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| August 20, 2013 | Huffington Post | "Barry Manilow's New Musical Based on 'Backstreet Boys of the 1920s'" by Kristi York Wooten |
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| In 1991, Broadway lyricist Bruce Sussman saw a documentary by director Eberhard Fechner that prompted him to run to the nearest payphone and tell his writing partner, Barry Manilow, they must create a show about a forgotten 1920s ensemble called The Comedian Harmonists. That six-man German vocal group, which toured the world until being disbanded and dispersed by Nazi activity in 1934 (three of its members were Jewish), was the hottest thing going on the international music scene. Yet, today its story is little known -- even among music aficionados. Manilow and Sussman are hoping their hummable new collaboration will bring the German singers' story to the mainstream. After more than a decade of rewrites, soft starts and business snafus, the pair will open Harmony -- A New Musical, at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre on September 6. The musical is "adapted for the grasp of a 2013 audience," but inspired by the unique talents of The Comedian Harmonists, Manilow told me during a recent interview. "They were the Backstreet Boys of their time." Manilow is quick to point out that Harmony "isn't a show about the Holocaust," although it contains references to "the approaching storm" of German oppression in the mid-1930s, says Sussman. The show instead focuses on the high drama within the personal lives of the group members, their love interests, travels, and friendships with other famous artists of the day. Sussman describes Harmony, directed by Tony Speciale (a veteran of off-Broadway productions such as Classic Stage Company's A Midsummer Night's Dream starring Bebe Neuwirth), as "a sweeping book musical that visits 28 locations" featuring "original numbers and presentational songs" he co-penned with Manilow (the pair is famous for their 1970s hits, "Copacabana" and the theme song from "American Bandstand"). For authenticity, Speciale picked cast members whose ages matched those of the actual Comedian Harmonists (ages 21-27) at the time of their debut in 1927. Both Sussman and Manilow are impressed with the Harmony cast, which includes Will Blum (Book of Mormon), Chris Dwan, Shayne Kennon, Will Taylor (42nd Street), Douglas Williams, and Tony Yazbeck (Chicago), along with Leigh Ann Larkin and Hannah Corneau in the primary roles, and an ensemble filled with Alliance and Broadway veterans. The singing, Manilow says, "is beautiful." Like the original Comedian Harmonists, Harmony's cast has real chops. "Those days, there was no such thing as autotune or 'punching in,'" he says. There's comedy, too. Sussman adds that a "transformative moment" in the musical -- and one he hopes will be an audience favorite -- happens when the sextet of performers "first realize that they're funny." As for staging Harmony's latest debut in the South (John Mellencamp and Stephen King brought their musical, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County to the Alliance in 2012), Sussman says he's reminded of a conversation he once had with Sheldon Harnick, lyricist for the 1964 Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof: "He told me if Fiddler succeeded, it could run for three years in New York, based on the Jewish audiences in the Northeast," Sussman says. Of course, the musical went on to become the first Broadway show to surpass 3,000 performances. "What they didn't anticipate was the universality of it," he says of Fiddler on the Roof. The same is true of Harmony, he believes: "We don't have to cater to any audience, whether we do it in the South or the Northwest, it makes no difference." Harmony's Sept. 6-Oct. 6 stint in Atlanta will be a proving ground for future plans (the musical will head to L.A. next with no definite dates scheduled for a New York run -- yet), and its creators are too seasoned to boast of grand schemes for Broadway. Yet, if the "fanilows" come shining through, maybe's there's hope? "I think I can count on my loyal fans to get us started," Manilow says,"But this show is going to have to stand on its own. We have to rely on Harmony as a musical." |
| August 19, 2013 | Broadway World | Behind The Scenes Of Barry Manilow's HARMONY |
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Take a look behind the scenes of Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's long in-development musical HARMONY as it prepares for its highly anticipated debut at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre in a few short weeks byway of a handful of new shots recently released.  With a score by Manilow, featuring a book and lyrics by Bruce Sussman and direction by Tony Speciale, HARMONY is Manilow's first original stage musical with an eye set torwards Broadway following the highly anticipated bow of the show this September at the ALLIANCE THEATRE in Atlanta, Georgia. The official synopsis of HARMONY is as follows: "HARMONY tells the compelling story of the Comedian Harmonists. They were the first sensational boy band: six talented young men who came together in 1920s Germany and took the world by storm with their signature blend of sophisticated close harmonies and uproarious stage antics. The Comedian Harmonists sold millions of records, starred in a dozen films and packed the houses of the most prestigious concert halls around the globe until the world they knew forever changed. Their amazing story inspirEd Barry and Bruce to create a spectacular new musical with an original score that celebrates this extraordinary group of friends and ensures their quest for true harmony in the most discordant chapter of human history will never be forgotten."  HARMONY opens September 6 at the ALLIANCE THEATRE in Atlanta. A second production at the Ahmanson Theatre in California is planned for March 2014, as well. |
| August 16, 2013 | The GA Voice | "Barry Manilow’s 'Harmony'" by Jim Farmer |
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| He writes the songs that make the whole world sing. And he’s the voice behind them as well: "Mandy," "Copacabana" and dozens more. Now Barry Manilow is collaborating with the Alliance Theatre for the company’s 2013-2014 season opener, "Harmony – A New Musical," taking the stage early next month. "Harmony" is the true story of what could be the first boy band extraordinaire: The Comedian [Harmonists], composed of six young men in Germany in the 1920s. They sold millions of records and starred in films. But three members were Jewish and as anti-Semitism grew, the group fell apart. Nazis eventually disbanded them. Manilow is surprised that the band is relatively obscure to today’s audiences. "They were huge in Europe, all over the place, but we didn’t know about them," he says. "They were the Manhattan Transfer (of their age). They knocked us out." He compares their humor to that of the Marx Brothers. The fine line in "Harmony" is creating a musical with a great score (almost 20 songs in all) but with a darker subject - and not making it overly morose. Manilow is quick to point out that this isn’t a Holocaust musical. "It ends in 1935," he says. While Manilow is handling the music for the production, his longtime writing partner Bruce Sussman is responsible for the book and lyrics. The Atlanta gig is directed by Broadway veteran Tony Speciale. Manilow and Sussman were in town recently for rehearsals and are pleased with what they are seeing. "It is going great," Sussman says. "It’s been thrilling; it is going to be a spectacular show." Sussman read an article about the Comedian Harmomists and soon after saw the documentary about them. He knew he had a project. The musical was first produced back in 1997 at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, Calif. The upcoming Atlanta show is the first staging since, although there have been attempts to do it elsewhere. When Sussman and Manilow were looking around for a regional theater to re-stage it, people kept on mentioning the Alliance. They called and found a welcoming home. "Harmony" has been tightened since the 1997 production. The first act is much shorter, Sussman says. He refers to it as a new vision. Both men feel "Harmony" is especially relevant for LGBT audiences. "Who wouldn’t relate to six friends in trouble creating beautiful music in a terrible time?" Manilow says. Sussman believes "any group in the shadows or that have been in the shadows" can empathize with the characters. During the course of the musical is the rise of national socialism and the tracking down of gays and lesbians, he says. After the Atlanta engagement, the musical will travel to Los Angeles. Beyond that, where it goes is anyone’s guess, although Sussman and Manilow certainly would not be opposed to taking it elsewhere. For now, though, "our blinders are on; we’re only thinking of this production," says Sussman. Although they love the pop songs that made Manilow popular, the two realize that doing a stage musical takes a good five years to produce. Previously, the two worked on a stage version of "Copacabana" together, as well as a few films. The secret to a 41-year working relationship, both men feel, is knowing how to collaborate - knowing that it’s okay sometimes to make a fool out of yourself and try new things until it all clicks. INFORMATION: "Harmony – A New Musical". Sept. 6 – Oct. 6. Alliance Theatre. www.alliancetheatre.org |
| August 15, 2013 | New York Times | "Breaking Out of His Pop Prison: Barry Manilow’s Musical 'Harmony' to be Revived in Atlanta" by Jesse McKinley |
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| Meeting Barry Manilow for the first time comes with all sorts of surprises. For someone who sings big songs in an unapologetically open-lunged manner, Mr. Manilow speaks quietly in interviews, often more mumbling than mellifluous. Likewise, while he’s known for his smooth demeanor onstage, Mr. Manilow glides a touch gingerly nowadays, the result of hip surgeries - one as recently as last week - and shoulders so square that it appears someone may have accidentally left a coat hanger in his jacket. And while he’s known for sugar in his songs, he can be a little salty in person; he’s from Brooklyn, after all. But perhaps the biggest surprise about Mr. Manilow, a confirmed master of the soft-rock American standard, is this little fact: despite all his years of gold records and frosted tips, what he’s always really wanted to do is make a first-class Broadway musical. "I’ve been kind of imprisoned in the pop music world, very happily, but there are these rules that you need to adhere to in pop music," said Mr. Manilow, mentioning some of his best-known songs about love, loss and hot spots north of Havana. "There is a certain brick wall that you hit. But this gave me the opportunity to go way, way beyond what I’ve been doing for 30 years." The result of that artistic stretch is "Harmony," with a book and lyrics by his longtime collaborator, Bruce Sussman. It’s a show that has been gestating for two decades, including a 1997 run at La Jolla Playhouse in California and a planned 2004 Broadway engagement, which was foiled when its lead producer announced soon before an out-of-town opening that he was millions short of capitalization. Rehearsals ground to a halt, and Mr. Manilow and Mr. Sussman eventually had to fight to wrest back rights for the show. But Mr. Manilow said he never gave up on "Harmony" - "We tried putting it in the drawer, and it just won’t stay there" - and said he has a simple goal now. "I just want to see it one more time before I croak," said Mr. Manilow, who’s 70. Barring unforeseen tragedy, that wish will come true when the Alliance Theater Company in Atlanta presents "Harmony" in a monthlong run beginning Sept. 6, directed by Tony Speciale. Tickets are selling briskly, more evidence of Mr. Manilow’s continued drawing power, something displayed with his successful concerts earlier this year on Broadway. But both he and Mr. Sussman are playing down any suggestion that Atlanta is a tryout. "We’re just saying thank you very much, come down and see us, we’ll talk to you later," Mr. Sussman said. "We want to keep the blinders on." The long wait between productions seems to have done nothing to dull the two creators’ ardor for "Harmony," which tells the story of the Comedian Harmonists, a vaudevillian German sextet whose rise to international fame was interrupted by the Nazis rise to power. The group - whose mix of Jewish and non-Jewish performers was anathema to Hitler - has been the subject of several other creative interpretations, including an acclaimed 1997 German film, "The Harmonists," and a 1999 Broadway musical, "Band in Berlin," which was much less loved. Mr. Sussman, 64, said he first came across the Harmonists in 1991, when he saw a documentary that explored their story and left him wanting more. So much so that he flew to Berlin to inspect the archives of the group, and left there with a clear idea of what their tale was about. "This is a show about the quest for harmony in what turned out to be the most discordant chapter in human history," Mr. Sussman said. As for music, Mr. Sussman’s first call was to Mr. Manilow, with whom he had collaborated on the ridiculous, and ridiculously catchy, 1978 hit "Copacabana" and scores of other songs since the two met in the early 1970s. By that time, Mr. Manilow had already written a musical - "The Drunkard," which ran Off Broadway - and had established his bona fides: born in Brooklyn, he started playing piano in elementary school and attended the Juilliard School before working as an arranger and musical director for Bette Midler. He began recording in the mid-1970s, and has since sold more than 80 million records, and produced for Ms. Midler and Dionne Warwick. For all of that, though, Mr. Manilow said that when Mr. Sussman first mentioned the Harmonists, it bothered him that he hadn’t heard of them. "They were the architects of the kind of popular singing that we all grew up loving," Mr. Manilow said, mentioning groups like the Manhattan Transfer and Take 6. "They were huge. How’d did we miss these guys?" The 1997 production - which came in at three hours - received mixed reviews. Some critics faulted Mr. Sussman, while others dissed the more famous Mr. Manilow. "It’s a solid show, impeccably staged and performed," wrote Charles Isherwood, in 1997, for Variety, "whose major disappointment is the contribution of Manilow, its marquee name." Still, in 2003, it looked as if "Harmony" would finally get a fuller production. Rehearsals were under way in New York and a theater in Philadelphia was prepped for a pre-Broadway tryout. And then the money ran out. At the time, Mr. Manilow referred to the cancellation as a "colossal blunder." But last year, he called Mr. Sussman and asked if he would consider taking another shot. Soon, they were calling regional theaters, including the Alliance, whose main number they say they looked up in the phone book. "They said, ‘Who’s calling?’ and we said, ‘Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman,’ and they said, ‘Yeah sure,’ " Mr. Sussman recalled. Once they got past the receptionist, Susan V. Booth, the theater’s artistic director, was less circumspect. She had kept tabs on the progress of "Harmony" over the years and was intrigued by its premise. More recently, she’d heard a demo of the show sung by Mr. Manilow. So, she said, "It wasn’t a long line to ‘yes’ " when the two called. Mr. Manilow was stunned by the quick booking - Mr. Sussman recalls him calling in a happy, profanity-enhanced reverie after the conversation with Ms. Booth - but there was work to done, including landing a creative team. With a background in plays and classics, Mr. Speciale may have seemed an unorthodox choice for the new production, but he said the job was the result of an instant connection at an interview last fall. "I felt like I had known these guys my entire life," he said. Despite the earlier production, Mr. Speciale said he approached "Harmony" as a new musical rather than a revival, cutting almost an hour. And while Mr. Manilow’s songs may not be synonymous with deep thoughts, Mr. Speciale said audiences would be surprised if they expected many songs like "Mandy," or other entries in his adult contemporary canon. "It’s not a golden age musical that has a sort of fluff ending," Mr. Speciale said. "It’s about real people, and it tells their rise to success, but also the things that eventually tore them apart. I don’t know if that’s surprising. But its what’s rewarding to work on." Mr. Sussman echoed that. "One of the most joyful parts of this for me is that everyone else gets to see the Barry that I know and that I’ve known all these years," he said, adding that "the general public tends to think of him in one way." That said, Mr. Manilow seems open to questions about his image. His visage seems to have - how to put this? - adapted over the years, and he admits to having some minor plastic surgery in the 1990s, as well as some Botox shots, though he says he stopped those before the millennium dawned, saying they didn’t work. And while steroids ease his hip pain - he had major surgery in 2011 - they cause his face to swell. In a recent rehearsal, Mr. Manilow stood at the piano, giving notes on an actor’s key and the phrasings of songs, while sucking on an electronic cigarette. His eyes deeply set behind spectacles and his teeth preternaturally white - there’s a kind of cool crocodile vibe to Mr. Manilow - he listened intently as his cast worked its way through "How Can I Serve You, Madame?," a waltz that includes references to Hamlet, falsetto singing and complex harmonies. In short, Top 40 it wasn’t. Indeed, Mr. Manilow said the songs in "Harmony" had to be "more authentic" than other things he’d written in his career, one that began many years ago in Brooklyn, with an eye always cast toward Broadway. "This is not anything new for me," he said. "This is what I’ve loved to do ever since I was a kid." Then he added: "I know how to do it. I just have never been asked to do it." |
| August 9, 2013 | Access Atlanta | "Manilow’s 'Harmony' finds a home at the Alliance" by Melissa Ruggieri |
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| On opening night of "Harmony: A New Musical," don’t expect to see Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman lounging in the audience. It’s more likely the iconic musician and his longtime songwriting partner will be boring a hole in the Alliance Theatre carpet as they pace somewhere in the darkness. Raw nerves are understandable, as the journey to bring "Harmony" to the stage again has been detoured and derailed so frequently, it could form its own nail-biter of a drama. At the moment, however, Manilow and Sussman are sanguine. Staging their musical about the Comedian Harmonists, a six-man vocal and comedy ensemble that ruled music in 1920s Germany, at the Alliance is, as Sussman whispers with a smile, "bashert," the Yiddish expression for "meant to be." During the first week of rehearsals earlier this month, Sussman and Manilow took a break from watching director Tony Speciale and the 19-member cast run through the swelling ballads "This is Our Time" and "Every Single Day" to discuss the production they’ve been trying to get back on stage since a short run in La Jolla, Calif., in 1997. "I just want to see it up there one more time before I croak," Manilow says, his soft blue eyes expressing the passion he’s felt for the show since Sussman first called him from a pay phone on Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan in 1991. He had just watched a documentary about the vocal group at an area movie house and "blathered" to Manilow, "I think we found the story we’re looking for." "Bruce and I know a lot about music, but we had never heard of these people. How’d we miss them? They were the architects of the kind of stuff we love. They were so inventive, but how come we never heard of these guys? That’s the story," Manilow says. The Comedian Harmonists were the boy band of their time because of their stylish looks - full tuxedos - and popularity. But they were also vaudevillians, and musically, their six-part harmonies could be compared to the contemporary music of The Manhattan Transfer, Take 6, or, when their voices blended to mimic the sounds of instruments, Bobby McFerrin. Their success continued into the early 1930s, but because three of the group’s members were either Jewish or of Jewish descent, the Nazi regime quashed their success. "It became a crime to play their records," Sussman says, "so people hid them under their beds." Sussman and Manilow’s friendship and professional relationshipspans 41 years, and they’ve been trying to stage a musical together since the beginning. But Manilow’s extraordinary pop career – more than 80 million records sold worldwide – continued to escalate. "We met to write musicals and the pop thing took over," says Sussman, who wrote the book and lyrics for "Harmony." But that day in 1991 when Sussman called from the payphone, Manilow "took a leap of faith and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but go get it,’ and I was on a plane to Berlin within a couple of months to start the research." That research included meeting with an uber-fan, whom the Harmonists had bequeathed memorabilia, including costumes, passports and music, and talking to an original Comedian Harmonist, Roman "Rabbi" Cykowski, before he died in 1998. Unbeknownst to Manilow, Cykowski lived around the corner from him in Palm Springs. "He was a vaudevillian," Manilow recalls. "In the play, he’s married to a woman named Mary, and when I walked into their house, she was sitting next to him. I could cry just remembering that moment." Sussman attended a performance by a Comedian Harmonists tribute group in a basement club in Germany with a "young, hip punk crowd" – a nod to the timelessness of the Harmonists’ work. Manilow, who composed the music for "Harmony," also traveled to Germany, headed to Tower Records and stocked up on hit compilation records, called the "schlagerparade," from the music of the 1920s and 1930s. "I left with a suitcase full of the schlagerparade and dove into the classical music of that generation," he says. "In a good way, I don’t think you’ll consider this a Barry Manilow pop score." Sussman smiles at his friend and is quick to compliment. "I think it reflects not only the impeccable research you did, but your love of the theater." The rhythm between Sussman and Manilow is palpable. They finish each other’s sentences. They share such a tight mental bond that Manilow often jokes to Sussman, "I can hear you working," when Sussman is merely sitting and thinking. Sussman, his blue shirt sleeves rolled up, is the animated yin to Manilow’s quieter, black suit-clad yang. But when they huddle together at the back of a rehearsal," they both nod affirmatively at what they’re hearing – different personalities but of the same mind. They also knew immediately when they contacted Alliance Artistic Director Susan V. Booth a little more than a year ago – a call made without the interference of producers or investors or anyone from "that world," as Manilow frequently refers to Broadway bean counters – that "Harmony" would at last have a home. "She answered the phone and said, 'Gentleman, please tell me you’re calling about Harmony,'" Sussman recalls, eyes widening with incredulity. "Well, the two of us, we were just shy of bursting into tears." Manilow, shaking his head in disbelief, continues. "She knew the script, she had heard the score. Finally, it was somebody saying the most beautiful things about the show. I don’t know if we’d get that from that other world, because that other world wanted Jay-Z in the show," he says, referring to a meeting with Great White Way producers who suggested that the rapper star in the musical. "I was asked once if I’d consider writing in the Von Trapp children," Sussman adds, amplifying the absurdity that he and Manilow have battled over the years. "(Susan) only confirmed our instincts that regional theaters are where you want to do your work. It’s about the piece. It isn’t about the Von Trapp children or Jay-Z." Booth, for her part, says she remembered hearing about the show’s two-month run in La Jolla back when she was director of new play development at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. After coming to the Alliance, she started digging around in 2008 to check on the status of "Harmony," which had been tied up in a series of investor and litigious headaches through the early 2000s. "I put my hand up inside the circle and said, if you’re thinking of doing regional theater, I really want to be on that list," Booth says. Now that she’s witnessed the pair in action, she is unabashedly impressed. "I’ve been so moved by how unencumbered they are by their professional notoriety," Booth says. "They are treating this moment as if there is this and only this. If that’s the governing vibe in the room, great work gets done. If it’s 'what’s next?' you make decisions for all the wrong reasons." To listen to Manilow, "Harmony" begins and ends at regional theaters. He shakes his head emphatically when asked what his plan is for the musical beyond its month-long run at the Alliance and subsequent staging at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles next year. "Nothing," is the plan, Manilow says. Sussman jumps in to counter. "You know what’s going to happen? People are going to be here and talk to us and we’ll see if there is enough Valium on the planet to have those conversations," he says, looking at Manilow. But Manilow, shaking his head again, is adamant. "I don’t think my heart can take it." Or, for that matter, the theater carpeting. "Harmony: A New Musical." Previews Sept. 6-14. Opening night Sept. 15. Runs through Oct. 6. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. (No shows 2:30 p.m., Sept. 7, and 7:30 p.m., Oct. 6). $30-$75. Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta.404-733-5000, www.alliancetheatre.org/harmony. |
| August 8, 2013 | The Jewish Daily Forward | "Barry Manilow Returns To His Jewish and Broadway Roots With 'Harmony': Singer-Songwriter Is Ready To Take a Chance Again" by Adam Langer |
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| At a few minutes before 2 p.m., the mood in the Snapple Theater Center was loose, the ambiance casual bordering on schlumpy. In a low-ceilinged rehearsal room, there was a long table cluttered with papers, three-ring binders and Diet Cokes. A stage manager typed away on a laptop. A box of Cheez-It crackers and a pump dispenser of hand sanitizer stood on what passed for a craft services table. An air conditioner clunk-clunk-clunked away. In front of an upright piano where assistant music director John O'Neill was building chords and picking out notes, a half-dozen male actors in jeans and sneakers slouched in front of their music stands and horsed around. A carton of coconut water at his feet, Wayne Alan Wilcox -- you may remember him as Marty on "Gilmore Girls" or as Gordon in the film version of "Rent"-- pretended to hump one of his fellow actors as he sang a song called "Every Single Day." "Every single daaaaay," he crooned while he thrusted. "We'll remember what we do todaaaaaay. Words we didn't saaaaaay we'll remember every single daaaaaay." If those lyrics seem familiar, it might be because you've heard Barry Manilow sing them on his most recent tour. The song tends to turn up between his cover version of Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" and "Lay Me Down," from Manilow's 1975 album "Tryin' To Get the Feeling." He also performed it earlier this year at New York's St. James Theater, as part of his "Manilow on Broadway" show. That may have been the first time "Every Single Day" was sung on a Broadway stage. But at the rehearsal, the unspoken hope was that the song will wind up there again, perhaps as early as next year, as part of "Harmony," a musical that has been an obsession of Manilow and one of his longtime writing partners, Bruce Sussman, for the better part of two decades. The musical concerns the Comedian Harmonists, a sextet of male German singers -- some Jewish, some not -- who rose to fame in the 1920s and '30s but had their careers crushed by the Nazis. The subject matter seems just about as far from "Mandy" and "I Write the Songs" as one could imagine, but both Manilow and Sussman have said that the project speaks to their Jewish upbringings and to their love of musical theater. "Harmony" premiered in California in 1997, where it opened to middling reviews; plans to eventually bring it to Broadway were sidetracked by financial troubles and a protracted legal battle with one of the show's original producers. At one point, Manilow was hospitalized for stress that was attributed to the fight over "Harmony." Now that Manilow and Sussman once again have the rights to the musical, they will be opening a new version of the show, this time directed by Tony Speciale, former associate artistic director of the Classic Stage Company in September at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre. Then in 2014, onward to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. And after that, well, as Sussman puts it, "Keyn'e hore." Sussman was seated at the rehearsal table, but Manilow wasn't in the room -- he was out in the hall, chatting with his publicist and his personal assistant as the actors turned pages in their three-ring binders, stopping when they reached a musical number called "Harmony, Part 3." The approach seemed to be for the actors to work as much as possible with their director and without the looming presence of a multi-platinum, Grammy, Tony, Emmy-award winning performer making them jumpy. At precisely 2 p.m., rehearsal started in earnest, and there was a palpable shift in the room. Someone turned off the air conditioner. The postures became straighter. The actors performed their six-part harmonies with a new precision that almost allowed you to imagine that they were wearing tuxedos and standing on a proscenium stage in a concert hall rather than wearing hoodies and caps while standing on a buffed wooden floor littered with Starbucks cups. "If we've got harmony, we've got a chance," they sang. When they finished with the song, O'Neill looked to the actors. "Shall we let Barry have a listen?" he asked. There was a long silence. Then, one of them said, "Sure." But none of the other actors said anything. "Weee-ell," O'Neill said, "Let's try it one more time before we do that." At first, the idea of Barry Manilow co-writing an original Broadway musical might seem like a departure for him, but in fact, musical theater was where he got started. Originally the accompanist for an off-Broadway show called "The Drunkard," featuring public domain songs from the 19th century, Manilow eventually wrote an entirely new score. "The Drunkard" opened in 1964 and went on to play off-Broadway at the 13th Street Theatre for eight years. And when Manilow (né Barry Alan Pincus) met Bruce Sussman (né Sussman) in late May 1972, the two talked about collaborating on musicals and about their affinity for intelligent, contemporary shows like Stephen Sondheim's "Company." "Before the pop career hit, this is where I wanted to be. I wanted to be in the musical world," Manilow said. "When I met Barry, I was a theater writer," Sussman said. "I didn't know anything about pop music, and we were going to write shows together. But it was kind of an ugly time in musical theater back then." "All the people we knew in New York were turned off by everything that came after the Golden Age on Broadway we grew up with," Manilow said. "And then 'Company' happened, and that's when everybody I knew said, 'Let's get back into the theater.'" "I remember talking to you about 'Company' the first night we met, and you said, 'I saw it 17 times,' and I said, 'I saw it 21 times,'" Sussman said. "I second-acted it," Manilow said. "I'd go in for free after intermission." "So did I. We were both poor. We stood outside. You can't do that anymore. They ask for Playbills and ticket stubs now," Sussman said. "I remember I wrote Sondheim the only fan letter I ever wrote in my life, when I was a senior in college, and he wrote back and invited me to the opening night of 'Follies' at the Winter Garden. I sat in the eighth row between Ethel Merman and Danny Kaye, and I thought, if I die right here and now, it will have been a full and rewarding life." Manilow and Sussman were sitting on barstools along with Speciale in the Snapple Theater Center's upstairs lobby, outside the 200-seat house where the long-running murder mystery "Perfect Crime" is performed. The two men have an easy repartee honed through 41 years of friendship and business dealings. Dressed in a black button-down shirt and matching jeans, Sussman was bearish in an amiable sort of way, an enthusiastic raconteur of Manilow's tales and his own. Manilow, in belted black slacks, black shirt, gray sport coat and blindingly shiny black shoes, was more measured and reserved in his speech; he seems more than willing to let Sussman play Boswell to his Johnson. Sucking contemplatively on an electronic cigarette, Manilow presents a beatific, off-stage presence, suggestive less of a pop superstar than of the caterpillar in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." "Onstage, I'm the pop singer. It's a gig; it's a job," Manilow said. "Harmony" is not Manilow and Sussman's first experience writing the sort of character-based material that "Harmony" requires. The men worked together on the scores for the animated films "The Pebble and the Penguin" and "Thumbelina," and for the TV and stage versions of "Copacabana," based on the monster hit song written by Manilow, Sussman and Jack Feldman. The song is sort of a three-verse musical in itself. And, over the past 40 years, Manilow and Sussman have discussed countless ideas for musicals, including one about the cartoon character Betty Boop and adaptations of everything from Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper" to the movie "Tootsie." But a musical about the Comedian Harmonists, who were the subject of a documentary that Sussman had watched, was the idea that took hold of both of them. "It's about a quest for harmony in the most discordant chapter in human history," Sussman said, though Manilow was quick to add, "It's not a Holocaust musical." "Right," Sussman said. "But it takes place in the approaching storm, and I feel that the writing of the play itself is an act of bearing witness, and that's an important thing to me. We had a survivor come speak to the cast yesterday. She's 85 and she said something, and I had to bow my head because I was welling up when she said it. She said: 'I'm 85. How much longer do I have to tell this story?' I feel that. There has to be another generation who continues to tell the story, who continues to remember. That's why this musical is so important." "The idea spoke to me very quickly. As a musician and as a Jew," Manilow said. "These guys, the Comedian Harmonists, were the architects of the kind of music that we love today. They were the Backstreet Boys, they were The Beatles, they were huge. Huge. They invented this style of six-part singing. They were young, they were attractive, they were funny. They were revered in Europe. After we saw the documentary, we said, 'How come we've never heard of these guys?'" "And in a way, that is the story -- that we don't know anything about them," Sussman said. Although Sussman and Manilow started talking about this musical in 1991, they didn't start work in earnest until three years later. Sussman spent a year in Germany doing research before writing a first draft that he says was "longer than Wagner's 'Ring' cycle." "It's been a very rough road for us, but thrilling when it comes to creativity," Manilow said "Maybe 'liberating' is a good word for it. Because I am kind of imprisoned when it comes to the kind of songs that I have to write for albums. There are certain brick walls that I hit. I've broken so many rules over the years as a songwriter. But even so, there's no way I could write anything like what I'm required to write for 'Harmony.'" After the initial production, in La Jolla, Calif., Manilow actually got the opportunity to meet one of the original Comedian Harmonists when he was asked to give an award to Roman Cycowski, the last surviving member of the group. Cycowski inspired a character called "Rabbi" in Manilow and Sussman's musical. He died in 1998 at the age of 97, and had worked as a cantor in Palm Springs and, as it turned out, lived only four blocks away from Manilow. "I'd been walking the dogs in front of his house for 15 years, and I didn't even know he was there. He was a vaudevillian, and he still acted like one. During our meeting, he said, 'If they hadn't destroyed us, we would've been bigger than The Beatles.'" "I talked to [Cycowski] on the phone," Sussman said. "He was a character, and he was funny and he was a ham -- a kosher one, but a ham. We talked for a while, and I guess his rabbinical training came to the fore; he felt the need to bless me. He said: 'You know I'm a very old man. I wish you as long and as healthy a life as I have. I hope that when you reach my age you will still be collecting royalties.'" "What did you say to him?" Manilow asked. Smiling, Sussman answered: "I said, 'A-men.'" In the Snapple Theater Center, the actors and O'Neill worked out a few rough patches in the musical number they had been rehearsing. O'Neill said that he had decided to use a different chord at the end of a particular phrase. At the table, Sussman looked up from the script he had been studying and asked O'Neill if he was making this change based on something Manilow had suggested. "Yeah," O'Neill said. Sussman nodded as if to say that this was the only thing that mattered -- "Okay" -- and then he went back to his script. "All right," O'Neill said. "Let's call Barry in." Moments later, Manilow strode in with the assurance of a man used to being the center of attention in any room. The men stood upright, then turned their attention to their scores. O'Neill began to play. "Harmony," the Harmonists sang. "We sing in harmony. Like the robins in Leicester Square -- Tweedle dee, tweedle dee dee dee dee dee." Whether they actually sounded like robins is open to some debate, but the harmony did, in fact, sound perfect. Manilow seemed to think so, too. "You guys sound great," he said as he started to head for the door. "You're beginning to sound like a real group. We're almost there, guys. We're on our way." Harmony opens on September 6 and runs through October 6 at the Alliance Theatre, in Atlanta. |
| August 1, 2013 | Broadway World | Sneak Peek at Barry Manilow & More in Rehearsals for Alliance Theatre's HARMONY: A NEW MUSICAL |
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Rehearsals began this week in Atlanta, GA, for the Alliance Theatre's production of HARMONY - A NEW MUSICAL with music by Barry Manilow and book & lyrics by Bruce Sussman. HARMONY tells the true story of The Comedian Harmonists, a close harmony ensemble of six young men in 1930s Germany, who took the world by storm until their religious composition - a mixture of Jews and Gentiles - put them on a collision course with history. HARMONY is a co-production with Center Theatre Group! | Drama Desk Award nominee Tony Speciale (Classic Stage Company: Unnatural Acts, A Midsummer Night's Dream) will direct HARMONY and is supported by a talented creative team including Set & Costume Designer Tobin Ost (Jekyll & Hyde Revival,Newsies The Musical), Projection Designer Darrel Maloney (American Idiot), LX Designer Jeff Croiter (Jekyll & Hyde Revival, The Anarchist), winner of the 2012 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a Play for his work on Peter and the Starcatcher, Choreographer JoAnn M. Hunter (On a Clear Day You Can See Forever), Music Director Patrick Vaccariello (Annie Revival, Come Fly Away), Assistant Music Director John O'Neill, and Sound Designer John Shivers, winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Sound Design of a Musical for his work on the Tony Award winning musical Kinky Boots. |
| The character of Rabbi, who acts as narrator for the story, will be played by Wayne Alan Wilcox. Wilcox's Broadway credits includeChaplin and The Normal Heart. Wilcox also played Gordon in the film version of Rent and had a recurring role on the popular TV seriesThe Gilmore Girls. Also joining the cast in principal roles - Tony Yazbeck (Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Gypsy) as Harry; Douglas Williams as Bobby; Chris Dwan (Off-Broadway: The Old Boy, Peter & I) as Erich; Will Taylor (A Chorus Line) as Chopin; Will Blum(The Book of Mormon) as Lesh; Leigh Ann Larkin (A Little Night Music, Gypsy) as Mary; and Hannah Corneau as Ruth. The ensemble for HARMONY consists of eleven actors who must play over thirty roles including historical figures like Marlene Dietrich, Albert Einstein, and Richard Strauss - all of whom the Comedian Harmonists really knew. Members of the ensemble include Shayne Kennon, Patrick O'Neill, Greg Kamp, Charles Osborne, Bryan Thomas Hunt, Chad Lindsey, Brandon O'Dell, Lauren Elaine Taylor, Kim Sava, Lindsay Moore, and Liberty Cogen. "We are tremendously excited that this is the team who will join us in our effort to serve the memory of these six extraordinary young men and the women they loved, whose story this is, and who sought to find harmony in what turned out to be the most discordant chapter in human history," said Manilow and Sussman. |  |
 | Performances for HARMONY are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30pm, Fridays at 8:00pm, Saturdays at 2:30pm and 8:00pm, and Sundays at 2:30pm and 7:30pm, September 6 - October 6, 2013. Opening Night is September 15, 2013. There will be no 2:30pmperformance on September 7. There will be no performance at 7:30pm on October 6. Tickets start at $30 and are available at The Woodruff Arts Center Box Office in person or by calling 404-733-5000. Tickets are also available online at www.alliancetheatre.org/harmony. Discounted rates for groups of 10 or more are available by calling 404.733.4690. Discounted rates are also available for members of the military, seniors and students. The Alliance Theatre is located at the Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree Street, NE, Atlanta, GA 30309, at the corner of Peachtree and 15th Street. |
| August 1, 2013 | NJ.com | "Barry Manilow branching out as songwriter but will focus on hits at Newark shows" by Tris McCall |
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| As a young fan of Broadway theater, Barry Manilow found that his imagination wasn't fired by the actors onstage. His attention was fixed on the musicians below. "I'd keep looking at the orchestra pit," says Manilow, 70. "I was fascinated. Why were they making me feel so excited or so sad? How are they doing that?" That fascination ripened into ambition. Early in his career, he wanted nothing more than to write for the stage. Pop stardom interceded. "Before my career exploded," says Manilow, who sings at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark tomorrow and Sunday, "my goal was to be a Broadway songwriter. But once 'Mandy' took off, there was never enough time. It takes about five years of constant work, and I never had those five years." That's changed. "Harmony," a new musical by Manilow and longtime collaborator Bruce Sussman, premieres Sept. 6 at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. No, it isn't Broadway. But the Alliance has been recognized as one of America's best regional theaters, and several plays that have opened there have eventually come to Manhattan - including "The Color Purple" and Elton John's "Aida." Manilow is cautious, but hopeful about the future of "Harmony." He calls Broadway "a tall mountain to climb," and is painfully aware of the financial cost of a debut on the Great White Way. But he believes deeply in the musical and is captivated by its subject matter: the emergence, success and eventual breakdown of the Comedian Harmonists, a vocal group popular in Germany just before World War II. "I know a lot about pop," says Manilow, whose NJPAC concerts will be his last two of 2013, "and I'd never heard of them. But they were huge in Germany. They were the first boy band. They were idols. Before I put pen to paper, I really dove into that world of (German) classical music and pop, and learned all I could about the Comedian Harmonists. They were so inventive: six guys standing around one microphone doing the most complicated vocals, and so in tune." Three of the Harmonists were Jewish, which put the pop group on a collision course with world events. Researching the group meant that Manilow, who is more than half-Jewish himself, was forced to confront some uncomfortable relics of history. "I found the Nazi marching band song," says Manilow. "It was the creepiest thing I've ever heard, but it was also brilliant - which was confusing, because they were monsters." Manilow will include a song from "Harmony" in his NJPAC set. But the veteran storyteller knows his fans don't come to his concerts to hear new tales. He recalls attending a Frank Sinatra concert and loving the Chairman's new material - but not-so-secretly craving the big hits. "Over the last two years, I've come to realize what the audience wants," Manilow says. "The people want the songs they grew up with or that their parents taught them or sang to them. So what I've been doing is practically a greatest hits performance." Manilow has enough hits to keep him singing well into the wee hours. In the '70s and '80s, he was among the most reliable pop balladeers in the world, composing, arranging and performing a string of records that drew heavily from the Broadway tradition of the generously appointed story-song. "Weekend in New England," "Looks Like We Made It," "Even Now," "Copacabana" - these were romantic scenarios, slices of life, scenes from a bittersweet drama. For older listeners -- the kind that contemporary popular music largely ignores - these songs were particularly resonant. For younger fans, Manilow's storytelling seemed to give a glimpse of the emotional complexity of adulthood. There is no longer much room on the charts for music like that. But Manilow has not stopped coming up with new projects. "15 Minutes (Fame ... Can You Take It?)," a 2011 concept album about the rise and fall of a celebrity, was the hardest-rocking album of his career. Granted, that's still not very hard. But the guitars were overdriven, the drums hit hard and Manilow's vocal performances were surprisingly tough. Nataly Dawn of Pomplamoose - a singer who knows something about overnight success - dropped by the studio to grace "15 Minutes" with a guest performance. "She accepted the gig right away, and she really studied and got into the role," says Manilow. "We had a really fun time. After all these years, the hardest thing to do is to sit down and write a pop song. When you're in the pop music world, all you've got to write is 'I love you' or 'I miss you.' If you go any further than that, you're not writing a pop song anymore. You're writing a story-song." Barry Manilow. Where: Prudential Hall at New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark. When: Tomorrow and Sunday at 8 p.m. How much: $44 to $167; call (888) 466-5722 or visit njpac.org. |
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