit Broadway musical, with others lined up to follow.

Eisner would eventually fall victim to the old executive adage :

“What have you done for us lately?” His miraculous run of animated film hits slowed, and there were no more city streets in Manhattan to transform. Nonetheless, he led the way for Disney to make their imprint on Broadway, and with shows continuing to open, such as
The Little
Mermaid
and
Mary Poppins
, he apparently left his mark.

Meanwhile, one of the foremost creators of the era, and part of the reason for Disney’s unprecedented success, was Alan Menken, who joined the long line of successful Jewish Broadway composers after establishing himself as the musical force behind several of Disney’s major animated classics.

ALAN MENKEN

Menken, like many Jewish composers before him, hailed from New York City. He was born in 1949 in Manhattan, but as was the case with many families of the era, his parents opted to move to the burgeoning suburbs. Thus, Menken grew up on Long Island, New Rochelle to be exact. He took to piano and violin at an early age and was weaned on Broadway musicals as his family frequented the theater often, enjoying classics, such as
My Fair Lady
and
The Sound of Music
among other favorites of the ’50s and early ’60s.

While Menken enjoyed playing piano, he also enjoyed making up his own versions of the songs he was told to practice, and hence his composing career began. After graduating from New York University, Menken took to writing jingles, while performing his own material in small clubs, in hopes of becoming the next major singer-songwriter. While that did not happen, he did soon discover that he had a knack for writing musical theater.

163

Jews on Broadway

His first official theater writing job came when he was asked by Harold Ashman to write music for an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1965 play
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
. He was then asked by Ashman to write the music for what would become an Off Broadway cult favorite,
Little Shop of Horrors
. The quirky comedy featuring Audrey II, an outspoken Venus flytrap, would later become a film and eventually land on Broadway in 2003 for 372 performances.

But once Disney got hold of Menken, they would not let go. It was indeed a match made in heaven. Menken would proceed to write the family-friendly, light and spirited music for one animated Disney hit after another, including
Beauty and the Beast
,
Aladdin
,
Pocahontas
and
The Little Mermaid
.

When Disney decided to make 42nd Street their new theatrical version of Main Street USA, it was Menken’s music that was played in
Beauty and the Beast
. And when
The Little Mermaid
moved to Broadway, once again Menken’s music was featured. The show ran for 685 performances. While several of his Disney favorites may follow suit and enjoy Broadway runs, Menken has moved on to other endeavors which have included writing the music for the stage presentation of the classic
A Christmas Carol
now performed at Madison Square Garden each holiday season.

I recall my own interaction with Alan Menken in 1987, during his pre–Disney days. We were working on the musical adaptation of
The
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,
which I was going to produce at the American Theater Festival in Philadelphia. Alan was great, an amazing talent, and we had a terrific relationship. We were working on the book for the show and trying to get other producers interested as backers. I wanted Jimmy Nederlander to hear the score because I thought it was going to be a big hit. In those days you would sit down and play the music for potential producers or backers during an audition; this was before using CD cuts or anything like that. Songs were played in the offices of the producers. It was a throwback to the days of Tin Pan Alley.

So, we decided to play half a dozen songs from the show for Jimmy. The problem was that there was one song that could be considered a little anti–Semitic, so I asked if we could change the lyric. David Spencer was the lyricist and the song included the line, “that’s the way we feed Jews.”

I suggested, “that’s the way we amuse Jews” or something that’s not so 164

7. Young Playwrights with a Message, Inflation, Disney and Me
offensive. But they came back and told me that David did not want to change it. While I was not in a position to rewrite a lyric, I was in the position to decide that we should skip that song in the upcoming Tuesday meeting.

It was Mother’s Day weekend and upon returning to work on Monday, after visiting my own mom, I received a phone call from Alan Men -

ken. “Hi, Stewart, we’re going to change the lyric,” was Alan’s opening remark. So I asked him what happened. “Well, I was at my mother’s house and I played the song for her. She looked at me and said ‘Alan, that’s so anti–Semitic, you can’t use that song,’” explained Menken. I told him to please thank his mom for me.

Much of Menken’s success was with Howard Ashman, a lyricist whose words complemented the music of Menken perfectly. The two were a marvelous team, from
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
through many of the Disney favorites. Sadly, Ashman would become another of Broadway’s list of casualties to HIV. He died at age 40 in 1991.

Prior to Menken and Ashman, when it came to writing music for Disney films, there were the Sherman Brothers. Born to Russian-Jewish immigrants in the 1920s, Robert and Richard Sherman began their long and esteemed songwriting careers in the early 1950s, following in the musical footsteps of their father, Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Sherman.

Their lineage reportedly dates back to Franz Joseph, the emperor of Austria in the late 19th century, and King of Hungary.

It was in the late 1950s that the Sherman Brothers would team up as staff writers for Disney, writing everything from music for Annette Funacello of
The Mickey Mouse Club
to “It’s a Small World After All,”

which first appeared at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, before becoming a staple at both U.S. Disney theme parks. They also wrote the songs for the Disney movies
Mary Poppins
,
The Jungle Book
and
The Aristocats
.

They would later take time off from Disney to pen music and lyrics for the 1968 kid-favorite film,
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
, which made it to Broadway many years later, without great success. They also wrote the Andrews Sisters’ Broadway tribute,
Over There
. It was, however, when Disney brought
Mary Poppins
to Broadway that the Sherman Brothers would enjoy their greatest theatrical success with music they had written more than 40 years earlier.

Another of the Disney “alumni” to enjoy great success on Broadway 165

Jews on Broadway

is David Zippel, an Easton, Pennsylvania, native who graduated from Harvard Law School but opted to be a lyricist rather than a lawyer. In a career that has now spanned more than 20 years, Zippel had been teamed with a wide range of musical talents on Broadway and in Disney films.

His Broadway debut came in 1989, when he teamed with Cy Coleman and Larry Gelbart on the musical comedy
City of Angels
. Zippel received a Tony Award for his work on the show, which ran just over two years (879 performances). In 1993, Zippel worked with Marvin Hamlisch to create the musical comedy
The Goodbye Girl
, based on the 1977 Neil Simon film.
The Woman in White
painted Zippel with Andrew Lloyd Web ber in 2005. Unfortunately the musical only played for 109 performances.

Zippel’s Disney credits include lyrics for the animated film
Hercules
on which he teamed with Alan Menken, for
Mulan
with Matthew Wilder providing the music and then for
Tarzan
with music by Phil Collins.

With songs recorded by a wide range of talents from Ricky Martin to Mel Tormé to Stevie Wonder, Zippel has established himself as a premiere lyricist for both stage and screen.

It was also thanks to the Decade of Disney that Jewish director Julie Taymor made her Broadway breakthrough as director of
The Lion King
.

In fact, thanks to
The Lion King
, she became the first woman to win a Tony Award for directing. However, Taymor was not at all a newcomer to theater, only to Broadway.

Born and raised in a suburb of Boston, Taymor began her theatrical journey in children’s theater at the age of ten. But it was years later, from travels to the Far East and years spent living in Indonesia, that she would discover and develop her passion for puppetry. Upon returning to the United States in the early 1980s and on into the 1990s, Taymor would utilize puppets along with masked and unmasked actors as well as film and stage devices to create unique imagery in her own works. Meanwhile, she would also continue directing plays for the New York Shakespeare Festival, the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and elsewhere. But it was in 1997, after some 25 years of creating and directing internationally, that Taymor’s amazing talents were recognized.

She brought together the magnificent fusion of people and puppets in Disney’s spectacular stage version of
The Lion King
, by leaving the puppet 166