A Broadway Experience A Child Would Remember

About a month ago Ellie took three-and-a-half-year-old CJ to her first live play, a local Omaha production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Like many young girls CJ is enraptured by stories of princesses. So Ellie was not too surprised that CJ sat intently absorbing the three hour production (her equally young friend bailed out at intermission). 

Experiencing live theater at any level is a treat best appreciated at the youngest age possible. Ellie, for example, tasted live theater when she was barely five years old. It was  a staging of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Coat at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck. She and eight-year-old Dan squealed loudly when they recognized the actor playing an Elvis-inspired pharaoh was a counselor from their summer camp. (Eight years later Ellie’s first dramatic roles in “real” Broadway plays came in two productions of Joseph, the first as the vampy wife of Potiphar in her eighth grade play, and then as one of Joseph’s brothers in the first Play Group Theatre rendition in Westchester. 

For the next four years PGT and Ellie were almost inseparable. After Joseph, Ellie took on leading roles as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, the baker’s wife in Into the Woods, Wendy in Peter Pan and Ti-Moune in Once on This Island. (In non PGT productions she was Rizzo in Grease and split the role of the Leading Player in Pippin.)

Ask most adults who grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s about the shows they remember seeing and they invariably will call out names like Howdy Doody or Leave It to Beaver, Winky Dink, Captain Kangaroo or The Lone Ranger. 

I, too, watched those television shows. I have fond memories of them and enjoy the nostalgic times friends reminisce about them. But the shows that made the biggest impression on me, the ones I most recall from that golden time, were Broadway shows. 

In the short span of five years, from the time I was nine to 14 years old, I saw at least six Broadway shows and two operas (Tosca and La Traviata) at the Metropolitan Opera House. 

My earliest Broadway memory—seeing Sam Levene in the comedy Make a Million. For the record, I cannot recall any of the plot. But I do remember sitting with my siblings in the balcony while my parents sat in the orchestra. (An interesting footnote: Make a Million was co-written by Norman Barasch. For those not aware, Gilda’s maiden name is Barasch. She is unaware of any family connection to Norman.)

If you’re not familiar with Sam Levene, let me assure you he was a bonafide star of the theater and movies. Google his name if you don’t believe me. 

My Broadway experience was heightened by the renowned original casts I witnessed. In 1961, Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker in Do Re Mi. Later that year Camelot featured Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet. 1961 was a stellar theater-going year for me. I also saw Robert Weede, Mimi Benzell and Molly Picon in Milk and Honey. The next year, Alfred Drake in Kean, followed in 1964 by Zero Mostel and Maria Karnilova in Fiddler on the Roof.   

The inspiration for this whole story is to tell you Ellie and Gilda took CJ to a Sunday matinee of a Broadway revival of Once on This Island. Yes, it could be argued that CJ is a tad young for the play’s message. But Ellie has been showing CJ a video of her performance 20 years ago as Ti-Moune. CJ is familiar with the plot and the songs. 

Ellie and Gilda reported she sat on the edge of her seat, enthralled, throughout the performance. She had a day to remember: a subway ride, a walk through Times Square after dark, dinner out in a restaurant, and her first Broadway play. It’s hard to imagine it could have been any better.

Entertainment Edition

To celebrate our 39th anniversary, Gilda and I last night went to see Relatively Speaking, three one-act plays by Ethan Coen, Elaine May and Woody Allen exploring relationships. Would we recommend it? Let’s just say it was a good thing we bought the tickets as part of Broadway’s two-for-one winter promotion.

One of the delightful aspects of the Woody Allen playlet, Honeymoon Motel, was the chance once again to see Richard Libertini perform on stage. Gilda and I first saw Libertini in Paul Sill’s Story Theater back in 1971, a series of vignettes based on fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm.

Seeing the same actor over a span of 40 years is part of the amazing arc of live theater. Libertini is easily recognized. A balding, gangly actor with a melancholy demeanor that belies his comic antics, he’s made a career of playing character parts, most notably General Garcia, the insane Latin-American dictator, in the original film of The In-Laws starring Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, and spiritual advisor Prahka Lasa in All of Me, with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin.

Recognizing actors on stage or screen is easy. Identifying them in public is harder. If I say so myself, I’m good at it, at least for, shall we say, actors who are not young, pop culture phenoms. A year or so ago, as audience members milled about during intermission of a Playwrights Horizons play, I walked over to shake the hand of a slightly older gentleman not arousing interest from any other theatergoer. As Gilda and our friends Ken and Jane looked on, I told him I saw him perform more than 46 years ago as Motel the Tailor in the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof. Austin Pendleton was grateful for the recognition so many years later, both for his acting and for being recognized and remembered.


The Fourth Troubador: Dick Kniss died last week. For those not familiar with the name, he was, in the words of a NY Times obituary, the stand-up bass player who became “a veritable fourth member of the folk-singing trio” Peter, Paul and Mary.

Always standing behind and usually to stage left (the audience’s right) of the featured folksingers, Kniss enjoyed a following of his own among Peter, Paul and Mary devotees, among whom I number myself. As I wrote back in September 2009 when Mary Travers passed away, my friends and I were responsible for Kniss missing a beat during one of their concerts at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

We were there on a day off from our summer-camp counselor jobs. Sitting in first row center seats, we caught Kniss’ eye and started a silent dialogue with him, distracting him enough to miss a beat in a song, the name of which escapes me.

As you can read from his obituary, it probably was one of the few times in his career Kniss made a musical mistake (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/arts/music/dick-kniss-bassist-for-peter-paul-and-mary-is-dead-at-74.html?_r=1&hpw).


Into the Woods: This summer, in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, one of my favorite musicals will be revived. Like Paul Sill’s Story Theater, the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine creation Into the Woods is based on Grimm fairy tales. But with a twist. The second act depicts the not-so-happily-ever-after lives of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Jack of beanstalk fame and assorted prince charmings, courtiers and ordinary townsfolk, including a baker and his wife. Gilda and I saw Into the Woods shortly after it opened in 1987. When PBS broadcast a production of the play in 1991, I taped it for Ellie, who was 10 at the time.

She viewed it often. During a play date with a friend one day she asked if they could watch the tape. I set it up and went outside to do some yard work, only to be surprised when they emerged from the house about an hour later. When I asked why they weren’t still watching, Ellie said the tape was over. It dawned on me that during all her previous viewings Ellie had never realized there was a second act.

Perhaps it was wrong to disabuse her of the fantasy that all stories end sweetly. Perhaps it could have waited until she was a few years older. I reacted before fully thinking through the consequences, ushering them both back into the house to watch the dark conclusion of Into the Woods.

I can’t rightly say Ellie or her friend were traumatized by the second act. Ellie’s passion for Into the Woods continued. About five years later Ellie played the baker’s wife in a Play Group Theater production of Into the Woods. It was one of many leading lady parts that defined her teenage acting years.