There’s a point to all this. Bear with me. But some background helps put it in full perspective. As longtime readers here know, I’ve been writing about the musical Harmony here and on the Huffington Post ever since I saw it in its world premiere production in San Diego about 25 years ago. The show was written by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman, who reworked the musical and it got a brief revival in Atlanta and here in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson about nine years ago. The show is based on the real-life singing and comedy group the Comedian Harmonists, who were wildly popular in Germany during the 1920s, and toured Europe, even coming to the United States, but because there were several Jews in group, that all came apart when the Nazis came to power. It was a very good musical in both versions I saw, with some flaws in the second act, but overall extremely well done. And an excellent score, with songs that fit the time and place. You may recall that I did an interview with Manilow and Sussman (which you can read here) when the show opened in Los Angeles. That came about for an odd reason – As I said, I’ve always liked Harmony a lot. And one day in February, 2013, I decided to revisit the show and wrote a long piece about it (which you can read here) explaining in detail my praise of and embedding one particular wonderful song from it, “Every Single Day.” To my great surprise, only a couple months later it was announced that a new version Harmony was going to play in Atlanta the next year, and then come to Los Angeles. Eventually, I got in touch with the P.R. rep for the show, sent her a link to the article, and when Harmony finally got to Los Angeles, a phone interview was set up with Manilow and Sussman. (A funny story came from that. At the beginning of our talk, I just wanted to confirm that he’d see that long article I’d written a year earlier, raving in detail about the show and its score. "Oh, so you know about the article?" I asked. Manilow replied lightheartedly, but bluntly -- "I know everything about this show." But the thing is, it turns out that when he read it, he assumed that the whole reason I’d written the article was because I already knew Harmony was being done again, thinking that that's what had prompted me. After all, why else would someone write in such depth about a show that hadn’t been done in about 16 years? I corrected him, though, explaining that, no, the article came totally out of the blue, that in fact I had been completely unaware about this revised production. And in a stunned voice he almost cut me off, “Wait, you didn’t know we were doing the show???!!” I answered, “No, I wrote it before I had any idea you were reviving it. I just thought the show was wonderful and wanted to write about it.” To which he said -- “Robert, I love you even more than I did before!”) I’ve continued to think about the show since then, and periodically track down videos I can find out of. And tracked down the 1997 German movie, The Harmonists, on Netflix that was named Outstanding Feature Film at the German Film Awards – the same year, as it happens, that I saw Manilow and Sussman’s musical in San Diego. And only just this morning, something was posted on social media about Manilow, so I posted a link to that 2014 interview. Which in turn got to do some more searching, which brought me to a recent interview with Barry Manilow on Kelly Clarkson’s talk show, where they discussed the musical – and where something was said that got me to sit up…and then check it out be sure it was accurate and still valid. And it was. And that’s the point of all this. After 25 years, Harmony is finally going to be staged in New York! In less than three months, on April 14! To be clear, it’s not going to be on Broadway – however, they’re putting it on at the renowned National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene -- which is an inspired place for it. This is the same company that did the acclaimed production of Fiddler on the Roof three years ago, directed by Joel Grey, in Yiddish. I even posted a piece and video on it here. So, even if it’s not Broadway, it’s New York theater and a really high quality company. Also, the show will be performed in English. And it will have at least one pretty-big name performer in it, Sierra Boggess, who I’ve posted videos and who starred as ‘Ariel’ in the original Broadway production of The Little Mermaid. (There are some other known Broadway actors in the show, as well, who’ve been announced so far, including Chip Zien who was in the original production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, and the original productions of such musicals as Caroline, or Change, and Falsettos.) And it’s being directed by Warren Carlyle, who won a Tony award for the choreography of the musical After Midnight, for which he also got a Tony nomination for directing. The point being that this is not a “Well, we at least got a theater in New York” thing. It’s a serious New York production. Finally. After 25 years. I’m very happy for them. And for this very good, even if flawed, show finally and very deservedly getting seen. And so, after 25 years of me yammering about the show, saying how good it is and deserves to play in New York -- as I always say, I tries nots to steer ya wrong. This just took a little longer than usual. I’ll end all this with a video. In my 2013 article about Harmony, I singled out particular song, “Every Single Day.” I had earlier noted that Barry Manilow admirably sublimated his style to write songs that fit the period. And for years he never even performed them in concert, so they wouldn’t be seen as “Barry Manilow Songs.” Though eventually, since Harmony hadn’t yet made it to Broadway, he did put out an album with many of the songs, and began to perform “Every Single Day” in his concerts, albeit with a much bigger, Barry Manilow-style arrangement. I wrote – In fairness, despite what I said above, "Every Single Day," is the one song in the show that does sound like a Barry Manilow Song. It's a power ballad, as the expression goes. But just know that it fits the moment in the show so perfectly that my recollection at the time of first hearing it in San Diego wasn't that it stood out as incongruous, like, "Oh, yeah, okay, there's his Barry Manilow number," but rather a love song that was absolutely right for the character and what he needed to say right then. The musical arrangement was also much more subtle, intimate, and deeply personal than the one now-used (and used appropriately, I think) for a Big Barry Manilow Moment in his concert that gets his fans cheering. It sounded enough like something from the 1930s, not a modern-day, 1997 chart-buster. For years, when I’d write an article about Harmony, the only video I could find of songs from the show was Barry Manilow singing (actually, more like acting the number as it was performed on stage) “Every Single Day” in concert, with that big musical arrangement. It was still very good, but not the more intimate song as done in the show. But today I found the song being song from the show – sort of. I don’t think this was a concert-version of the show, though it could be. More likely it seems like a revue of sorts, done by the New York Theatre Barn I 2013 (whimsically the same year I wrote the article above). But…I don’t know. It could be a low-key concert production, and even has the lead-in dialogue that sets up the scene from the second act. At the very least, there’s an audience there, giving it enthusiastic applause. So, in dramatic and musical context from the show itself, as the woman he dearly loves – and who loves him – explains why getting married at that dangerous period in Germany would be a terrible mistake, here is Shayne Kennon’s response singing “Every Single Day.” [UPDATE: It turns out that this video and my article about Harmony being the same year may not be as "whimsical" as I thought. It turns out that Shayne Kennon, who sings the number here, actually was in the Atlanta and Los Angeles revival -- and therefore, I assume, sang this song in the show. So, whether this was a sort of press event or workshop or promotional event or something else, it clearly wasn't just a pure coincidence that he was singing the song here when the revival was about to go onstage. So, what you're seeing is how it was performed in the show.]
2 Comments
Laurie-sheryl Dank
1/30/2022 01:38:31 pm
my 5th cousin ❤ Molly Picon would've enjoyed 2have seen this show put together ❤ hoping / praying 🙏 I can get an opportunity 2work on this show
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Robert Elisberg
1/30/2022 03:40:14 pm
Laurie-sheryl, thanks for your note. Very nice to have Molly Picon as your fifth cousin. Yes, given her history in the Yiddish theater, and being in the musical MILK AND HONEY about Israel, it's very appropriate to her (and you...) that this production will be done by the Yiddish Theatre company.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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