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| March 28, 2014 | SwanseaSound | "Great news for Barry Manilow fans!" by Kevin Johns |
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| Every morning next week on the Breakfast Show with Kev Johns you can win tickets to see Barry Manilow at the Motoropoint Arena on Thursday May 22nd Plus a copy of Barry highly acclaimed new album Night Songs. On Night Songs Barry Manilow strips down to nothing but a piano! He writes, "Pour yourself a glass of wine. Dim the lights, Night Songs is the perfect soundtrack for your evening! Night Songs is the most intimate album I've ever made. Just me singing and playing piano! It's filled with some of the greatest standards of all time. All of them my favourites. So pretend it's just me sitting in your living room, playing and singing for you. I hope that you enjoy Night Songs and I hope it introduces you to some songs you may never have heard." Win tickets to see Barry Manilow in concert and a copy of Night Songs on our 'Barry Manilow Secret Song' all next week on the Breakfast Show. Kev will be chatting to Barry Manilow on the show next week. |
| March 26, 2014 | WFJA Classic Hits 105.5 | Barry Manilow Releases Stripped-Down Standards Album, 'Night Songs' |
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| Pop legend Barry Manilow very quietly released a new studio album this week. Night Songs features Barry performing a set of 16 standards, with just his own piano accompaniment and synthesized bass. Manilow hand-picked the songs from a list of his favorite tunes by some of the most renowned 20th century composers. Among the better-known songs featured on Night Songs are "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" and "You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me," although most of the tunes likely will be less familiar to a modern pop audience. "I loved making this album," Manilow says in a statement. "It reminded me of the days I used to play in piano bars. I loved those days. No Top 40 to worry about, no planes to catch, no hotel rooms to check into and out of, and none of those little bars of soap!" Barry shares some more details about Night Songs in a message posted on his official website. He says the record "is so different from any album I’ve ever made," adding that the stripped-down recording offers "just beautifully crafted songs played and sung simply so the listener can really understand them." He also reveals that he’d never intended to release the album commercially. "It was a labor of love that was meant to stay 'in the drawer,' he explains. "But whenever I’d play it for friends, they’d ask for a copy and then tell me that they couldn’t stop playing it." Manilow credits his manager, Garry Kief, for finally convincing him to release Night Songs. You can purchase the album now at NightSongs.com. Here’s the full track list: "I Fall In Love Too Easily"
"Alone Together"
"Blame It On My Youth"
"I Get Along Without You Very Well"
"You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me"
"It Amazes Me"
"But Not for Me"
"It’s a New World"
"While We’re Young"
"You Don’t Know What Love Is"
"Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive"
"My One and Only Love"
"I’ve Never Been in Love Before"
"I Walk a Little Faster"
"Here’s That Rainy Day"
"Some Other Time"
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| March 25, 2014 | Press Release | Barry Manilow Strips Down To Nothing But A Piano On New Album - MANILOW'S NIGHT SONGS SET FOR RELEASE MARCH 25th |
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| Pour yourself a glass of wine. Dim the lights. Barry Manilow's NIGHT SONGS is the perfect sound track for your evening. This new collection of songs is the most intimate album Manilow has ever made. "Just me singing and playing piano (and synthesized bass). So pretend it's just me sitting in your living room, playing and singing for you," said the music icon. NIGHT SONGS will be released on March 25th. NIGHT SONGS features Barry singing some of the greatest standards of all time. All the songs selected are Manilow's personal favorites and hail from the greatest composers of the 20th century and are not necessarily their best-known works. "I loved making this album. It reminded me of the days I used to play in piano bars. I loved those days. No Top 40 to worry about, no planes to catch, no hotel rooms to check into and out of, and none of those little bars of soap!" said Manilow. "I hope everyone enjoys NIGHT SONGS and that it introduces you to some songs you may never have heard," he added. NIGHT SONGS is produced by Manilow and is being released by STILETTO Entertainment and distributed by INgrooves in association with Universal Music Group as part of a multi-product partnership. NIGHT SONGS is available at www.NIGHTSONGS.com  Track Listing:- I Fall In Love Too Easily
- Alone Together
- Blame It On My Youth
- I Get Along Without You Very Well
- You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me
- It Amazes Me
- But Not For Me
- It's A New World
- While We're Young
- You Don t Know What Love Is
- Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive
- My One And Only Love
- I've Never Been In Love Before
- I Walk A Little Faster
- Here's That Rainy Day
- Some Other Time
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| March 25, 2014 | Electronic Urban Report | "'Harmony' Rocks!" by LaRita Shelby |
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| A page of history sings and dances its way onto the stage at The Ahmanson [Theatre] in the form of the new musical "Harmony" with the book and lyrics by Bruce Sussman and music by Barry Manilow. The musical and political pathways of the Comedian Harmonists unfolds as the six member group follows their passion to sing from subways, to night clubs to concert halls. The caveat is that their ambitions rise and fall simultaneously with Hitler’s maniacal reign in Nazi Germany in the 1920′s and 1930′s. While the evening bursts with one show stopping performance after another from an extraordinary ensemble cast, the fear and frustration of the troupe mirrors our nation’s own Vaudevillian performers of color who had to appear singing, joking, and tap dancing (sometimes in black face) while offsetting the racial atrocities that waged outside of the auditoriums where such gaiety was patronized. It was the order of the day. Harmony leaves such echoes on the hearts of the audience, as familiar Manilow intervals colorized new songs with an old familiar feeling. Each cast member was equally suited in song and dance as they carried big melodies, party anthems or tender love songs. Barry Manilow surprised the crowd opening night, as he and Bruce Sussman told of the years that this production has been in the making. Harmony is proof positive that music is universal. Harmony is on stage live now through April 13th, 2014 at the Ahmanson Theater 135 N. Grand Ave. Los Angeles, CA. 90012. Harmony is brilliantly directed by Tony Speciale, with stellar choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter. Musical Director is John O’Neil and set design by Tobin Ost. Harmony is presented by the Center Theatre Group and The Alliance Theatre. The Los Angeles production of Harmony is generously supported in part by Artistic Director’s Circle members Ruth Flinkman-Marandy & Ben Marandy. Harmony was originally presented by the La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, California. For tickets and more information go to: http://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/Harmony  |
| March 24 2014 | People's World | "Harmony: A band in Nazi Germany, a powerful, Broadway-ready musical" by Eric A. Gordon |
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| LOS ANGELES - The logo for Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's new musical Harmony has the title in all caps, but the final letter is printed askew, falling off to the right, calling attention to the question "Why?" Why indeed would the most popular Boy Band in the world from 1927 to 1935, acclaimed for their recordings, films, and international appearances, just fall to the wayside and go virtually unremembered by history? Well, the Comedian Harmonists happened to be a cosmopolitan bunch of young men from Berlin, and it happened to be the time of rising fascism, and three of the six happened to be Jewish. It took the creators a dozen or so years to research this show, mount some out-of-town tryout versions (La Jolla, Atlanta), and eventually hone it into the crack, snappy, polished, full-on Broadway-ready musical that's now on view in Los Angeles. The long gestation paid off handsomely: It's a stunning and powerful piece of theater. "This Is Our Time," an extended number in the first act, goes through several avatars as the characters, talented, hopeful, forward-looking, imagine the moment of success they're ready to seize. No long-time theatergoer could miss the comparison to Stephen Sondheim's song "Our Time" from Merrily We Roll Along, about a similarly brilliant clutch of kids reaching for the stars. In Harmony, the song eventually gets turned over to the up-and-coming Nazi movement, whose time, alas, has also arrived. Another forerunner is the memorably creepy "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" from Cabaret. Although the Depression, and then Nazism were rough times in Germany, the joyful sextet brought some harmony to their world, starting from their strict policy of unanimous decisions for all career moves. In a society growing ever more polarized, they kept their differences to manageable proportions, modeling what could be for the larger community. Their material, funny, a little suggestive, apolitical, romantic, and joined to a double-jointed choreographic sense of humor, aimed at an audience far beyond the everyday concerns of social movements and ideologies. But of course it could not last. The six men get fairly equal treatment in Harmony, although two, Erwin "Chopin" Bootz and "Rabbi" Josef Roman Cykowski, have wives who are very much part of the action. Bootz marries a Jewish Communist (whom we see agitating in the streets), and the "rabbi" marries a non-Jew who converts to be one with his people and his fate. All of the Harmonists survived the war, though they never saw each other again after their last performance in 1935, but the "rabbi" gets a central role as the last one living when he started to record his memoirs in his 80s. Harmony is a big show, with 19 performers on stage, and nine in the orchestra (playing multiple instruments, and amplified to orchestral levels). It tells a chronological story, but always through inventive music and glorious dance movements. Manilow and Sussman's original songs are more "political" than the Harmonists': Each lyric has been vetted to yield the maximum possible import as we progress inexorably toward the inevitable demise of the group. Choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter, direction by Tony Speciale, production design by Darrel Maloney, musical direction by John O'Neill, and a great cast, are all superb. Your ears are drawn into an absorbing tale, and your eyes delight in the quicksilver transformation of spaces - a railway station one moment, a classy nightclub the next, adjoining hotel rooms, and much more. My mind went by comparison to a show I caught in Cape Town last year, Kat and the Kings, by David Kramer and Taliep Petersen, about a South African "Colored" doo-wop group in the 1950s, which also grasped at fame and fortune, but met the axe of apartheid laws and was forced to dissolve. In the wrong context, art can be dangerous indeed. Besides the theme of harmony itself, another theme of Manilow and Sussman's show is regret: both living with it, and living so as not having to regret. In that sense a show about another time and place is equally about our own. Harmony is performed at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles Tuesday through Friday at 8 pm, Saturday at 2 and 8 pm, and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 pm through April 13 (except no 6:30 performance on April 6 or 13). Additional performances on Thursday, April 3 and 10 at 2 pm. Tickets at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org, or call 213.972.4400, or in person at the Music Center. |
| March 23, 2014 | Pasadena Star News | "On The Town: 'Harmony' a timeless ring of truth" by Patt Diroll |
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| Perfect music — past, present and future — that’s what has been dominating the social calendar this month. For starters, Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman’s new musical, "Harmony," opened on March 5, at the Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre. Directed by Tony Speciale, with music by Manilow and book and lyrics by Sussman, "Harmony" tells the true story of The Comedian Harmonists. They were an ensemble of six young men in pre-WWII Germany who evolved from jobless street musicians to world-famous entertainers, selling millions of records, starring in over a dozen films, and selling out concert halls around the world. Their sophisticated music, incorporated with slapstick antics, made them the Beatles of their day in Germany, but when Adolph Hitler and his henchmen declared pop music verboten in 1935, the group -- a mix of Jews and non-Jews -- was put on a collision course with 20th- century musical history. At the final curtain call for "Harmony," after a thunderous ovation, Manilow and Sussman joined the cast on stage to talk about the creative process behind the musical. When they started working on the show, Roman "Rabbi" Cykowski was the only surviving member, and he was able to share his experiences prior to his death in 1998. Sussman said those memories, along with historic research, provided the basis for the scenario. At the end of their talk, Manilow made some eyes moist when he surprised Chris Dwan -- he plays Harmonist member Erich Collins -- by bringing Collins’ grandson, Marc Alexander, on stage. After the show, first-nighters including, Jason Alexander, Suzanne Somers, Alan Hamel, Dana Delany, Michael Feinstein and Carole Bayer Sager, partied with the cast at downtown L.A.’s trendy new watering hole, Ebanos Crossing. "Harmony" continues through April 13, at the Ahmanson. |
| March 22, 2014 | All Voices | "Barry Manilow Brings 'Night Songs' to Light" by Sherrill Fulghum |
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During the days of the Gershwins, Hoagy Carmichael, "Anchor's Away", and "Guys and Dolls" couples went on dates to the local piano bar where the piano player was a human jukebox with a playlist consisting of hundreds of songs. In the days before "Mandy", became a household word, award winning music legend Barry Manilow was that human jukebox entertaining music fans with their favourite tunes.| With his latest album "Night Songs", Manilow returns to those days with 16 of his favourite songs. Ten of the songs are from Broadway and film musicals. In a note to his fans on the album's liner notes Manilow invites them to get a glass of wine, dim the lights, and to pretend he is in their living room playing only for them. A vast departure from the popular music of today, Manilow has recorded an album that features only himself. Manilow sings every song with no auto tune or other electronic enhancement - simply his own voice singing along to the piano. A piano player himself, Manilow returns to the days of accompanying singers - himself - on the piano. Manilow did synthesize a bass line to fill out each song. In choosing the track listing for the album, Manilow chose songs he liked - lesser known works - and while many of them may be unfamiliar to some fans, the album does include the Bing Crosby hit "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive". One of the few artists to win a Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award; Barry Manilow has defied age with his baritone voice, which is as crisp and clear as it has ever been. |  |
In an age when the terms authentic and organic are thrown around with loose abandon in reference to music, Barry Manilow's "Night Songs" is an authentic return to the days when music and songwriting was a true craft - one that was mastered by only a handful of composers. In the last song on the album Manilow asks "Where Has the Time Gone", and although there are 16 songs on the album, it seems all too short a time to share the music and voice of Barry Manilow. |
| March 18, 2014 | Huffington Post | "My Conversation With Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman: Collaborative 'Harmony'" by Tavis Smiley |
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| Tonight on PBS, I have a conversation with longtime musical collaborators Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman. The Grammy-winning songwriters have been partners for more than 40 years, with projects that include the song and the musical "Copacabana," and the song "Let Freedom Ring," for the televised bicentennial celebration of the U.S. Constitution. Their latest project is the musical Harmony, based on a real-life German singing group that battled to stay together (and live) as the Nazis ascended to power in 1930s Germany. In the clip below, Sussman discusses the quest for harmony as represented in their new musical. For more of our conversation, be sure to tune in to Tavis Smiley tonight on PBS. Check out our website for your local TV listings: http://www.pbs.org/tavis. |
| March 18, 2014 | L.A. Observed | "Captivating 'Harmony' at CTG" by Don Shirley |
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| Center Theatre Group has been obsessed with young guys' bands in recent years ... "Backbeat" (about the early Beatles) and "The Black Suits" (about a Long Island garage band)... "American Idiot" (with a Green Day score) and "Fela!" (about the Afro-pop star) ... Finally, however, "Harmony" is redeeming CTG's stubborn faith in this subject matter. "Harmony" is by far the best of the lot. It's about the rise and fall of the Comedian Harmonists, a popular German sextet that rose during the Depression and fell to the Third Reich. Part of the tremendous power of this show is attributable to its remarkable real-life story about young men whose lives and careers were wrecked by the 20th century's most famous villains. Also, as many critics have acknowledged, Barry Manilow has created a wonderful original score, sung to perfection at the Ahmanson (move over, "Jersey Boys"), where the heavenly harmonies are in stark contrast to the brutal narrative. [It's] a challenge to write in-depth roles for so many characters -- six men and two of the women in their lives. But Sussman's script provides focus by framing the story around the reminiscences of the Harmonist who survived the longest -- "Rabbi" Josef Roman Cykowski, whose last job was as a cantor in Palm Springs, not far from where Manilow lived when he became interested in Cykowski's story. Shayne Kennon delivers a potentially star-making performance as "Rabbi." He not only delivers the goods during the heart-on-sleeve highlights that Manilow has written for Rabbi as a vital young man, but he also captures an acute sense of survivor's guilt in Rabbi's later glances backward, including scenes in which he expresses his regrets in otherworldly cantorial (but English-language) recitatives. The other Harmonists aren't written with the same depth, but they are written with vivid individuality. Indeed, one of the themes of the story is that these men create glimmering harmony despite a variety of backgrounds that go beyond Jewish and gentile and despite a variety of vocal registers and body types. Their many variations are part of the reason we're fascinated to watch them in action, and JoAnn M. Hunter's choreography makes sure we notice the diversity among the moves. Also, in case potential women theatergoers are tired of CTG's obsession with men's groups, be aware that the two wives (Hannah Corneau, Leigh Ann Larkin) here are hardly doormats; they too have moments of musical magic - and dramatically different fates in the narrative. Tony Speciale directs here, as he did at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta last fall. I don't know the next stop for this production, but I know that LA is lucky to have it with us through April 13. |
| March 18, 2014 | Van Nuys News Press | "Harmony - A New Musical By Barry Manilow" by Jean Strauber |
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| This past week I had the wonderful pleasure of attending the opening night of this musical that tells a true story. The Comedian Harmonists were an ensemble of six young men in pre-World War II Germany who rose from unemployed street musicians to become world-famous entertainers, selling millions of records, starring in more than a dozen films and selling out the most prestigious concert halls around the world, including Carnegie Hall. Their comedy and sophisticated music made them the brightest of stars, but would later put them on a collision course. And, it is that story that is told in "Harmony." Barry Manilow (music) and [Bruce] Sussman (book and lyrics) were able to have the assistance of Roman "Rabbi" Cykowski, one of the original members of The Comedian Harmonists, who was still alive and able to talk with the two about his life and experiences before he passed away in 1998. Cykowski’s grandson was introduced to the audience during the opening night curtain call. The show opens with the group singing "Overture" in Carnegie Hall (1933) followed by "Rabbi" Josef Roman Cykowski (Shayne Kennon) and the musicians performing "Harmony" in a Berlin setting between 1927-1929 when the group was in its beginning years. During the evening we meet several celebrities who knew the group and are portrayed here: Marlene Dietrich (Lauren Elaine Taylor), Albert Einstein and Richard Strauss (Brandon O’Dell) and others. One of several show stopping numbers (among several others) was "How Can I Serve You, Madame?" in which the group is dressed in waiters’ jackets and shirts, standing behind a large table only to emerge in front ... well, I’ll spoil the fun if I told you more. Another number, "Hungarian Rhapsody #20" demonstrated the group’s ability to make sounds so much like instruments in an orchestra. The "Overture to the Barber of Seville" was one of the original Comedian Harmonists’ signature numbers. The talented Manilow and [Sussman] were aided by the fine direction of Tony Speciale, Music Director John O’Neill and, especially, choreographer JoAnn M. Hunter. Performance schedule: Tuesday through Friday at 8:00 pm; Saturday at 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm; Sunday at 1:00 pm and 6:30 pm. No Monday performances. Exception: 8:30 pm performance on Saturday, March 22; no 6:30 pm performance on Sunday, April 6 and Sunday, April 13; added 2:00 pm performance on Thursday April 3 and Thursday April 10. Tickets are $30 to $105. Call Center Theatre Group Audience Services at (213) 972-4400, stop by the Center Theatre Group Box Office or visit www.CenteTheatreGroup.org. Hot Tix are only $20 and may be purchased in advance by phone, or subject to availability, on the day of the performance at the box office. The Centre Theatre Group Ahmanson Theatre is located at the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Avenue in Los Angeles CA 90012. |
| March 17, 2014 | TheaterMania | "Harmony: In this musical co-penned by Barry Manilow, Nazis attempt to silence beautiful music" by Jonas Schwartz |
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| In the new musical with music by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman, Jews and gentiles find Harmony together, celebrating their differences in a fascistic world that stomps on individuality. The play may still need a little fine-tuning, but as a whole, Harmony is an enriching experience with several memorable numbers ... Harmony tells the story of the six amateur singers who form a "boy band" called "The Comedian Harmonists" during the years Germany suffered through the post-World War I depression. As the group of young men - three Jews and three gentiles - become international stars, their homeland begins to witness the first wave of Nazism as it infects the country. Suddenly, this renowned group with jazz- and Hebrew-influenced music and humor is outlawed, and the boys go from celebrities to criminals. The story is chronicled by the last survivor, Rabbi (played by Shayne Kennon) who, with pride, tracks this rag-tag team of singers through their tribulations and their loves. Being celebrities, the band's lives intersect with some of Europe's most famous, including an unknown Marlene Dietrich, composer Richard Strauss, and Albert Einstein. Manilow culls from period-specific music with his score, particularly '20s jazz, while infusing the sound with Yiddish folk, Hebrew spirituals, the procession of Germany's oompah a touch of the Weimer vamps of Kurt Weill. The title song is infectious, as is the group's first dabbling with a comedy number, "How Can I Serve You, Madame?" He wonderfully captures the flavor of Marlene Dietrich in "Lost in the Shadows" with such authenticity, one would swear they have a recording of Dietrich singing this exact song. One stand-out is "Where You Go," is a ballad for two members' wives, Mary (played by Leigh Ann Larkin) and Ruth (Hannah Corneau). It comes at a time where the group precariously attempts to stay together despite the horrors infiltrating their lives, and the wives have become their consciences. Near the end of act one, Rabbi and the band's composer Chopin (played by Will Taylor) marry their sweethearts, kindhearted Mary and fiery Ruth, respectively. The music in the double wedding scene evokes Fiddler On The Roof without mimicking it and is one of the most touching wedding sequences I've seen in a musical. However, most of the ballads are musically ordinary, lacking the elemental magic that haunts a listener. Sussman has an ear for clever rhymes. Some of his songs take on new meaning when different characters sing them, such as "This Is Our Time," which starts as a love song for Mary and the harmonist she loves, Rabbi, then evolves into an anthem for the group. Finally it becomes a battle cry for Ruth, a revolutionary trying to convince complacent Germans of Nazi dangers. [Director] Speciale has brought together a tender cast of triple threats, who soar with the melodies, invest pathos and humor in their characters' dialogue, and dance JoAnn M. Hunter's witty choreography with acrobatic precision. Kennon, Williams, and Taylor are matched by colleagues Will Blum as the playful former waiter Lesh, Matt Bailey as the group leader Harry, and Chris Dwan as Erich, the former-doctor-turned-comedian-band-member who hates blood. Separately, they have commanding voices. Together, their sophisticated harmonies and blended voices sound heavenly. Speciale keeps the show running like a speeding train. The pacing keeps the audience focused on both the show's present settings and the foreboding of what Germany will soon devolve into. The above mentioned "Come to the Fatherland!" number is a feast for the eyes. The sets by Tobin Ost use visual panels, raising bridges to convey the evolving society of the Third Reich, something mechanical, and the trains, which, throughout the show, remind audiences of the possibility that any of the characters could soon be on a cattle car to Auschwitz. The split-flap display alerts audiences of the characters' locations throughout the evening, but eventually spins out of control, a harbinger of doom. So many musicals lately are made as commerce, knowing that people will come because they saw the movie or love a band's catalogue of songs, rendering creative writing or inventive direction as unnecessary. Watching Harmony, it is apparent that the authors have immense passion for the project and, despite any issues, their heart shines through. |
| March 15, 2014 | L.A. Weekly | "Barry Manilow Musical Harmony Shines Light on 'the Beatles of Germany'" by Rebecca Haithcoat |
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| The looks, the moves, the sound, the infighting, the lust they inspired - they aren't as well known as the Beatles or New Kids On The Block or 'N Sync, but the late 1920s German group the Comedian Harmonists could be considered the first boy band. And if the very good current production of Harmony, a new musical with music by Manilow and lyrics and book by Bruce Sussman, is any indication, they deserve that place in history. Based closely on real events, the musical follows the humorous vocal sextet from formation through their surge in popularity, alongside the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich. Spearheaded by Shayne Kennon as "Rabbi," the ensemble is nimble both physically and vocally, which is especially noteworthy in the charmingly silly "Your Son Is Becoming a Singer" and the biting satire of "Come to the Fatherland!" (Kudos to the understated yet impressive choreography of JoAnn M. Hunter.) Fortunately, there's not a weak link in the bunch, as Manilow's music seems written to show off their voices. Unlike many boy bands, the reason for the Comedian Harmonists' demise isn't complicated or hard to guess - the group included Jewish members, and this was Nazi Germany. Most boy bands break up past their expiration date. Sadly, the Harmonists were forced to exit while the crowds were still roaring. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown LA. Through April 13. (213) 628-2772, www.CenterTheatreGroup.org. |
| March 14, 2014 | Eye on Entertainment | Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman on Harmony |
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| Barry Manilow brings a true story about a group of musicians to life at the Los Angeles Music Center. CBS2's Suzanne Marques reports. |
| March 14, 2014 | WDEF News-12 | Barry Manilow emotional on opening night of new musical |
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| Veteran singer Barry Manilow wept on stage as he accepted a standing ovation at the opening night of his musical. The singer fulfilled a life-long dream by writing the music for Harmony, based on the true story of a group of German singers, but he faced a difficult journey bringing the show to the stage as the production was hit with numerous delays and setbacks. After brief previews in 1997, Harmony finally opened in Los Angeles on Wednesday night, and Manilow was visibly overwhelmed when he was invited up to the stage at the end of the performance. He was seen wiping away tears as he thanked the cast and crew, and added, "What do you say when a dream comes true?... This success is so emotional and exciting." |
| March 13, 2014 | Examiner.com | "New Manilow-Sussman musical 'Harmony' at Ahmanson" by Jordan Young |
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I’ve seen a lot of musicals and for the most part, they’re not all that great. I’ve never been sold on the Ahmanson Theatre as a decent venue for live performance. And I’ve never found the slightest reason to pay attention to Barry Manilow. I’m happy to say I saw a show last night that changed my opinion on all three fronts: "Harmony," the new Barry Manilow-Bruce Sussman musical running through Apr. 13.| You’ve likely never heard of the Comedian Harmonists, a six-man vocal sextet, half-Jewish, half-Gentile, who were superstars in late 1920s and early ‘30s Germany until they were caught up in the maw of history. They were the subject of a fine film some years ago, but "Harmony" tells their story in a hugely entertaining fashion that captures the group’s magic, their humor and physicality, in a way the film did not. Manilow’s music and Sussman’s book and lyrics give you a sense of what it must have been like to see the group perform live—from a first-act number that has them clowning around in waiter’s jackets and boxer shorts after their tuxes have been stolen just before a gig, to a brilliant second-act parody of Liszt ("Hungarian Rhapsody #20"). The latter is followed by a wickedly satiric piece ("Come to the Fatherland!") that brings to mind Spike Jones' "Der Fuehrer’s Face." |  |
The show isn’t all fun and games, of course. In a sense it’s a pre-Holocaust musical about the Nazis' war on pop culture and "degenerate art." The frivolity is balanced by the gripping backstage drama that not only broke up the group but tore apart their lives. With a carefully-cast ensemble under Tony Speciale’s skilled direction and JoAnn M. Hunter’s sparkling choreography, it’s a class act all the way. In short, this is a richly textured entertainment that’s a must-see for anyone who cares about musical theatre, culture, history or—quite frankly—humanity. And I take back everything I’ve ever said about the Ahmanson’s acoustics. It may not be Carnegie Hall (where the sextet performed in 1933) but it’s a fine place to see a show, especially when that show is "Harmony." Call 213-972-4400 or visit www.CenterTheatreGroup.org.
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| March 13, 2014 | Playbill | "Leigh Ann Larkin and Shayne Kennon Star in Barry Manilow-Bruce Sussman Musical Harmony at the Ahmanson Theatre" by Krissie Fullerton |
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| Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's Harmony - starring Leigh Ann Larkin and Shayne Kennon officially opened March 12, following previews that began March 4, at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre. The cast includes Will Blum (The Book of Mormon), Hannah Corneau (Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson and Fiddler on the Roof in Chicago), Chris Dwan (Off-Broadway's The Old Boy and Peter & I), Kennon (European tour of Madagascar), Larkin (A Little Night Music, Gypsy), Will Taylor (A Chorus Line, La Cage Aux Folles) and Douglas Williams, who were all seen with the production in Atlanta. New to the cast is Matt Bailey (first national tour of Jersey Boys). Harmony, according to press notes, "tells the true story of The Comedian Harmonists, an ensemble of six young men in pre-WWII Germany who rose from unemployed street musicians to become world-famous entertainers, selling millions of records, starring in over a dozen films, and selling out the most prestigious concert halls around the world. Yet while The Comedian Harmonists' sophisticated music, paired with hilarious comedy, made them the brightest of stars, the group’s mixture of Jews and non-Jews put them on a collision course with history." [ View the Entire Photo Gallery! ][ For more information, please visit CenterTheatreGroup.org ] |
| March 13, 2014 | Broadway World | Photo Flash: Inside Opening Night of Barry Manilow's HARMONY at CTG/Ahmanson Theatre! |
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Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's "Harmony," a new musical, opened last night, Wednesday, March 12, 2014, at 8 p.m. at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre and plays through April 13 (Previews began March 4). Directed by Tony Speciale, with music by Manilow and book and lyrics by Sussman, "Harmony" tells the true story of The Comedian Harmonists, an ensemble of six young men in pre-WWII Germany who rose from unemployed street musicians to become world-famous entertainers, selling millions of records, starring in over a dozen films, and selling out the most prestigious concert halls around the world. Yet while The Comedian Harmonists' sophisticated music, paired with hilarious comedy, made them the brightest of stars, the group's mixture of Jews and non-Jews put them on a collision course with history. "Harmony" is a co-production with the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta. Below, check out a look back at the opening night festivities, including the red carpet, curtain call, and after party!  When Manilow and Sussman began working on "Harmony," Roman "Rabbi" Cykowski was the only surviving member of The Comedian Harmonists, and was able to talk with them about his life and experiences before passing away in 1998. His memories, along with available historical information, provide the basis for the musical.   The cast includes, in alphabetical order, Matt Bailey (first national tour of "Jersey Boys"), Will Blum ("The Book of Mormon" on Broadway), Hannah Corneau ("Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson" and "Fiddler on the Roof" in Chicago),Chris Dwan ( "The Old Boy" and "Peter & I" off-Broadway), Shayne Kennon (European tour of "Madagascar"), Leigh Ann Larkin ("A Little Night Music" and "Gypsy" on Broadway), Will Taylor ("A Chorus Line" and "La Cage Aux Folles" on Broadway) and Douglas Williams ("Tigrane" at Opéra de Nice).   |
| March 13, 2014 | Los Angeles Times | "Stars turn out to fete Barry Manilow's 'Harmony' in L.A." by Ellen Olivier |
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The event: Opening night at the Ahmanson Theatre for "Harmony," a musical by Barry Manilow and longtime collaborator Bruce Sussman about the Comedian Harmonists, a real-life troupe of musicians who became world-famous entertainers in pre-World War II Germany before the Nazis rose to power and prohibited the group's Jewish members from performing. The crowd: Actors Dana Delany, Suzanne Somers and Jason Alexander, among others, turned up at the Ahmanson Theatre on Wednesday, along with noted songwriters David Zippel of "City of Angels," Richard Sherman of "Mary Poppins" (played by Jason Schwartzman in "Saving Mr. Banks") and Carol Bayer Sager, who attended with her husband Robert Daly; Michael Feinstein, famous for reviving the "Great American Songbook;" and Michael Kerker, director of musical theater for ASCAP. "I’m a 'fan-ilow,'" said Tony-winner Alexander, who is a friend of Manilow’s. Alexander said Manilow appeared at the annual gala for L.A.'s Reprise Theatre during Alexander's years as artistic director, and that he’d gone to Las Vegas to catch Manilow’s act there. The party: Following curtain calls, well-wishers packed nearby Ebanos Crossing, a cozy, dimly lighted cocktail lounge, to congratulate Manilow, Sussman and the cast. The show was a work in progress for more than 20 years. Sussman said he’d first seen a documentary about the troupe in 1991 and discussed the idea with Manilow, who became enthusiastic immediately. "It’s an important story," Manilow said, "and I wanted to tell it." Sussman said he researched the project for the next four years, in the process discovering the last surviving member of the troupe living four blocks from Manilow in Palm Springs. "I used to walk my dog past his house," Manilow said. Quote of note: Following a standing ovation, Manilow declared to the audience, "What do you say when a dream comes true?" More details: The play continues at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre through April 13. Click here for ticket information or call (213) 972-4400. |
| March 13, 2014 | Broadway World | "Barry Manilow's HARMONY Finally Gets a Deserved Staging at the Ahmanson" by Don Grigware |
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| The big question surrounding the fate of Harmony: Is Broadway ready for another musical about the turbulent 30s and Nazi occupation of Germany? With The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof (although set in Russia and at an earlier time, it's still about the plight of the Jews) and Cabaret firmly planted in our minds as three of the greatest musicals ever written about these themes, do we need one more? Barry Manilow has been trying desperately for over 10 years to get his Harmony, the true story about the Comedian Harmonists, onstage. Now at the Ahmanson through April 13, Harmony is beautifully produced and mounted, exceedingly well-performed and a thoroughly moving story about 6 singers/performers whose careers and lives were interrupted and controlled by Naziism. As this is a new show, before I go any further with comments, let's expand upon the plot. It is about a real life singing group who joined together in 1927 Berlin as first the Melody Makers, then the Harmony Boys while they rehearsed in train stations and sang literally on street corners and in alleys. There came an initial break at the Cinderella Club, and they gradually became known as the Harmonists and later, due to their finely honed physical antics, that changed to the Comedian Harmonists, which remained their official name until their demise in 1935 with the rise of Hitler and his new laws denouncing Jews. 3 of the 6 were Jewish, putting the rest in peril. It is important to note that the group toured the world for an entire year and played Carnegie Hall in 1933 before eventually going their separate ways. All died except one who lived in California until 1998. More on that later! If we analyze what Harmony has to offer in terms of fitting into the category of a good musical play, it has some fine splashy tunes, with a trace of prior Manilow optimism in at least one number "Stars in the Night", terrific choreography from JoAnn M. Hunter, two love stories at the core and an overall passionate story about 'doing what you love to do best... at all costs'. There's much positive energy within the ensemble and creative team, a love of producing the arts in turbulent times - the theme reflected in the storytelling. A positive note as well about Manilow's music are its consistently discordant sounds that seem to be a perfect match for the discord in the story. And of course, the chemistry between the 6 actors/singers/dancers is most likely the best reason to keep watching. [The] story is as engrossing and riveting as any good Broadway show should be with some wonderfully original music which fits nicely with the book...and the love stories really send home the message about survival; as in life, there's failure as well as success. The story between liberal agitator Ruth (Hannah Corneau) and Erwin "Chopin" Bootz (Will Taylor) is a sad one, doomed from the start due primarily to her unsettled nature. The strength of the bond between Mary (Leigh Ann Larkin) and "Rabbi" Josef Roman Cykowski (Shayne Kennon) is everlasting, as both actually survived, with "Rabbi" being the sole survivor of the group, as I mentioned earlier, living in Palm Springs until 1998. The support that Mary gives him is the magic that makes for a perfect marriage, and it did work, at least for them. Another heartwarming aspect of the story for me is the group's return to Germany at the end of Act I ("Home") - even when they are uncertain of the fate of their homeland...and the meeting on the train in Act II of the group with the Fuhrer. "Rabbi" regrets not standing up ("Threnody") to impossible odds, but despite their separation and eventual demise, they did struggle to keep their music alive and to "make the dream greater than the night"... As far as the ensemble goes...remarkable ...all. Matt Bailey as stalwart Harry, Will Blum - so dextrous and funny as Lesh - Chris Dwan as Erich, Douglas Williams as Bobby, and the previously mentioned Kennon as "Rabbi" and Taylor as "Chopin", as well as ladies Corneau as Ruth and particularly Larkin as Mary - such a gorgeous singing voice - all 19 make invaluable contributions. Director Tony Speciale maintains great pacing throughout, and his staging is impeccable, as is JoAnn M. Hunter's rhythmic choreography. Loved the puppetry of "Come to the Fatherland!" Tobin Ost's sets and costumes along with Darrel Maloney's projection designs are rivetingly effective. Go and see for yourselves through April 13! http://www.centertheatregroup.org/ |
| March 13, 2014 | Playbill | "A New Kind of Harmony: Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's Musical Plays Ahmanson Theatre" by Evan Henerson |
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| Barry Manilow, Bruce Sussman, Neel Keller and Thom Christopher Warren chat with Playbill.com about the newly revised production of the musical Harmony, currently playing the Ahmanson Theatre. When Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman cold-called the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta peddling a long-cherished musical theatre project, they got through the theatre employee screening the call (who offered a dubious "Yeah, sure") and were ultimately patched through to Susan V. Booth, Jennings Hertz artistic director. Booth's first words upon answering the phone: "Gentlemen, please tell me you're calling about Harmony." In fact, they were. "We were on the phone for about an hour, and bby the time we hung up, we had an opening night," recalled Sussman. "No lawyers, no nothing." The lights considered to run green as representatives of Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, hearing of the Alliance run, called Sussman and Manilow to express interest in a co-production. With that, the long overdue harmonic convergence was complete. Sixteen years after its world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse and scuttled plans for a Broadway run, Harmony sings anew. And given the path that this "new musical" - which opened March 12 at the Ahmanson Theatre, featuring music by Manilow and book and lyrics by Sussman - has taken to achieve a second life, its creators are still practically pinching themselves over the show's newfound good fortune. "Ask anyone who has been there, from La Jolla all the way to here, they would always tell you that Harmony was a wonderful show that deserved a future," said Manilow, Harmony's composer, "but we always got stuck climbing that mountain. I've really got to take my hat off to the people who get their shows up. I mean it, man. Don't ask me what I think of (the content). If they can get their show up, my hat's off to them." Sitting in the theatre's green room the morning after Harmony's first preview, Manilow and Sussman batted around stories and memories — pop musical and theatrical — with the ease that comes of being long-time collaborators. Sussman recalled being asked to write additional material for a young singer who had a four-song demo tape and, upon listening to the tape, Sussman advised the singer that the musician on that tape had talent. The composer, arranger and pianist were all one person, a young man from Brooklyn named Barry Manilow who was working his way out of the mailroom at CBS. If he and Manilow were ever in the same room, Sussman said, introduce us. Some 10 months later, the two future partners met. "And we talked theatre," said Manilow who had written a musical adaptation of the melodrama The Drunkard at the age of 19. "We met to write shows," insisted Sussman. "People hear Harmony and say, 'Oh this doesn't sound like Barry Manilow,' and I say, "You've got that backwards. It was the pop career that was a diversion." "When (record producer) Clive Davis gave me 'Mandy,' it was a rock and roll song, so I used my arranging chops to make it into a big ballad, the first power ballad ever," returned Manilow. "That was because I love arranging and producing and coming up with ideas. I took all those things I learned over the years from cabaret and from theatre and put them into the pop music world. All those key changes everybody talks about... they come from Bye Bye Birdie. I loved getting up on stage, but I am much more comfortable doing this." Admittedly, the man is not protesting too much. Manilow is one of the top-selling contemporary pop artists ever to put note to music, with 80 million albums sold, Grammys, Emmys and Tony Awards and a place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Power ballads are their own animal; Harmony is a beast of a different nature. Harmony was inspired by a three-hour German documentary directed by Eberhard Fechner that Sussman discovered in 1994. The Comedian Harmonists were a wildly popular music and comedy sextet in pre-World War II Germany, half of whose members happened to be Jewish. The rise of the Nazi party forced the band to leave the country and splinter off. The musical is told from the perspective of "Rabbi" Josef Roman Cykowski, the last surviving member of the harmonists who met and was interviewed by Manilow prior to his death in 1998. During their heyday, the Comedian Harmonists (who were also the subject of the film "The Harmonists" and the musical Band In Berlin) were as popular as the Beatles, the Backstreet Boys, One Direction or name-your-swoon band. That neither Sussman nor Manilow had even heard of the group prior to seeing the documentary prompted Sussman to propose turning their tale into a musical. "I realized the fact that I didn't know them is the story," said Sussman, who was in Berlin starting his research mere months after seeing the film. "I realized this is a show about the quest for harmony in what turned out to be the most discordant chapter in human history. Let me at it." The play's world premiere came at the end of the La Jolla Playhouse's "15/50" anniversary season (15 years since the Playhouse's revival and 50 years total existence), a season that would also see the launch of the national tour of Rent by Playhouse artistic director Michael Greif. But where Jonathan Larson's rock opera was already famous, Harmony was the season's wild card, according to Neel Keller who, at the time, was the Playhouse's artistic associate. "I think the expectation going in with Harmony was really 'Let's see what is this going to be. What kind of a musical will Barry Manilow write?'" said Keller, who is reunited with the new version of Harmony as the associate artistic director at CTG. "It was really sort of a wildfire. People came and realized, 'Oh, it's a brand new musical. It's not a musical of all music that we've heard before.'" The La Jolla Playhouse cast, under the direction of David Warren featured future Broadway lights Janet Metz, Patrick Wilson, Danny Burstein and Rebecca Luker (who would later marry). In the ensemble was San Diego native and future Drowsy Chaperone and The Book of Mormon director Casey Nicholaw. "If there was a 'star' among us, it was Rebecca Luker," said Thom Christopher Warren, who played Harry, who assembled the group. "She had done Secret Garden and Showboat and was about to do The Sound of Music. Nobody knew who Danny Burstein (who played Rabbi) was, but let me tell you the moment he opened his mouth, we knew he would be something special." As was the case with Metz and several other cast members, Warren came to Harmony directly from the recently shuttered Broadway revival of Once Upon A Mattress. Warren, who is no relation to the director, was one of the last principles cast. He was also the last to leave. Warren was part of every subsequent incarnation of Harmony from a star-packed industry reading at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre (where Brian d'Arcy James and Christiane Noll replaced Burstein and Luker) to a planned out-of-town engagement that died before it could get to Philadelphia. Warren toured with Manilow and fellow Harmony singers in an effort to raise interest and funders, but the project stalled. Now with the new version of the show about to open, Warren said any bittersweet feelings over having aged out of the play are tempered by his pride for Manilow and Sussman finally getting to see their baby walk again. "After 27 years of doing this professionally, Harmony is still the pinnacle for me creatively and artistically," said Warren, who is currently performing in the Broadway company of The Lion King, "and a lot of that comes down not only to Bruce and Barry's words and notes. The way they handled this piece of storytelling has always been graceful and wonderful and so full of love." The creators maintain this new version has been reassembled entirely on their terms. The La Jolla Playhouse version — which received mixed reviews — was lengthy and included a first act that ran nearly two hours. For the reboot, directed by Tony Speciale, songs have been added, while others have been cut and some have given to different characters. The creators joke that "Every Single Day," originally written for Rabbi, has been sung by every character in the show. A person who listens to Barry Manilow's catalog will not necessarily expect to hear male singers united in intricate six-part harmony or to hear two women sing a duet ("Where You Go") inspired by the Book of Ruth. "Pop music was always the most difficult for me because you've got nothing to write about except 'I love you' or 'I miss you,'" said Manilow. "That's it for 30 years: I love you or I miss you. Every time Bruce and I would try to do something a little more interesting, Clive would say, 'Oh that belongs in a Broadway play.' |
| March 12, 2014 | Southern California Public Radio | Six questions for Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman on 'Harmony' (Take Two) |
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| Now to a musician you'll probably never hear at South by Southwest, even though he's an international star who has sold 80 million records: Barry Manilow. Many of Manilow's hits were penned with the help of his good friend, Bruce Sussman. Take Two recently had the chance to talk with them about their latest collaboration, a musical titled "Harmony" on now at the Ahmanson Theatre. [ LISTEN NOW! ] Interview HighlightsOn what drew them to the story on the Comedian Harmonists, the subjects of "Harmony." Barry Manilow (BM): "What's interesting to us about the Comedian Harmonists is that nobody ever knew them and they were the architects of the kind of music that we all love. From The Manhattan Transfer to Take 6 to The High-Lows and they were funny. And nobody had ever, we had never heard of them and if you ask the person on the street they had never heard of them. But if you ask people in Germany, they are the Beatles of Germany, still to this day." Bruce Sussman (BS): "Why we didn't know who they were is the story and this would be musical about the quest for harmony in what turned out to be the most discordant chapter in human history. That was very appealing to us and excited us." On what happened to the Comedian Harmonists because of their faith. BS: The group formed in the very tumultuous years known as the Weimar period in Germany, between the wars. The legendary hyperinflation, millions of marks to buy a slice of bread, people wallpaper their walls with money because it wasn't worth anything. And out of all this came these six remarkable young men from very diverse backgrounds, cultures, social strata, they got together to create a new brand of entertainment. There was a Bulgarian singing waiter, a Polish rabbi, a German doctor, an Italian opera singer, a self-taught musical genius and a brother pianist. They rehearsed in abandoned subway stops because the acoustics were good and rocketed to fame. Sold millions of records, toured the world, played the most prestigious concert houses in the world, from Carnegie Hall to the Berlin Philharmonic, performed with the greats of their day Marlene Dietrich, Josephine Baker, made over a dozen movies. What I just described to you is our first act. Their confrontation with the collision course with history is our second act. What happened to this group, because they had Jewish members? BS: Well, the Nuremberg Laws happened and the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of citizenship, Jews could no longer perform in film and education and various fields and they actually got exemptions from the law because they were so wildly popular and the Third Reich thought, at least in the early months of the Third Reich, they thought well if people are afraid of us, look at this, this is a great advertisement for Germany. So they escaped some of the initial restraints put upon Jew, but that gradually changed. On what it's like to write songs for this musical BM: This was a very deep experience for me. I found myself soaking in the world of the '20s and the '30s in Germany. It was very deep. I had the blues for a long time having to go into this terrible world and try to write funny songs and uplifting songs and I know a lot about the music from the '40s so you give me something about the '40s and I'm fine. I didn't know too much about the music from the '20s and the '30s so I had to go digging and figure out what the heck they were doing back then in Germany and so when you do that you have to go dive in into a pretty rotten world. On the long road from conception to showtime BM: You know, we just didn't give up. Every show goes through a lot of problems. We went to through all of them. If there was a problem, we would have it. Only business. It never had anything to do with the play and after a while Bruce and I just said, let's put it away. It's too hard. When you write something like this you put your heart and soul into it. I can't say I put my heart and soul into all the pop stuff, but it wouldn't go away. It was yelling, 'Don't forget me! Don't forget me!' So we decided instead of going to the big, $10 million Broadway version of this show, why don't we go if a regional theatre would like to help us put this on just so I could see it one more time before I croak. I just wanted to see it one more time. So we decided without the agents, without the lawyers, without anybody, Bruce and I just called the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. We called the main number one afternoon. We heard this gal named Susan Booth, who ran the place and she said, 'Who's calling?' And I said 'Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman.' And she connected us and Susan must've been told who was on the phone and she answered the phone and this is a quote, she said, 'Gentleman, please tell me you're calling about 'Harmony.' And both of us went for the Kleenex because it has been a real rough road. BS: "And an hour later we had an opening night. We started moving along with the Alliance and the phone rang and it was the Ahmanson Theatre saying, 'We hear you're doing 'Harmony' at the Alliance, we've heard great things about it, would you be interested in a co-production?' Hello, yes! And that's why we're here. On what's next for [Barry] BM: "I've got another pop album in the works right now. Listen, there's always the next one with me. I have like five. I'll be on my deathbed yelling, "Wait a minute! I got one more idea!" There's always the next one with me." "Harmony" plays March 4 through April 13, 2014, at the CTG/Ahmanson Theatre. Tickets may be purchased online at CenterTheatreGroup.org or by calling (213) 972-4400 or in person at the CTG box office, located at the Ahmanson Theatre. Contact: CTGMedia@CenterTheatreGroup.org (213) 972-7376 |
| March 12, 2014 | Hollywood Reporter | "Barry Manilow on Early Career: 'I Made a Fool of Myself Trying to Copy' Bette Midler" by Jordan Riefe |
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| The pop singer talked with THR about working with Bette Midler and Clive Davis before finding his voice, and his new musical "Harmony" running March 12 through April 13 at L.A.'s Ahmanson Theatre. Ever since he was a teenager, seventies pop singer Barry Manilow wanted to write for Broadway. He got close with The Drunkard, a musical composed when he was only 19 that ran off-Broadway at the West 13th Street Theatre for eight years. He hoped to move the show uptown but a funny thing happened on the way to Broadway, a career as a pop singer with gold and platinum albums, two Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy. Forty years later Manilow’s almost come full circle with a new musical Harmony running March 12 through April 13 at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre. Co-written with long-time collaborator Bruce Sussman, the new musical tells the story of the real-life Comedian Harmonists, a musical comedy group that was persecuted in Nazi Germany for mixing Jewish and gentile performers. Harmony had an initial run at La Jolla Playhouse back in 1997, and another false start in 2004 before hitting the boards in its present form at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre last fall. Here, Manilow talks to THR about his early career, working with Bette Midler and Clive Davis before finding his voice as an entertainer. The Hollywood Reporter (THR): So you had always meant to write for Broadway but then this pesky pop career got in the way.
Barry Manilow (BM): This pop career miraculously took off and took me into a world that I never even imagined. If I hadn’t had Clive Davis guiding me along I really don’t know what kind of pop career I would have had. I had to learn on the job about writing for pop records and performing on a stage. Little by little I figured it out. It was kind of fun and thrilling and I got good at it. But Broadway took a back seat to this explosion. That’s why Harmony is so important to us. THR: "Copacabana" is more of a Broadway song than a pop song, really.
BM: Every time Bruce and I would try to write something more interesting than, "I love you and I miss you," Clive would say, "No, that belongs on the Broadway stage, it belongs on a TV special or something." As you can tell "Copacabana" is not really a pop song. We kind of snuck it out in the middle of "Can’t Smile Without You." THR: And the fans loved it.
BM: Even though I was a pop artist, I took my love of Broadway storytelling and my love of cabaret into my pop world. These audiences that were coming to see a pop artist were surprised when I did that kind of thing and I think they were surprised in a good way. THR: You must have learned a lot working with Bette Midler when it came to putting on a show.
BM: I never had eyes to be a performer. And when I got the opportunity to stand up on the stage, the only thing I knew was what Bette did. I made a fool of myself trying to copy her and it was all wrong until I figured out my personality on the stage and then it settled in. I learned form Bette how to perform, how to do a show. I had no idea. I never even paid attention to performance. THR: You were focusing on composition?
BM: I was trying to be an arranger. My hero at the time was Nelson Riddle, John Costa. Even the Beatles, as brilliant as they were as songwriters, as brilliant as they were as performers, I was listening to George Martin behind the Beatles. What the heck was he doing behind "Eleanor Rigby"? That’s where I was at. THR: Does the music in Harmony reflect your pop career in anyway?
BM: If you didn’t know that Barry Manilow did the score, I don’t know if after the show you would think that this is a Barry Manilow score. It’s pretty far away from the kind of music I’m known for. There are no backbeats. There are no drum loops. There are no big endings and what I love to do on records. This is a Broadway musical and it’s true to the story and the style of their work. |
| March 12, 2014 | Playbill | "Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's Harmony, With Leigh Ann Larkin and Shayne Kennon, Opens March 12 in L.A." by Michael Gioia |
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| Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's Harmony -- starring Leigh Ann Larkin and Shayne Kennon, who also starred in the 2013 Atlanta production of that musical -- officially opens March 12, following previews that began March 4, at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre. Directed by Drama Desk Award nominee Tony Speciale (Classic Stage Company's Unnatural Acts, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), with music by Manilow and a book and lyrics by Sussman, the co-production with Atlanta's Alliance Theatre plays through April 13. The cast includes Will Blum (The Book of Mormon), Hannah Corneau (Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson and Fiddler on the Roof in Chicago), Chris Dwan (Off-Broadway's The Old Boy and Peter & I), Kennon (European tour of Madagascar), Larkin (A Little Night Music, Gypsy), Will Taylor (A Chorus Line, La Cage Aux Folles) and Douglas Williams, who were all seen with the production in Atlanta. New to the cast is Matt Bailey (first national tour of Jersey Boys). The ensemble of Harmony plays numerous roles, ranging from audience members and people on a train to recognized historical figures like Marlene Dietrich, Albert Einstein and Richard Strauss - all of whom the Comedian Harmonists knew. Liberty Cogen, Bryan Thomas Hunt, Greg Kamp, Chad Lindsey, Lindsay Moore, Brandon O'Dell, Patrick O'Neill, Charles Osborne, Kim Sava, Dave Schoonover and Lauren Elaine Taylor again comprise the ensemble. Harmony, according to press notes, "tells the true story of The Comedian Harmonists, an ensemble of six young men in pre-WWII Germany who rose from unemployed street musicians to become world-famous entertainers, selling millions of records, starring in over a dozen films, and selling out the most prestigious concert halls around the world. Yet while The Comedian Harmonists' sophisticated music, paired with hilarious comedy, made them the brightest of stars, the group’s mixture of Jews and non-Jews put them on a collision course with history." When Manilow and Sussman began working on Harmony, Roman "Rabbi" Cykowski was the only surviving member of The Comedian Harmonists and was able to talk with them about his life and experiences before passing away in 1998. His memories, along with available historical information, provide the basis for the musical. Other members of the creative team include choreographer JoAnn M. Hunter, music director John O'Neill, set and costume designer Tobin Ost, lighting designers Jeff Croiter and Seth Jackson, sound designers John Shivers and David Patridge and projection designer Darrel Maloney. Lora K. Powell is the production stage manager, and Doug Walter is the orchestrator. For more information and tickets, call (213) 972-4400 or visit CenterTheatreGroup.org. |
| March 11, 2014 | L.A. Downtown News | "A Musical About a Boy Band in the Nazi Era" by Donna Evans |
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| It was the kind of meeting one hopes for when trying to land a job. Theater director Tony Speciale met with Barry Manilow and his creative partner, Bruce Sussman, in New York in 2012. Speciale hoped to direct a production of the musical Harmony, for which Manilow wrote the music and Sussman penned the lyrics and book. The project had been on Speciale’s radar for years, and his name had been suggested to the production’s creators. Their talk turned into one of those "magical meetings," said Speciale, where they all felt like they’d known each other for years. Speciale said the men hugged at the end of the session. Two years later, Speciale is helming a production with a 19-member cast and a nine-person band. Harmony opens at the Ahmanson Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, March 12. It runs through April 13. Harmony tells the story of the Comedian Harmonists, a real-life sextet of Christian and Jewish men who met in 1920s Germany and rose to international fame with their voices and onstage antics. They became one of the most successful musical groups in pre-World War II Europe, selling millions of records. One of the world’s first "boy bands," they also appeared in a dozen films. Of course, few people today have ever heard of the Comedian Harmonists. That is precisely why Manilow and Sussman created the show, Speciale said. The musical originally debuted in 1997 at the La Jolla Playhouse. It was reworked around the time Speciale came aboard, and the current version is a co-production with the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. The show played there last year. Still, the story has been told before. In preparing Harmony, Speciale joined Sussman to watch the 1977 documentary "The Comedian Harmonists," directed by Eberhard Fechner (ironically, they saw it during Hurricane Sandy; while much of New York was in a blackout, Sussman still had electricity). For Speciale, the story immediately struck a chord. "It’s about a quest for harmony in a discordant world. It’s a very intimate, rags-to-riches, coming-of-age story during a very difficult time," he said. Calling it a "very difficult time" may be an understatement. The show’s backdrop is Hitler’s rise to power, and during the musical the men witness the atrocities of the Third Reich. Some become victims of Nazi tyranny. Speciale said he is drawn to theater pieces based on real people and historic events. It provides an opportunity to investigate a moment lost in time and to pay respect to the individuals and the artistry of their work, he said. While applause is one kind of success, Speciale said he is also hoping for something else: He wants theatergoers to watch the show, then go home to their computers and learn about the people the characters were based on. One such character in Harmony is "Rabbi" Josef Roman Cykowski, played by Shayne Kennon. Cykowski is a rabbi from Poland who shifts his career path when he joins the musical group. Cykowski was the last living member of the group (he died in 1998) and Manilow and Sussman wrote the show based largely on Cykowski’s memories. As an actor, Kennon said it is rare to have the author of the work be available to the cast. Sussman guided Kennon through the script, and provided advice whenever he had a question about a line or the history behind it. Manilow coached him musically: The big love ballad, "Every Single Day," is a song Manilow has performed many times himself in concert, and thus had an intimate understanding of the nuts and bolts of it. Kennon found that kind of access "invaluable," and believed it improved the overall performance. "A lot of times, you’ve got the script in hand and are left guessing as to what the intentions of the writer are," he said. "Perhaps it’s an older piece or the author has passed away. But with the author in the room you can find out what was intended." Kennon, who has acted in musicals since he was 10, was initially hired as an understudy, though he soon gained the Rabbi role in the Atlanta and Los Angeles productions. The day that he got the script, the 24-year-old said, he read it alone in his New York apartment and wept as he finished it. "It’s a remarkable story. I’m so glad it’s being told," he said. Because the Comedian Harmonists were real people who packed the houses of the most prestigious concert halls around the world, Speciale researched the time period, 1927 to 1935, and used historical designs concepts, colors and patterns of the day to try to enhance the music and the look of the production. While it is an artist’s prerogative to take poetic license when interpreting someone else’s story, Speciale said he believes when you direct an historic piece, one has an obligation and responsibility to "get it right." As the cast gets ready to open the show in Los Angeles, Speciale said it is uncertain if Harmony will travel to other cities. He hopes it does, he said, not only because he likes the production, but because he thinks the story of the Comedian Harmonists needs to be remembered and told. Harmony runs March 12-April 13 at the Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., (213) 972-4400 or centertheatregroup.org. |
| March 11, 2014 | The Broadway Blog | "Barry Manilow’s Harmony Opens in L.A." by Matthew Wexler |
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| Will Barry Manilow’s Harmony ever make it to Broadway? The show has been kicking around for more than a decade after a nasty legal battle where Manilow and co-writer Bruce Sussman had to fight to regain rights after the producers failed to bring it to the Great White Way. The musical is revisited this spring in a co-production between Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre (L.A.) and the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Directed by Tony Speciale, with music by Manilow and book and lyrics by Sussman, Harmony tells the true story of The Comedian Harmonists, an ensemble of six young men in pre-WWII Germany who rose from unemployed street musicians to become world-famous entertainers, selling millions of records, starring in over a dozen films, and selling out the most prestigious concert halls around the world. They were the first sensational boy band, 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. Yet while The Comedian Harmonists’ sophisticated music, paired with hilarious comedy, made them the brightest of stars, the group’s mixture of Jews and non-Jews put them on a collision course with history. When Manilow and Sussman began working on Harmony, Roman "Rabbi" Cykowski was the only surviving member of The Comedian Harmonists, and was able to talk with them about his life and experiences before passing away in 1998. His memories, along with available historical information, provide the basis for the musical. Harmony; CTG/Ahmanson Theatre; 135 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles; Through April 13. |
| March 8, 2014 | Los Angeles Times | "Barry Manilow is ready to take a chance again on 'Harmony': The once-stalled musical based on a hit 1930s German singing group that was eventually quashed by the Nazis is being revived by singer-songwriter Barry Manilow" by Mikael Wood |
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| Barry Manilow is accustomed to working in rarefied settings: the glittering showrooms of Las Vegas, for instance, or the high-end recording studios in which he made such inescapable soft-rock standards as "Mandy," "Looks Like We Made It" and "Can't Smile Without You." And then, of course, there is the colorful Cuban nightclub - "the hottest spot north of Havana" - he describes in "Copacabana," the Grammy-winning 1978 smash that's come to signify an idea of campy razzle-dazzle. On a recent afternoon, though, Manilow was soaking up the grungier atmosphere at a rehearsal space in downtown Los Angeles. Standing behind a table littered with soda cans and a half-empty bag of trail mix, the ceiling above him checkered by water stains, the 70-year-old singer and songwriter nodded intently as he conferred with a choreographer. "I can't believe I'm saying this after all these years, but this is my favorite part," Manilow said. "The nuts and bolts of the thing, figuring it all out." The occasion was a run-through of "Harmony," a new musical by Manilow and his frequent writing partner, Bruce Sussman. Or a semi-new musical, let's call it: Set to open Wednesday night at the Ahmanson Theatre, the show has roots that stretch back nearly two decades, including a 1997 premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse and a planned Broadway run that stalled out in 2003. Manilow's sustained enthusiasm for "Harmony" is perhaps unexpected for a pop star who's reached the age at which many in his position begin to coast. But more surprising still is the show itself, which shares little with wildly successful jukebox musicals like "Jersey Boys" and "Mamma Mia!" Inspired by a German television documentary that piqued Sussman's interest when he saw it in 1991, "Harmony" tells the real-life tale of the Comedian Harmonists, a Berlin-based vocal sextet that rose to international acclaim in the early 1930s, yet later was all but forced to disband by the Nazis because several members were Jewish. The musical, which Sussman says depicts "a quest for harmony in what turned out to be the most discordant chapter in human history," doesn't shy from that story's dark edges - or from its potential for dark comedy. One line, from a song satirizing a cartoon Hitler, rhymes "Anglo-Saxon" with "hair is flaxen." And though it occasionally offers up a schmaltzy melody, Manilow's music hews closer to the sound of traditional Broadway than to his signature brand of easy-listening pop. "Those golden-age musicals with a book that you could bite into - 'Fiddler on the Roof,' 'Gypsy,' 'West Side Story' - those are immensely appealing to us, and they're done not that often these days," Sussman said at the rehearsal space after a recent run-through. Revivals of the classics are common, he was quick to acknowledge, but "it's become so unusual for a new show to do what the old ones did." "My heart is in writing songs about specific characters," said Manilow, who puffed an electronic cigarette as he spoke, a pair of mirrored sunglasses resting on the table before him. He added that he'd started out wanting to write for the theater and only ended up in pop - penning endless variations, he said, on "I love you" and "I miss you" - as a kind of "detour." So the jukebox approach, he went on, holds little allure. "I think it's the easy way out." Yet you can imagine that the easy way might've seemed enticing at various points during "Harmony's" slow journey to the stage. The musical was first produced in 1997 in La Jolla, where it received lukewarm reviews ... Six years later, a retooled "Harmony" was on the cusp of a Broadway run when its producers shut it down just weeks before a Philadelphia tryout because of a lack of funds. "We've had bad luck," Manilow said, adding that the show's money troubles are hardly unheard of in the theater world. "But because Barry was involved," Sussman said, "everyone knew about it." For years afterward the men kept "Harmony" "in a drawer," Manilow said. "It was too hard." Eventually, though, the singer decided he "wanted to see the show one more time before I croak." So after regaining the rights to the musical from an earlier producer who didn't want to surrender them, the two searched for fresh investors with mixed results. "One person read the script and said we should make it more contemporary by adding Jay Z," Manilow recalled with a bemused chuckle. "I said, 'Would you like him to be one of the Jews or one of the Gentiles?'" In 2012 they cold-called the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta - they'd heard its artistic director, Susan V. Booth, was a fan of the show - and within an hour, Sussman said, they had a deal in place to mount yet another production of "Harmony." L.A.'s Center Theatre Group later agreed to bring the show, with an appealingly youthful cast led by Shayne Kennon, to the Ahmanson after its run last fall in Atlanta. Michael Ritchie, CTG's artistic director, said he signed on because of "the importance of this story being told," a sentiment Manilow seemed to share when he proclaimed, rather grandly, "I believe in this more than any other project I've been involved with in my life." Yet his emotional connection to the Comedian Harmonists - whose last surviving member, Roman Cycowski, spent his final years in Palm Springs, where Manilow lives - doesn't mean that the singer was unwilling to look critically at "Harmony," said the new production's director, Tony Speciale. "We made cuts and changes in Atlanta, and we've continued to examine the material over the four months between then and now," said Speciale, who previously directed "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Bebe Neuwirth and "Twelfth Night" for the off-Broadway Classic Stage Company. Reviews at the Alliance were strong, with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calling the show "a glorious work of art," and a CTG representative said tickets are selling well for the Ahmanson. Wary perhaps of tempting fate, "Harmony's" creators were reluctant to characterize this visit to L.A. as the latest step in a renewed push toward Broadway. Manilow, as it happens, got there last year in a solo engagement at the St. James Theater, part of a still-active pop career that's yielded a string of hit cover albums beginning with 2006's "The Greatest Songs of the Fifties," which sold more than 1.1-million copies. (A stripped-down standards record, "Night Songs," is due March 25, and he's scheduled to tour the UK in May.) Still, both men admitted that they hope to see the show reach New York - eventually. "Let us know how it all works out," said Sussman. "By then we'll be medicated." |
| March 7, 2014 | Broadway World | First Look at Shayne Kennon, Will Blum, Leigh Ann Larkin & More in Barry Manilow's HARMONY at CTG/Ahmanson Theatre |
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| Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's "Harmony," a new musical, opens next Wednesday, March 12, 2014, at 8 p.m. at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre and plays through April 13 (Previews began March 4). Directed by Tony Speciale, with music by Manilow and book and lyrics by Sussman, "Harmony" tells the true story of The Comedian Harmonists, an ensemble of six young men in pre-WWII Germany who rose from unemployed street musicians to become world-famous entertainers, selling millions of records, starring in over a dozen films, and selling out the most prestigious concert halls around the world. Yet while The Comedian Harmonists' sophisticated music, paired with hilarious comedy, made them the brightest of stars, the group's mixture of Jews and non-Jews put them on a collision course with history. "Harmony" is a co-production with the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta. Below, check out a first look at the cast in action! When Manilow and Sussman began working on "Harmony," Roman "Rabbi" Cykowski was the only surviving member of The Comedian Harmonists, and was able to talk with them about his life and experiences before passing away in 1998. His memories, along with available historical information, provide the basis for the musical. The cast includes, in alphabetical order, Matt Bailey (first national tour of "Jersey Boys"), Will Blum ("The Book of Mormon" on Broadway), Hannah Corneau ("Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson" and "Fiddler on the Roof" in Chicago), Chris Dwan ( "The Old Boy" and "Peter & I" off-Broadway), Shayne Kennon (European tour of "Madagascar"), Leigh Ann Larkin ("A Little Night Music" and "Gypsy" on Broadway), Will Taylor ("A Chorus Line" and "La Cage Aux Folles" on Broadway) and Douglas Williams ("Tigrane" at Opéra de Nice).   |
| March 5, 2014 | Jewish Journal | "The long road to 'Harmony' filled with twists and turns" by Naomi Pfefferman |
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| The musical "Harmony," which opened at the Ahmanson Theatre on March 4, spotlights the little-known true story of the Comedian Harmonists, a vaudevillian German sextet that rose to wild superstardom in the 1930s. But three of the group's six members were Jewish, and by 1935 they had been forced to flee to the United States after the Nazis dissolved the sextet, destroyed all their albums and burned their 12 movies. That Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman are behind the Nazi-era musical may come as a surprise to those who know Manilow strictly from his hit 1970s ballads (think "Mandy" and "Looks Like We Made It"). "But Bruce doesn't consider me a megastar sex god," Manilow quipped from his Palm Springs home during a recent conference call with Sussman. "I'm in deep denial about it," said Sussman, Manilow's longtime songwriting collaborator. "This whole pop thing has just been one big annoyance, because it takes Barry away from the work that I really want him to do, which is to write musicals with me." Sussman had to wait decades for the opportunity. He and Manilow first met at a BMI musical theater workshop in 1972, when both aspired to create first-class Broadway shows. But Manilow went on to become a songwriter, conductor and arranger for artists like Bette Midler - he started out as Midler's pianist at the Continental Baths in New York - then became an accidental pop star. Manilow had released one jazzy album when Clive Davis, the legendary founder of Arista Records, asked him to sing and record the sentimental ditty "Mandy" in 1974: "Boy, did I resist him," Manilow recalled. "I had no taste for pop music; I never listened to it." But Davis persevered, and the song and Manilow's ensuing pop album soared to No. 1 on the charts, rocketing the artist to unexpected superstardom in a genre he had never previously considered. "It turned out to be a happy accident," said Manilow, who brought in Sussman to help him write a string of other hits such as "Can't Smile Without You" and the upbeat "Copacabana." Yet the critics were brutal, pronouncing Manilow the king of treacly 1970s pop. "It was crazy-making, infuriating," Manilow told the Journal in 2003. "The critics wouldn't leave me alone," he said recently. "I lived through that terrible period. To them, I was just a putz." His reception started to change about a decade ago, after Rolling Stone proclaimed Manilow "the showman of our generation"; he has now sold more than 80 million albums worldwide and continues to sell out concert halls. With "Harmony," which includes music by Manilow and book and lyrics by Sussman, he has finally realized his musical theater aspirations. Between rehearsals, the duo spoke at the Skirball Cultural Center, sharing the long, fraught journey of creating the show, which premiered to mixed reviews at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1997, then bounced back with glowing notices during a 2013 production at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Manilow, 70, is still every bit the showman, and at the Skirball he was decked out in a spiky blond hairdo, sporting a black velvet blazer and patent leather shoes, his Brooklyn accent genteel. Sussman, 65, was bespectacled and more casually dressed but equally ebullient and passionate about the musical, as the collaborators joked and finished each other's sentences. "The show is a piece about the quest for harmony, in the broadest sense of the word, in what turned out to be the most discordant chapter of human history," Sussman said in the conference call. He revealed that he only chanced to learn about the Harmonists in 1991, when he came across an article about the group in The New York Times. "What first caught my eye was the photo of these six young men in white tie and tails, their hair Brilliantined, very sophisticated and stylish," he recalled. "And then I read the article and went, 'Holy cow, what a story.'" Sussman promptly attended a screening of a three-hour German documentary about the group, and was, he said, "overwhelmed by their brilliance and also by the fact that I hadn't known anything about them. When it comes to popular music, it's pretty hard to stump Barry and me. But it turned out that the reason I didn't know the story was the story: the Nazi efforts to obliterate their memory, except for the few records that people managed to hide under their beds." After the screening, Sussman rushed to a payphone to call Manilow in Palm Springs: "I was blathering," he recalled, "but somewhere in there I said, 'I've found the musical we've been looking for.'" Manilow was equally taken with the Comedian Harmonists. The men were also drawn to the project because of their Jewish backgrounds. Manilow grew up with Yiddish-speaking Russian grandparents in the slums of Brooklyn, and Sussman's grandparents hailed from a shtetl in Belarus. Both men remember the Holocaust survivors who lived in their neighborhoods. "Barry and I have exchanged notes about seeing that first horrible black-and-white newsreel footage of the camps, which inspired questions that went unanswered because the conversation was just shut down," Sussman said. Of "Harmony," he added, "Certainly, as Jews, we feel that we have some responsibility to help this story and stories like it survive." As research, Manilow immersed himself in klezmer and cantorial music, and then traveled to Berlin, where he filled an entire suitcase with Comedian Harmonists CDs as well as other popular German music of the 1920s and 1930s. He said he studied the records for a year before he composed even one note of the 18 songs for "Harmony," which, he said, alludes to the group's style without imitating it. Meanwhile, on his own trip to Berlin, Sussman met with Dr. Peter Czada, a Comedian Harmonists enthusiast to whom the group had bequeathed all sheet music, letters, passports and other memorabilia after the war. Neither Manilow nor Sussman knew what had become of the three Jewish members of the group until Manilow received a surprising telephone call from the Contemporary A Cappella Society, asking Manilow to present an award to the last surviving Comedian Harmonist some years ago. The nonagenarian, Roman Cycowski, had served as a cantor for 15 years at Beth Israel Temple in San Francisco before arriving at Temple Isaiah in Palm Springs, where, at one point, he was the oldest active cantor in the United States. It turned out that Cycowski lived just four blocks away from Manilow, and when the musician knocked on his door during a media event to present the award, "Sure enough, there he was, in a wheelchair, but as soon as he saw the photographers gathered around, he went right back into being like George Burns," Manilow recalled. "He said, 'If the Nazis hadn't destroyed our work, we would have been bigger than the Beatles!' So, talking to him very much gave us a handle on the sparkle in his character." Even so, Manilow found the process of writing some of the songs to be emotionally devastating: "I had to sing the demo, and you can almost hear me blubbering through most of it," he said. When "Harmony" finally premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1997, the show's creators were elated, then found themselves distraught in the 2000s, when a planned Broadway-bound production met its demise after a producer announced he couldn't come up with the necessary capital. "All of us collapsed in one way or another," said Manilow, who wound up in the hospital with heart palpitations. "Next to my mother dying, it was the worst experience of my life." And so, Manilow and Sussman put the musical in the drawer for five years - "until Bruce and I said, 'We've got to make the pain stop,' " Manilow recalled. So they cold-called the Alliance Theatre, which had a reputation for preparing musicals for Broadway, and were shocked when Susan Booth, the theater's artistic director, answered the phone and said, "Gentlemen, please tell me you're calling about 'Harmony.'" By the end of an hour-long conversation, the show was booked to run at the theater in late summer of last year. "After the conversation, Barry called me back and said, 'What the f--- was that?'" Sussman recalled of their joyful but stunned response. Manilow and Sussman immediately began streamlining the production, cutting it by an hour, and found it sold out houses at the Alliance. Then the Ahmanson Theatre came calling. Neel Keller, associate artistic director of the Center Theatre Group, had worked on "Harmony" when he was with the La Jolla Playhouse and wanted to help bring the show to Los Angeles. "You can feel the creators' passion for telling this story," Keller said of why he was drawn to the show. And "Harmony," he added, "is a very personal way of looking at the huge, horrific events of the time period, but through a lens and characters you haven't previously seen before." As for the creators, they insisted they are focusing on tweaking "Harmony" for its Los Angeles run, but not yet predicting a Broadway production. "I just want to see it one more time before I croak," Manilow said. |
| March 4, 2014 | San Diego Jewish Journal | "'Harmony' On and Off the Stage" by Pat Launer |
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| He wrote the songs – for America and for "Harmony." Barry Manilow has sold 80 million albums worldwide. He's had 35 consecutive Top 40 hits, and five albums on the charts at the same time (a record rivaled only by Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis). His "Fanilows," as his devoted followers are called, have included Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra and more recently, LeBron James (the NBA superstar and pop culture trendsetter admitted to having "Mandy" and "Copacabana" on his iPod). During his five-decade career, Manilow earned only one Grammy Award, for "Copacabana (at the Copa)," with lyrics by Bruce Sussman. Manilow and Sussman have been writing partners for 42 years. Together, they've written nearly 200 songs; partly because they come from the same place – Manilow was born in Brooklyn; Sussman in Queens. They speak the same language. ("The way Bruce writes is the way I speak," says Manilow.) And on a transatlantic conference call, they complement each other perfectly. Sussman is more voluble but he never dominates. On any given topic, they always seem to be on the same page ("Barry and I just click," says Sussman). They both retain the New York accent and energy. And for the past two decades, while working on other projects, they've kept coming back to one that's near and dear to their hearts: a musical called "Harmony," which premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1997. Now, in a much-revised version, it's running at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, a co-production with the Alliance Theatre of Atlanta, where the show opened to positive reviews last fall. But how did they get here from the mean streets of New York? The Early Years Manilow was born Barry Alan Pincus. His mother's family was Jewish; his father had a Jewish father and Irish-American mother. Barry adopted his mother's maiden name, Manilow, at the time of his bar mitzvah. He grew up in the then tough neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and graduated from Eastern District High School in 1961. That year, he enrolled in the Juilliard School, while simultaneously writing songs, composing a musical ("The Drunkard," which ran for eight years Off Broadway) and coming up with catchy commercial jingles, which he produced and often sang. His most famous were for McDonald's ("You deserve a break today") and State Farm ("Like a good neighbor…"). His years as a jingle-writer still pop up in his innumerable concerts, in his "V.S.M.," or Very Strange Medley. Among his other early projects was conducting and arranging for Ed Sullivan's production company, and arranging a new theme for "The Late Show." In 1971, he began his famous four-year association with Bette Midler, first accompanying her at the Continental Baths in New York, then arranging, conducting and/or producing her albums and tours. He would go on to produce and/or arrange albums for Dionne Warwick and Nancy Wilson. In 1974, he recorded his breakout hit, "Mandy." Surprisingly, that wasn't one of the songs he wrote. Penned by Scott English and Richard Kerr, it was originally titled "Brandy," but there was already a song by that name. Other megahits (that he didn't write) include "Tryin' to Get the Feeling Again," "Weekend in New England," "Looks Like We Made It," and "Ready to take a Chance Again." And also, his number one hit, "I Write the Songs," composed by Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys. But he did write "Can't Smile Without You," "Even Now," "It's a Miracle" and "This One's for You," among scads of others. His hordes of diehard devotees, 37 million strong, rallied in 1977 to watch "The Barry Manilow Special," which he starred in and executive produced. It was nominated for four Emmys, as was "The Second Barry Manilow Special" in 1978 (with Ray Charles as a guest). In 1984, his 10-night run at Radio City Music Hall set a box office sales record of nearly $2 million, making him the top draw in the then 52-year history of the venue. His numerous albums have ranged from his well-known pop and adult contemporary style to a jazz/blues collection of original barroom tunes, to techno jazz, country and international music (he has performed songs in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. In 1985, Manilow played his only lead acting role, in a CBS film based on "Copacabana." He composed all the songs, with most of the lyrics written by Bruce Sussman. Manilow published his autobiography, "Sweet Life: Adventures on the way to Paradise," in 1986. But not much of his personal life is public record ("I'm a private man," he said. "And a gentleman"). For seven years, starting in 2004, he had ongoing engagements in Las Vegas, first at the Las Vegas Hilton and then at the Paris Hotel and Casino. In 2006, he released "The Greatest Songs of the Fifties," which went platinum and sold more than 3 million copies worldwide. The next year, he released the similarly well-received "The Greatest Songs of the Sixties." In 2010, "The Greatest Love Songs of all Time" was nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Album. The next year, his new album, "15 Minutes," hit the U.S. Billboard Hot Singles Chart, becoming his 47th Top 40 hit. He continued to record his concerts for TV broadcast and DVD release, and to perform benefit concerts for many charities and causes, as well as honoring young up-and-coming composers. In 2013, he appeared on the west lawn of the U.S. capitol for "A Capitol Fourth," and returned to the Great White Way with his concert series "Manilow on Broadway," the same kind of show that won him a Special Tony Award in 1977. As recently as 2007, he was still able to pack 'em in at Madison Square Garden. Manilow has never slowed down. Now 70, he's still doing concerts, producing albums and performing on TV specials. During his third appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2004, the host announced that Manilow was one of the most-requested guests of all time on her show. Rolling Stone called him "the greatest showman of our generation." Young Bruce and Barry confront the Holocaust Sussman was born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens. But then, his family joined the "great Jewish migration" to Long Island, N.Y. Later, he attended Franklin & Marshall College. Both he and Manilow, whose ancestors came from Russia, report that in their childhood homes, the Holocaust was never discussed. "It was a shonda" (shame). You just didn't talk about it," Manilow says. Sussman had his first introduction to the Holocaust at age 11, during the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann. "I was fascinated by it," Sussman recalls, "and asked my parents lots of questions. I only got very short answers. But I'd hear them talking about it." An upstairs neighbor, who was a survivor, became one of his sources when he started working on "Harmony." "Our lead character," says Sussman, "struggles with whether or not to tell his story." The narrator of the musical is one of the Comedian Harmonists, the one called "Rabbi" (he was actually a cantor), who was still alive, at age 98, when the show premiered in San Diego in 1997. Manilow and Sussman struggled with that question as well. They consulted Maria Rosenbloom, a Holocaust scholar, to ask if they had the right to tell this story. And, Sussman reports, "she said: 'It's been 50 years. The only moral imperative is to tell the story. Now we can begin to accept the enormity of it. The individual stories must be told.'" They agonized over this creation, by far the most Jewish project either of them has undertaken. As Manilow puts it, "you don't want to trivialize the big story by telling a small story." "Our story is about the approaching storm," says Sussman. "The narration ends in 1936, two years before Kristallnacht." But, says Manilow, "There's an Epilogue, unprecedented in a musical, about what happened to each of them after the Nazis disbanded the group and destroyed all their work." Still, Manilow is quick to add, "This is not a Holocaust musical." And as touching and tragic as this true story is, he's right. The Harmonists were funny and lively, and many of their problems were interpersonal – and self-inflicted. "What was easy for them was the musical harmony," says Manilow. "The hard part was harmonizing in life. One Gentile member of the group was in love with a Jew. One Jewish member fell in love with a Gentile. Their world turned black very fast." The Long Road to "Harmony" It all began with a German documentary. "I saw this four-hour movie and went immediately to a pay phone and called Barry," Sussman recalls. "And Barry said, 'I don't know what you're talking about, but go get it.' I flew to Berlin a couple of months later." Manilow and Sussman spent six years trying to retrieve the music, research the background and tell the story of The Comedian Harmonists. They were multi-talented: singers, dancers, comics, vaudevillians, a German tight-harmony male sextet whose rise to international fame (in albums, concerts and movie appearances) was cut short by the Nazis, because half their members were Jewish. They rose from starving street musicians to global entertainers, singing with Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker, meeting Albert Einstein and making a smashing U.S. debut at Carnegie Hall. In eight meteoric years (1928-1936), they appeared in a dozen movies and sold millions of records, with their eclectic repertoire of songs in multiple languages and styles. They have been described as "a cross between the Marx Brothers and Manhattan Transfer." All they wanted to do was make beautiful music and make people laugh. But the Third Reich had other plans for them. "I love my story about meeting 'Rabbi'," (real name: Josef Roman Cykowski), says Manilow. "I've lived in Palm Springs for 18 years. We thought that, when the Comedian Harmonists split up, they would all flee. 'Rabbi' wound up moving to Palm Springs! I was walking my dogs past his house every day! He lived four blocks away from where I was writing songs for his character to sing. When I finally met him, the door opened, his wife Mary [also a character in the musical] was standing next to him." He chokes up. "I could just cry thinking about it. He was in a wheelchair. He was old and weak, but still funny and bright. He said, 'If they didn't stop us, we would've been bigger than the Beatles!' He had been the lead cantor at Temple Isaiah in Palm Springs for 20 years, the oldest active cantor in the United States. I had no idea." He also had no idea how much attention their musical would attract in La Jolla. "We thought we were far away from New York," says Manilow. "So we'd just put everything out there and then edit it down later. We never dreamed the L.A. Times and Variety would show up." At one point, Manilow and Sussman actually lost control of their project. A 2003 pre-Broadway production in Philadelphia was cancelled during rehearsals when the lead producer confessed to being millions of dollars short in capitalization. After a lengthy court battle, the creators finally regained the rights in 2005. The new version is leaner and tighter, two hours instead of the original three. "It tells the story very economically," Manilow asserts. "What's left is the best of 'Harmony.' We had 19 songs before; we had to drown some of our 'babies.' Four or five were cut, three were replaced. It was a great cast. They all became friends of ours. The six of them still get together every year and have dinner. It was a deep experience for everyone. Now we have a new cast, crew, designers and director. And the same thing is happening. This will change their lives forever." "Thrillingly produced and performed!" crowed one reviewer after the September opening in Atlanta. "Striking and compelling," said another. "Ambitious and epic, a paean to the real-life Harmonists," wrote another critic. "It taps into us and our histories and our lives on so many levels," says Sussman. "In creating the songs for 'Harmony,'" Manilow adds, "we had to go to the deepest part of our souls." "It's so us," Sussman agrees. "So what we are. It's a mitzvah." "Harmony," the new Barry Manilow/Bruce Sussman musical, plays at the Ahmanson Theatre, 601 W Temple St., Los Angeles, March 4-April 13. Tickets are $40-105. Info is at (213) 972-4400 or centertheatregroup.org. |
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