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[0:00] Robert W. Schneider: Robert Preston, Professor Harold Hill, Ben Franklin, Toddy, Mack Sennett, a man who was respected in Hollywood, but a man who grabbed musical comedy by the throat, looked at it in its masquerade eyes, and said, I don't care if I can't sing. The audiences will love me, damn it. Now bring me some chicken fat. And towards the end of his life, when he was reflecting on his entire career, he said his favorite most rewarding role, this is what he said, quote, I left the best performance of my life in Philadelphia. Think about that. This is not some struggling actor lamenting a missed opportunity. This is Robert Preston, Professor Harold Hill, the music man, one of the most beloved leading men in Broadway history, a man who would win Tony Awards, a man who would become a theatrical legend.

And yet the performance he mourned the most was one almost nobody ever saw. Today on Broadway Bound, we're asking, why did not one but two Robert Preston musicals collapse before coming to Broadway? We have got sombreros, a Jewish Abe Lincoln, flying scripts, leading ladies angry they have to sing in a musical, offensive accents, overly large mustaches, and a cross hidden behind a Star of David. And we got Sondheim salivating over silverware. You see, what happened to Mr. Preston was, well, you're just going to have to stay tuned for today's double feature. You got trouble, Bob Preston. We take the town and the Prince of Grand Street on this week's Broadway Bound, the musicals that never came to Broadway.

[1:33] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, I'm Rob Schneider, and welcome to another episode of Broadway Bound, the musicals that never came to Broadway. Today, we are looking at a star known as Robert Miservy, nay Preston, the Tony warning, Tony warning. He was a Tony warning. There was a warning coming that there's a Tony coming. He had Tony winning, Golden Globe winning, Oscar nominated, man who oozed charm, charisma, and was such a great actor, you didn't even think that he was talking most of his songs in a musical. Kind of the career that I want. Sixteen Broadway shows, over 50 films, including, listen to this career, Bojest, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, How the West Was Won, Victor, Victoria, SOB, Mame, hey, Mame. But before he conquered musical theater, he was a respected Hollywood contract player.

He wasn't a breakout star. The roles that he should have gotten eventually went to people like Gary Cooper, Alan Ladd. But when he went to the Music Man in 1957, something monumental happened and turned Robert Preston into Broadway royalty. The thing about Preston was that he wasn't the obvious choice. He was an actor, a terrific actor, a character actor trapped in a leading man's body, and audiences adored him. He could charm you, con you, seduce you, and somehow make you root for him while doing it. Harold Hill is essentially a criminal, a very entertaining criminal, but still a criminal. Yet Preston made audiences fall in love with him. Now that gift would become important. So whatever show he would do next, the follow-up to Harold Hill had audiences on the edge of their seats waiting to see what musical Preston would conquer next.

And like Harold Hill, his next character was also a criminal. That character, that criminal, Pancho Villa. I will repeat it again. Waspie Robert Preston was going to play notorious Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Now obviously today this show would be canceled before the idea was even muttered over martinis at Joe Allen, but this was 1961. It was a different time, kids. Don't believe me? Mickey Rooney, Breakfast at Tiffany's. Look it up. Leave me alone, Jan. That's old Mickey Rooney for you. I got a story about Mickey Rooney, but I'll tell you later because it has absolutely nothing to do with this podcast. Okay, go ahead if you want. Go to Mickey Rooney acting lessons. Mickey Rooney in the 1980s did an acting video where he was teaching people how to act.

It's one of the worst things you've ever seen in your life. He also farts and they kept it into the broadcast. If you want to see a sizzle reel, contact me or my brother because we make them quite consistently. Leave me alone, Jan. Now Pancho Villa wasn't selling boys bands. He was leading revolutions, murdering enemies, marrying women in every town, and occasionally being a terrible human being. In other words, the role was catnip for a great actor. But for our friends who are unfamiliar, Villa was a larger-than-life character, real-life character, part revolutionary general, part folk hero, part outlaw. He came from a poor rural background in northern Mexico and became a leader of the revolution against the long dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz.

Was he an assassinated hero or was he a punished villain? That depends on whom you ask. Supporters viewed Pancho as a champion of the poor and a symbol of resistance to oppression. Bernie Sanders in a sombrero. I'm asking you again, 2%, 2% of my sombrero was not on my head. Critics pointed, though, to executions, looting, and brutality committed by his forces during the revolution. The challenge wasn't whether Pancho Villa could sing. The challenge was figuring out what kind of musical he belonged in. Was this a comedy, a drama, a historical epic, a political allegory, a tragedy? Unfortunately, the creative team never really figured that point out. So how did Robert Preston come to play Pancho Villa?

Let us go back to 1934, when MGM produced a movie called Viva Villa, starring another Latinx star, Wallace Beery. And it was a different time, so it was Hollywood's version of Pancho Villa, written by the great Ben Hecht. Ironically, MGM said if the movie was successful, they would make a movie musical out of it. Ladies and gentlemen, Ann Miller. Jenny, they got me out here tapping in Baja, Mexico. Can't even drink the water. We flash forward a few years later, and the songwriting team of Matt Dubé and Harold Carr were making a name for themselves on Broadway with a musical called Happy Hunting, an Ethel Merman vehicle that was anything but happy. Ironically, Dubé and Carr wrote the song Mutual Admiration Society, and their experience with Merman was anything but that.

Actually, thank God it was fractious, because Merman requested that her next show not have any newbies associated, or no newbies doing the whole thing, hence why Stephen Sondheim wrote only the lyrics to Julie Stein's amazing melodies for Gypsy, but I digress. So Dubé and Carr—that sounds like a law firm—were looking for a new property, and they stumbled upon Viva Via and said yes, or si, depending on who you ask. And I asked no one. But I am a historian. Now, Viva Via was going to be their next musical, simply called Viva! Dubé would write the book with Ronald Alexander, but Alexander dropped and was replaced with Feliz Navidad, Feliz Bauer, who was their manager. Smart, Feliz! The most happy fellow director, Joseph Anthony Whithelmet, co-directing with his choreographer, a guy named Bob Fosse.

And it would come to Broadway in the 1958-1959 season. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Gwen Verdon as Pancho Villa. I can't do a Gwen Verdon. I can't do a Gwen Verdon. I wish I could. Oh, I'm a revolutionary, Bob. Producer Paul Gregory would bring it in October 1967-1959 with Shakespearean actor Anthony Quayle as Pancho Villa, okay? But Gregory, our producer, was stubborn because he wanted just the right house for this show. Then Anthony left. Then Gregory left. Then Frank Lesser would produce it with José Quintero directing it, you know, the great director of Eugene O'Neill's works. Then Ward Baker, who did the fantastics, directing it, and eventually, with all these changes in personnel, Quayle was smart.

He left. He took a role in Lawrence of Arabia and got out of town. Lesser lost interest, and the show was picked up by his old vice president, Stuart Ostro. And if the name sounds familiar, it should. Stuart Ostro would later produce The Apple Tree, 1776. So I'm Pippin, M. Butterfly. So before all of that came, we take the town. And then Ostro landed The Impossible, Robert Preston. The New York Times reported that Preston was totally committed to the production through June 1963. That alone got Columbia Records to pony up the entire $390,000 budget. That's extraordinary. Now, this wasn't a quick paycheck for Mr. Preston. This was commitment. And suddenly, Broadway paid attention because Robert Preston had not appeared in a musical since The Music Man.

People wanted to know, what would he do next? The answer? Pancho Villa. And according to everybody who saw the show, he was magnificent. Now, I know what you're thinking. Robert Preston? Waspy, all-American, folksy buddy-buddy as Pancho Villa? Was Jim Nabors unavailable? Even Nathan Lane once joked, Robert Preston as Pancho Villa. Can you imagine that accent? Well, Preston was one step ahead because he kept telling people that he was the only non-Latino kid in his grammar school in LA, so he knew how to do the accent. I wish this was happening today because every cancel culture blogger would never stop coming in their pants. Ostro was determined and let the trades know that rehearsals would begin on January 1, 1962, with a Broadway opening of March 15 at the Broadway Theatre.

Tryouts would be in New Haven and Philadelphia. So now, what is the story of We Take the Town? I'm so happy you asked. Francisco Madero wants to form a Mexican Republic, and Pancho Villa supports him by any means necessary. When Madero needs to clean up his image, though, he drops Pancho faster than you can say, ay caramba. But that doesn't deter Villa and his men. No, no, no. In fact, Villa goes from town to town, enforcing Madero's new vision through any means necessary. U.S. reporter Johnny Sykes follows Villa around on his exploits and incorrectly publishes a story that Villa has captured the town of Santa Rosalia. Problem is, he didn't, to help Johnny's save face, Pancho Villa, and his men capture Santa Rosalia. Hence, the title, We Take the Town, and the title song. Let's hear it.

[9:40] ♪ Musical number: "We Take the Town" — performed by Robert Preston ♪

[10:19] Robert W. Schneider: Now, this number was something to see, apparently. The number involved a full-size train, a rotating mountain for it to make it look like the train was going backwards and forwards, dozens of performers, and enough stage machinery to make a union rep break into hives. Critics who disliked the show remembered that scene. Audiences remembered that scene. Everybody remembers this big scene with the train and the life-size train and the mountains and all that stuff. Unfortunately, remembering one scene is not always enough, unless you're Beatrice Strait. Look it up, Oscar fans. But where is the love story, you ask? Why Pancho has not one, but two amores, my friends? Muy caliente. Rosita Morales is his girlfriend, but Pancho falls in love with the classier Teresa de Castillo.

Which one does he choose? Well, we never know, because Rosita's brother shoots him, and that's the end of the show. But before we get to the end, let's hear the opening number of We Take the Town, subtitled A Musical Adventure. Here's our title song, Viva Villa.

[11:14] ♪ Musical number: "Viva Villa" — performed by Robert Preston ♪

[12:11] Robert W. Schneider: So the show goes into rehearsal, and Preston is joined by others. John Cullum, fresh off of Camelot, will be the reporter. Carmen Alvarez, who stood by for Chita Rivera in Bye Bye Birdie, will be Rosita. And Kathleen Widows will be Teresa. The other choice for Teresa? Barbara Streisand. In the ensemble, making one of their debuts, the great Pia Zadora. Now, while Preston was thriving, the production was not. The central problem appears to have been the eventual director of the piece, Alex Siegel. Siegel was a respected television director, but directing television and directing a Broadway musical are about as similar as owning a goldfish and opening SeaWorld. Why Siegel, apparently? Preston's schedule was so tight, they had to go into rehearsals ASAP, and Siegel was the only one available.

Siegel thought of the whole thing as a film. Fifteen minutes were cut one day, another fifteen the next. Entire scenes were disappearing, almost as if in editing he was going to fix it. He worked for hours on minor scenes that had no impact on the show whatsoever. Narrative holes were opening. Eventually, people were saying, it's Titanic after the iceberg. That's not encouraging. At one point, Matt DuBay and Siegel got into a heated argument when Siegel and choreographer Donald Sather were ignoring the stage direction. Siegel grabbed a script and reportedly shouted, this is a script, not the fucking Bible, and he threw it across the room, which is not generally considered a healthy rehearsal exercise.

Then there was the famous orange scenery incident. Siegel apparently hated the color orange, and upon seeing Peter Larkin's set designs, he launched into a tirade. Imagine spending months building a Mexican revolutionary musical and discovering your director has declared war on a color. Meanwhile, the clock kept ticking until previews in New Haven. In the rehearsal room, everyone said Preston was a great leader, the score exciting, but the central problem was Pancho Villa himself. Was he a hero? Was he a villain? It was a bio-musical, and the authors were slaves to history, so lots of non-necessary historical characters and details showed up, making the show seem interminable. And it ended with Villa forlorn and alone.

[14:18] Robert W. Schneider: Nowadays, we love an unhappy ending in a musical, but back then, not so much. Now, the unhappiest person in the cast was Kathleen Widows, who was playing the regal love interest. She said she was hired as an actress, and she wasn't allowed to act. Apparently, this is the first leading lady of a musical who wanted less songs to sing and give her more book scenes. And when she did sing, you couldn't hear her, so they had to give her a body mic. They gave her a body mic, to which she yelled, "Now I have three nipples!" She decided that she would not play the role on Broadway. When asked in an interview how she felt about doing a musical, very classy, she said, quote, "I really can't answer that yet, but I suspect it'll be my last one.

There's too much confusion for my little heart." Put her in a Tennessee Williams play. Also, not to make matters worse, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reported in her column before the first preview that those who had heard the score during rehearsal said it wasn't too good. Oof. We're now in New Haven, Connecticut, February 17, 1962. First previews of out-of-town tryouts of We Take the Town, once called Viva Via. And something unexpected happened. The New Haven reviews were good, or at least better than expected. This is from the Hartford Courant. Robert Preston's return to the musical stage in We Take the Town, which had its formal world premiere at the Schubert Theater in New Haven last night, proved a terrific hit and an event worthy of note.

Preston does a terrific job as the ruthless bandit who fights his way against all odds to the presidency. He works hard in this physically splendid performance as the gunslinging bad man with a human side that keeps the production constantly forceful and exciting. There is an excellent score by Harold Carr and generally acceptable lyrics by Matt Dubé. Donald Sadler has done the choreography that is sometimes a bit on the startling side for a musical comedy, but nevertheless is vigorous and entertaining.

[16:09] Robert W. Schneider: Variety noted how good Preston was, but then said something so fascinating to me, something we don't think about anymore when it comes to composition for musicals. They said, perhaps a major shortcoming is a too close integration of the book and melodies in such a manner as to offer too few songs for pop consideration on their own. Actually, while a number of the tunes advance the story, they lack potential as standards. So whoever that critic is, is thinking pre-Oklahoma days. And then there were the naysayers. For example, the program for We Take the Town insists that it is a musical adventure. That is probably as good a term as any for musical comedy, but it is certainly not. The large, ponderously produced show at the Schubert, which tells of the rise and fall of Pancho Villa, surrounds Robert Preston with a lot of empty spaces, whirling words, symbolic attitudes, and dance rituals.

While he tries to break through them with all his natural exuberance, he cannot escape the lead-in script, not the overall pretentiousness of the show. But that critic is in the minority, and this created an entirely new problem. The writers felt, they like us. We're done. We don't have to do any more work on the show. And Preston, Ostro, and Siegel said, no, we got work to do. It's kind of working in New Haven, but it really won't work in New York. Because suddenly half the creative team believed the show didn't need fixing. The other half believed it desperately needed fixing, especially the ending, which had Preston alone on stage, assuming leadership, but all by himself before his assassination.

What would Harold Hill think of that? There's always a band kid. If the reviews had been terrible, everyone might have agreed. Instead, they received just enough praise to become confused. One Connecticut critic called the show exciting, another praised the score, another praised Preston, another called it an experiment in a new kind of musical theater, but nobody knew quite what they had.

[18:00] Robert W. Schneider: My favorite story, though, to come out of We Take the Town in Connecticut is that the theater, the Shubert, blasted music from the show on loudspeakers outside the theater, and they received 28 complaints. The local police department received 28 complaints of the score because right next door to the theater was a hotel the truck drivers were sleeping at, and they're like, we can't sleep with this music. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the land of Broadway. Let's hear one of those songs from We Take the Town that was keeping these truckers up at night. This is Robert Preston in "I Don't Know How to Talk to a Lady."

[18:36] ♪ Musical number: "I Don't Know How to Talk to a Lady" — performed by Robert Preston ♪

[20:37] Robert W. Schneider: And now we're in Philadelphia. Get out your cream cheese. Philadelphia was supposed to be the final stop before Broadway. Instead, it became the end of the line. Critics there were less forgiving. Too dark, too moody. What is the tone? How can it start with silverware, then have a rape and pillage ballet? Many praised Preston. Most criticized the book. Some thought the second act became overly symbolic. Others felt the story stopped making sense altogether. One critic wrote that by Act II, the show resembled an unfinished Eugene O'Neill play, which is not usually what audiences expect after purchasing tickets to a musical adventure. Now, they needed some help. Hal Prince nearly entered the picture.

He did not. Jerome Robbins nearly entered the picture. Hope had surged, but then Robbins fell ill, and according to all accounts, he left the theater in an ambulance. I'm not saying We Take the Town was cursed, but if you were writing this as fiction, an editor would tell you to tone it down. The situation in Philly just deteriorated. Robbins told Ostro he should direct it, and he agreed, but Robert Preston said, absolutely not, which left a very bitter taste in Stewart Ostro's mouth, and the fight almost came to blows between the two guys, so much so that Ostro later said that the failure of the show was entirely on Preston, who was just killing time between gigs, and that is totally not the case.

[21:51] Robert W. Schneider: Box office receipts lagged. The show needed roughly $45,000 per week to break even. It was nowhere close. Columbia Records, which had been advertising the show as a new album, had some money for them, but it was clear they were not going to go through with the recording. The producers gathered everyone backstage for a party. Now, generally speaking, when a Broadway bound musical throws a party during its out-of-town tryout, that's a good sign. Champagne was there. Congratulations. Maybe somebody starts measuring for a Tony Award shelf, but this party wasn't a celebration. It was a funeral. The cast of a new musical called We Take the Town had just learned they would not be going to Broadway.

The production was closing two weeks early in Philadelphia. The scheduled April 5 opening at the Broadway Theater was canceled. Nearly $400,000 had been spent and lost. This was Oster's statement. Mr. Preston and I strongly believe in the theatrical potential of Pancho Villa and expect to have the opportunity to play and present him on Broadway. It is particularly gratifying to acknowledge the continued financial support my investors have offered, and I am determined, knowing Bob Preston's desire to portray Villa, to justify their faith by presenting an entirely reconceived production.

[23:02] Robert W. Schneider: Had Preston come in, he surely would have been nominated for a Tony Award, but he most likely would have lost to Robert Morse for How to Succeed, or maybe he would have tied with him. Dubé and Carte would have most likely gotten the best score nomination, which I think would have knocked out Richard Adler's Kwamena score. I'm sorry for those Kwamena fans out there. Years later, Preston would say, "I left the best performance of my life in Philadelphia." Think about that. This is not some struggling actor lamenting a missed opportunity. This is Robert Preston, Professor Harold Hill, the music man, one of the most beloved men in Broadway history, a man who had won Tony Awards, a man who had become a theatrical legend, and yet the performance he mourned most was one almost nobody ever saw.

And just like that, it was over for now. Ostros said the show would come in next season, and he was so sure of that because Robert Preston had turned down the lead in Irving Berlin's Mr. President and the role of Doddsworth in the musical version of Doddsworth, which I don't think ever came to Broadway. So that way, Preston could stick with We Take the Town. But by October, Ostros was gone. Preston was gone. Producers Lawrence and Lee were interested with Bob Fosse helming it, but at that point, Preston was out. Fosse was out. They talked about doing it with Burt Lancaster, but he passed on the project. Ostros later said, quote, "his critics assassinated Via in Mexico City in 1923, while we were merely slaughtered in 1962 when we opened in Philadelphia."

[24:18] Robert W. Schneider: Now, every review says basically the same thing. The show? Question mark. Robert Preston? Fantastic. The Hartford Courant called him terrific. Variety praised his enormous performance. Philadelphia critics praised him. Hal Prince praised him. John Colum, Stuart Ostro. Everybody remembered him, praised him. So why did a Robert Preston musical collapse before Broadway? Well, the answer is surprisingly simple and surprisingly frustrating, because it wasn't one thing. Preston wasn't the problem. The score wasn't the problem. Many critics admired it. In fact, Barbara Streisand certainly did. She recorded "How Does the Wine Taste?" The performances weren't the problem. Everybody loved Preston. The spectacle wasn't the problem.

People remembered it for decades. The problem was identity. The show never knew what it wanted to be. Musical comedy, historical drama, political tragedy, revolutionary pageant, a ballet, a love story. It tried to be all of them. And the production never found the person capable of bringing all those pieces together. What audiences saw was not a finished show. It was several interesting shows fighting control of the same stage. One of the New Haven critics said, quote, "the play is a departure from the old forms and an experiment in a new sort of musical theater. As such, it is uneven. At the beginning of the show, Monday night's audience didn't know whether they were supposed to laugh at Pancho or to deplore his savagery.

It never realizes the heights of real tragedy, as does West Side Story. There's not enough nobility and too much of the ridiculous in Pancho Villa, and a fool cannot be a great tragic hero. Yet the story of this show does not end there, because the show left behind ghosts.

[26:05] Robert W. Schneider: For example, here is Miss Streisand with "How Does the Wine Taste."

[26:30] ♪ Musical number: "How Does the Wine Taste?" — performed by Barbra Streisand ♪

[27:04] Robert W. Schneider: The great Frankie Laine recorded the song "A Wedded Man." The great Stephen Sondheim was asked to compile a list of songs that he had wished he had written because they were so good. One of those songs was the song "Silverware."

[27:18] ♪ Musical number: "Silverware" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[28:36] Robert W. Schneider: We Take The Town. Think about that. Stephen Sondheim, loving We Take The Town. Years later, Robert Preston spoke about We Take The Town still. The reason I brought that song up is because my favorite role, including Harold Hill, was the role of Pancho Villa in a musical called We Take The Town, which never ever came in. It was only seen in New Haven and Philadelphia. No, we closed for repairs and everybody flew to the palm trees and just disappeared to the winds and never came back. But I loved it. It was marvelous. Why would he still talk about it? Because somewhere in Philadelphia, he had found something special and lost it. Philly isn't the best city for Robert Preston because over a decade or so later, he will come back in another Broadway-bound musical, which will stay in Philadelphia and which we will discuss after the break.

[29:47] Robert W. Schneider: Welcome back. So, Robert Preston dusts himself off and plunges into his next musical, a flop called Ben Franklin in Paris. That's it. No more musicals. Only plays. And he knocks them dead during The Lion in Winter. And soon Mary Martin comes a-knockin'. A new musical? Nope. With her and Gower Champion? Nope. A two-hander? No interesting. I do, I do. And he did. Maybe, maybe he'd be down for musicals again. With Gower and Jerry Herman and Bernadette Peters, he jumped into Mac and Mabel in 1974. It's not a hit, but it was fun. Preston was getting the musical blood back in his veins. Now, if you thought Pancho Villa was an odd choice for Robert Preston, this one feels even more bizarre to me. Robert Preston as the star of the Yiddish theater.

Happy Chinookah. Philadelphia. Again. March of 1978. The Forest Theater. Robert Preston walks onto the stage in a fur-trimmed coat, greased-back hair, and enough theatrical swagger to power half of Broadway. He is 60 years old. His character is 62. His character insists he is 20. The audience is supposed to believe it, and somehow they do, at least for a little while. Fifteen years earlier, Preston had stood in another Philadelphia theater watching another Broadway-bound musical collapse before it reached New York. Now, history was sadly preparing to repeat itself. Different decade, different musical, same star, same ending. The show was called The Prince of Grand Street, and it was written by Funny Girl songwriter Bob Merrill, directed by hit comedy maker Gene Sachs, produced by some of the most respected names in the business, budgeted at nearly a million dollars, and built around one of Broadway's greatest leading men.

This should have worked. It didn't. Now we're asking, why did Robert Preston agree to play a Jewish matinee idol in a musical about the Yiddish theater? And why did this become the final musical of one of Broadway's most beloved stars?

[31:44] Robert W. Schneider: One of the things I love about theater history is when a role becomes a mirror. You know, the actor thinks he's playing a character. The audience thinks they're watching a character, but what they're really seeing is the actor himself, and that is The Prince of Grand Street. The musical tells the story of Nathan Ryschomsky, an aging superstar of the Yiddish theater, a man adored by audiences, a man terrified of growing old, a man who keeps playing romantic young heroes decades after he should have stopped, a man who refuses to surrender his spotlight. By 1978, Preston was 60 years old. The Music Man was more than 20 years behind him. He had won Tony Awards to become a Broadway institution, but Broadway itself was changing.

The old leading man musical was disappearing. Sondheim was conquering, concept musicals were conquering, Michael Bennett was changing choreography, Hal Prince was reinventing staging, and suddenly Robert Preston found himself playing a character who was asking a very uncomfortable question. What happens when the world no longer wants the star you've always been? Like We Take the Town, The Prince of Grand Street was initiated by its writers. Now, unlike We Take the Town, the writer for this was quite prolific. The Prince of Grand Street began with Bob Merrill. Now, if that name sounds familiar, it should. Bob Merrill gave us Funny Girl, Carnival, Take Me Along, dozens of hit songs, but this project was different.

It was personal. Merrill grew up hearing stories about the Yiddish theater. His mother had performed in Yiddish vaudeville. He grew up surrounded by tales of Boris Tomashevsky, Jacob Adler, David Kessler, the larger-than-life stars who ruled New York's Lower East Side.

[33:23] Robert W. Schneider: Now, to imagine the musical, you must understand what these stars were to these audiences. Imagine Broadway, imagine Hollywood, Taylor Swift, and professional wrestling. Now, combine all of them. The stars of the Yiddish theater were idols. The public adored them, argued about them, gossiped about them, and the Yiddish theater gave audiences exactly what they wanted, tragedies with happy endings, melodrama, music, romance, spectacle. If Shakespeare ended badly, fix it. Hamlet too depressing? Make him a rabbi. If Romeo and Juliet died, bring them back. Everybody goes home happy. The critics hated it, audiences loved it, and that tension became the heart of Merrill's musical. The story of the show, The Prince of Grand Street, which was originally titled A Place in the World, takes place in 1908, although for some odd reason, when the show transferred up to Philadelphia, they changed it to 1907.

What a difference a year makes. Nathan Ryschomsky is the king of the Grand Street Tivoli Theater. He's a theatrical giant, a legend, a celebrity, a man who has spent decades giving audiences exactly what they want. Then his wife passes from food poisoning. What a unique twist. At her funeral, he meets a young 18-year-old girl named Leah. Leah is a professional mourner. Forty years younger than him, Leah is, which even by Broadway standards raises some eyebrows, but unlike Broadway standards, she's not angling to play fifth twink from the left in The Outsiders. Leah becomes his second wife. She will be played by Neva Small in what everyone says will be a star-making role for Miss Small. Leah is his inspiration.

Leah is his hope for renewal. And Leah eventually is the person who forces him to confront reality. Around them swirl actors in the Yiddish theater. Critics abound, too. One named Julius Pritkin, played by Hogan's Heroes' Werner Klemperer, who wants him to stop debasing Shakespeare. When Pritkin shows up to the wife's funeral, he asks, "Is there anything I can do?" To which Nathan replies, "Better reviews?"

[35:26] Robert W. Schneider: In-laws. He's got in-laws, too, friends, like Leah's grandfather, Itzhak Goldfarb, played by the great character actor Sam Levine. He's also there. Rivals. Immigrant. Workers. And most importantly, the performances themselves. Imagine Juliet rising from her deathbed to warn Romeo not to drink poison, after which the Capulets and Montagues celebrate by doing a lively Hebrew dance. Picture a young Abe Lincoln running for state office, promising his potential constituents that he will make Illinois a homeland for the Jews. And imagine Huckleberry Finn making a stirring speech on behalf of his runaway black friend, after which the Southern Vigilantes set their captive free and break into a vigorous Jewish dance.

Whether the setting is Italy, Illinois, or Missouri, the natives all wear peasant garb, beat on tambourines, and perform Eastern European dances. The musical isn't really about the love story between Nathan and Leah. It's about theater. In fact, let me have Bob Merrill talk to you a little bit more. This is at an event called the Annual Broadway Preview, which was held at the Alvin Theater on January 23, 1978, when Martin Charnin introduced previews of upcoming Broadway shows. And the shows featured at this performance were Alice, which never came to Broadway, Working, which did, By Strauss, which did not, and The Prince of Grand Street. Here is Bob Merrill.

[37:47] Bob Merrill: First of all, it is a show that will contain five vaudeville numbers as they were performed at the Grand Street Playhouse, Yiddish Theater, New York, 1906. I'll just give you a little taste of those. It's actually the story of a matinee idol, Boris Tomaszewski, if you like, Jacob Adler, if you like. The audience, through their blind adoration, kept these idols ageless Peter Pans, playing 16-year-old boys well up into their 60s. This is the story of Nathaniel Ryszomski, 62 years old, still performing in tights. It's his love story, his struggle against age. We open with Nathan playing Romeo and Juliet. Of course, he's Romeo. In the death scene, the last scene, Juliet comes back to life and marries Romeo because the audience of immigrants prefer happy endings. The townspeople congratulate Romeo and Juliet by singing.

[38:12] ♪ Musical number: "They're Going to Get Married" — performed by Bob Merrill ♪

[38:44] Robert W. Schneider: It's just a bit of it. Our star takes a skirt and call because I want to thank you for the way you received my Romeo and Juliet and a special thank you for not eating during the quiet parts. And the best parts of the show were always the shows within the show. The Yiddish Romeo and Juliet, the Yiddish Huckleberry Finn, and the Yiddish Abraham Lincoln.

[39:18] ♪ Musical number: "Hello, Hello, Hello" — performed by Bob Merrill ♪

[41:19] Robert W. Schneider: Now let's get back to the main question, Robert Preston as a big macha? Here's the question that fascinated me: Why Robert Preston? Because on paper he seems like an odd choice. This role is Jewish. The world is deeply rooted in immigrant culture. The character is based on Boris Tomaszewski and Jacob Adler. And Robert Preston, he was born in Massachusetts, raised in California. He's about as Jewish as a baked potato. Yet Merrill insisted there was nobody else. He later said we couldn't think of anyone else with flamboyance and color. And there it is: Flamboyance, theatricality, charisma, not ethnicity, star quality. Preston himself admitted that the role frightened him. He said, "Ryschomsky scares me to death," and that quote tells us everything.

This wasn't another Harold Hill. This wasn't a comfortable role. This was a challenge. And actors don't survive 50 years in show business by chasing comfort. Here's Robert Preston's I Am song from The Prince of Grand Street. "I'm a star. Don't you understand that? I'm a star. Even you, the little greenhorn that you are should have some slight perception of a star. I'm a star. On a stage spanning several generations. I'm a ray. There's my face in every program. Nevertheless, less than a page. And there is no law that is spoken made by man or God thus formed that is not there to be broken by a star."

[42:55] ♪ Musical number: "I'm a Star" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[44:40] Robert W. Schneider: Let's talk about the process. Everybody was excited. It's easy to forget now, knowing how the story ends. But expectations were enormous. On his first day, Preston shouted in the rehearsal room, "My last day as a Gentile!" And that, coupled with the St. Genesis necklace given to him by Barbara Stanwyck, made this a schlep. Mame and Neil Simon director Gene Sachs was directing. Sachs was a perfect candidate, understanding musicals and ethnic humor. And he also found a very interesting parallel between the community of immigrants seeking solace and art to the then-current black community doing the same thing. And he saw both filled with vitality, bursting forth from oppression. Bob Marrow was writing the book, music, and lyrics.

And he shared his first remembrance of Yiddish theater. Quote, "I must have been 12 years old, and I don't remember who was in it or who wrote it, but I sure remember the plot. It was about a blind chemist whose wife cheated on him. In an explosion in his basement laboratory, she is struck blind, and he regains his sight. And they live happily ever after." Robert Whitehead was producing, despite having said, quote, "I mean, if you want to live a life of any composure, you don't get involved with producing a musical." Whitehead was involved. The Shubert Organization was involved. The planned Broadway opening was set for the Palace Theater on May 11, 1978. The budget approached $1 million, which in 1978 was real money.

The New York Times ran feature stories. The Washington Post covered the production. Industry insiders were excited. One article described the premise as the idea whose time has come. Everybody thought this was a major event. Nobody expected what would happen next. Philadelphia, March 7, 1978. And here we arrive at one of my favorite recurring characters in Broadway history, Philadelphia. At this point, Philadelphia should probably receive its own Tony Award for emotional damage. The show opened at the Forest Theater in March of '78, and the reviews weren't terrible. They weren't great. They were worse. They were mixed. Mixed is not good. Ernest Shire in the Philadelphia Bulletin stated that the book had as much continuity as a map of Chinatown.

The Courier-Post said, "When Prince, the book, lyrics, and music, of which are all by Bob Merrill, is busy recreating the stage offerings of the old Yiddish theater, it is interesting, charming, and convincing. But most of the time it is relating the story of an aging giant of the Yiddish theater, a man whose ego, the size of the great outdoors, and an involvement with a woman immediately after the death of his first wife. There is nothing inherently objectionable about that plot thrust. It is just that author Merrill allows that focus of the show to go in too many directions at once. Consequently, it does not so much climax or resolve as grind to a dull halt. Satisfying, it is not." Then something positive, like the Daily Item.

I love that name, the Daily Item. Like, what is that? Paperclip, that's the Daily Item. Apple, that's the Daily Item. Daily Item said, "If Joel Grey's George M. Cohan and Zero Mostel's Tevye are to be considered larger-than-life figures, then Robert Preston's Nathan Ryszomski must be regarded as larger-than-life and death." And there were some songs that all the critics seemed to like, like "The Youngest Person I Know."

[49:54] ♪ Musical number: "The Youngest Person I Know" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[50:36] Neva Small: Thank you, great to be here and to share stories about Robert Preston. Now, one thing about the character that Mr. Preston was playing is, as Rob told you and Jennifer, based on Boris Tomashevsky. Now, of course, he and Bess were really very active in the Yiddish theater down there on 2nd Avenue, which had a long life, and he has a grandson who is currently the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas. They are the connection, Tomashevsky. Now, Bobby Merrill is someone that Rob and Jennifer and the 54 Below have really gone out of their way to recognize because he's kind of a lyricist's lyricist and he's very under-recognized, although he is currently represented on Broadway.

He's the uncredited lyricist for "We've Got Elegance" in Hello, Dolly! Now, he started out in Philadelphia. World War II, he did his service, then he went directly to Hollywood. He was a dialogue coach and he morphed into a novelty songwriter. He wrote songs like "If I Knew You Were Coming, I'd Have Baked A Cake," "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," "Mambo Italiano," and my favorite, "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?" Wait, wait for it—bark, bark! Practicing that for a while. He wanted to get serious; he was having trouble convincing the publishers, Tin Pan Alley, Hollywood, that he could write ballads, which of course were just cited. Funny Girl, is there a better ballad than "People"? And he decided to go to Broadway.

He started out with something very serious, an adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Wilderness for Gwen Verdon. He went on to Take Me Along for Jackie Gleason, and of course we've already mentioned Funny Girl, Barbara Streisand. And later on, I was a teenager in Henry, Sweet Henry, a musical version of the world of Henry Orient. And most recently here at 54 Below he did Sugar, which of course came much later because somewhere in there he had some colossal Broadway-bound floparoos. They were pretty bound. Angela Lansbury and of course probably the hardest one that he closed was Breakfast at Tiffany's, Mary Tyler Moore, Richard Chamberlain. And then of course along came the show that I had five, count them, five songs in, The Prince of Grand Street.

I played the May to December romance with Mr. Preston, and I at the time was May; now of course I'm December. He was really wonderful to work with; both of them were wonderful to work with, both very, very fast. Rob Merrill could write lyrics so fast, like he wrote lyrics like it was an easy crossword puzzle. And of course we were a show in trouble, so the first act changed a lot, and Mr. Preston had a photographic memory; he really did. So there I was, I'd have to knock on the door and say, "Mr. Preston, could we please run that scene, you know the one they gave us an hour ago?" because he had it. I played a professional mourner hired to mourn at the character that Robert Preston was playing, the funeral of his wife, and this kind of, her name was Leah, and this was her signature song.

[50:54] Robert W. Schneider: We'll work on that, won't we? Neva looked at me, I looked at Neva. Mixed reviews create hope. Hope creates rewrites, rewrites create panic, panic creates more rewrites, and soon everybody is living on coffee and fear. Critics generally agree though on several things. The Yiddish theater sequences were entertaining, Preston was magnetic, the central idea was strong, but the book was not. One reviewer wrote that the show needed to be pruned, shaped, restructured, revamped, fleshed out, slimmed down, and spruced up. In other words, everything. One thing that also the critics loved was the great Neva Small and one of her marvelous, marvelous Bob Merrill songs. Here is Neva looking back on her time in The Prince of Grand Street.

[54:58] ♪ Musical number: "Somehow" — performed by Neva Small ♪

[57:12] Robert W. Schneider: Now, what happens next became legendary. A theater historian once observed that musicals aren't written, they're rewritten, and Prince of Grand Street becomes Exhibit A for us. One critic later joked that Philadelphia audiences had seen an entirely different show from Boston audiences. They had, but Boston audiences saw a different show from Boston audiences. Every night, it seemed to be a different show on stage in Boston. Bob Merrill essentially rewrote the entire show during the Boston engagement, not a part of it or a portion of it, but a whole new first act with faint glimmers of the second act again and again and again. Songs vanished like Leah's I Know What It Is to Be Alone. Songs appeared like Leah's I'm a Girl with Too Much Heart, which was there before but in a different slot.

Scenes changed. Characters moved. Sam Levine, who had spent most of the show in an old age home, relegated offstage. Now, he was onstage a lot as a fruit cart peddler. Plots shifted. To complicate Nathan and Leah, there was now a scene where Leah finds Nathan cheating on her. New songs, new scenes. A scene at the beginning of the week, which was a two-hander between Leah and Nathan, now had people tangoing in the back. Why? Who knows? New dialogue. At one point, people weren't sure which version of the show they were performing anymore. Acclaimed actress Maureen Stapleton was shuttled to town because they thought it would be a good idea to actually meet Ryszomski's first wife. She came. She saw.

She drank. She fled. As did that particular idea. And the results? Boston. Reviews were lukewarm. The box office softened. The production kept changing. The losses mounted. Despite extensive revisions. Despite Preston, who was sick with the flu, still going on giving 100%. Despite Merrill, who eventually stopped rewriting because he knew it wasn't working. Despite Gene Sachs, who left early in their closing week to go back to L.A. knowing it was not working. Despite everybody's best efforts, the show just was not connecting. Elliot Norton in the Boston Herald American said the musical offered a surprising amount of warmth and tenderness. That's nice. But Norton's competitor was Kevin Kelly, and Kevin Kelly's newspaper had a larger reach than Norton's. His headline was, "'Fiddler in the Basement'," and he ended his review with, "'Oi, oi, oi'," which is either a devastating insult or a wonderful title for another musical.

Maybe both. Not even Preston in Boston could be saved. For the first time, adjectives used to describe his performance were desperate and an embarrassment. The most stinging indictment came from critic William B. Collins, who said the show was a model example of what not to do. I'm going to read this to you now. This is from William Collins. Lesson one. Do not begin with a death in the family. It depresses the audience. The curtain goes up at the Forest on a performance of Romeo and Juliet at the Grand Street Tivoli Theater on New York's Lower East Side in 1908. The Yiddish theater is in its prime, and Robert Preston, as one of its phenomenally popular stars, is an over-aged Romeo whose Juliet has just suddenly come back to life just in time to keep him from swallowing this vial of poison.

The moral of the play, we are informed, is that parents shouldn't interfere. That is the kind of rewriting the popular Yiddish theater did to the classics, and we are just getting ourselves set for more fun when Preston, in the person of the Grand Nathan Roshamsky, tells us tearfully in a curtain speech that his beloved wife died earlier in the day. What? His wife is dead? Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. That's too bad. So the man's grief does seem phony. So we discover shortly he hated her. She was his wife, and she's dead, and that is not funny. The crew have hired mourners to a comic number about their fifty-cent fee, and the scene of mourning in the synagogue is all briskly ill-humored distraction, but we are a mite leery of splitting our sides at a wailing funeral wreath.

One of the mourners is an immigrant girl for whom grief is an aphrodisiac. She shows up in Nathan Roshamsky's kitchen, and he decides to marry her. His decision is greeted with alarmed warnings that his public will desert him if he marries before the traditional period of mourning has ended. After a performance of The Sailor from Sevastopol, Roshamsky introduces his bride from the stage, and the curtain falls on Act One, which leads us to Lesson Number Two. Do not raise a question you're not going to answer. It is considered good practice to give the audience something to think about during the intermission, something that brings them back to their seats in a mood of anticipation. Will Roshamsky's public remain loyal to him?

Will he be obliged to resort to some spectacular expedient to keep them, like playing parts suitable to his 60 years instead of juvenile leads? Believe it or not, the subject never comes up again. We're left to assume that Roshamsky's fans do stay with him because he goes on doing the same old trash and, to demonstrate his appeal, undertakes the role of Huckleberry Finn. Why did author Bob Merrill get us all worked up about the issue if he was going to keep just dropping it, just to make sure we returned after intermission? While Roshamsky's marriage to the girl follows the serene and dull course of true love, trouble is made by a theater critic who has known Roshamsky for 30 years and keeps panning him for pandering to low popular tastes.

He respects the actor's talent and wishes it were used to elevate and enlighten the public. The critic also wishes Roshamsky would quit playing boy's parts. Lesson Number Three. Do not make a drama critic more interesting than your hero. It confuses people. Critics are stock villains in the theater, and it is dangerous to treat one of them sympathetically. Other goers might start paying attention to the real ones, and then where would you be? As portrayed by Werner Klemperer, critic Julius Pitkin is an elegant and thoughtful man whom anyone would like to meet. Worse, he happens to be right. By contrast, Nathan Roshamsky is not only wrong, but he is a rather dull egomaniac. His powerful hold on the Lower East Side's huddled masses is a mystery.

The show has no use for Robert Preston's breezy American charm. Nothing could be more alien to the Preston persona, which has been put in cold storage. Lesson Number Four. Unless you're writing I Do, I Do, do not have your lovers get married in the first act. Love stories are romantic. Happy marriages only lower the blood pressure. There is hardly time to consider the barriers in the way of the age of Nathan and his adoring young Leah. They are swept aside with breathtaking speed, which leaves Neva Small with nothing to do but sing again and again about how wonderful it is to be married to such a man. The warmth of her devotion is supposed to melt our hearts when actually it tends to put us to sleep.

The songs are also by Merrill, and one of them, The Youngest Person I Know, gives Preston and Miss Small one of their rare opportunities for lively fun, with Preston doing those walking dance steps he's so good at. Suddenly you remember that he was Mary Martin's loving mate. I Do, I Do, and you wish he still were. But enough of these lessons. What The Prince of Grand Street is most egregiously lacking is the energy and dash and flamboyance of the theatrical era it celebrates. The production comes closest to that in the takeoffs on the kinds of shows the Yiddish theater audience has lapped up so avidly. We see a billiard playing Mark Twain recoiling at the thought of the gray-haired Roshamsky as Huck Finn, but Roshamsky does it anyway, looking grotesque in blonde curls and bare feet, rescuing a black-faced Jim from hanging with the quality of mercy speech from The Merchant of Venice.

Merrill's ethnic impulse has allowed free reign in the songs he has written for these parodies, and if choreographer Lee Theodore can just come up with some original ideas for the dances, those flights into the theatrical past will take wing. Merrill and his director Gene Sachs might also devise some ways to get the rest of the show into brighter settings and a sprightlier frame of mind so that everyone doesn't seem to always be dressed in gray or black. They might also think of something better for Sam Levine to do. He plays Miss Small's grandfather, who has nothing whatsoever to do with the story but is there to do little comedy routines of the sort that Levine is a master in. There is one missing element that no one will be able to supply—the lively, colorful audience that made the Yiddish theater a place of fervent communion.

If there were some ways to show us the enthusiastic response that the public would give to an Abraham Lincoln promising to turn Illinois into a Jewish homeland, as he does at the Grand Street Tivoli, we might not feel so superior to Nathan Roshamsky. We might have second thoughts about critic Pitkin and his civilizing mission, and we would certainly have a better time at The Prince of Grand Street. By April, the decision had been made. The Broadway opening was canceled. The Palace Theater engagement disappeared. The musical would close in Boston on April 15, 1978. The final loss approached a million dollars, and just like that, The Prince of Grand Street was gone. Had it come in, I don't think the show would have been nominated for much.

Neva Small, I'm sure, would get a nomination, but if it was for leading actress, she would have contended against Liza Minnelli, Madeline Kahn, and Eartha Kitt. If they put her in supporting, her contenders would have been Nell Carter, Imogen Coca, and Anne Reinking. The biggest loser, though, was Alice Solomon of Farmingham, Massachusetts. Her story was in front-page news in Boston because she demanded a refund of $15. Because if the show wasn't going to Broadway, then it must be really, really bad, and she didn't want to spend $15 on a bad show. She didn't get the refund. Now, let's answer the central question. Why did The Prince of Grand Street fail? I mean, the easy answer is the book, and that's true.

But it's incomplete. The deeper problem was identity. The show never decided what it wanted to be. Was it a romance? A history of the Yiddish theater? The answer was yes. All of them. And that's too many answers. The critics who liked the show liked different parts. The critics who disliked it disliked different parts. Nobody agreed because the show itself couldn't decide. And unlike We Take the Town, maybe the show would have worked better if there was someone else in the role besides Robert Preston. And Preston, for all his charm and brilliance, was not the person you think of when you think Yiddish theater with its volatile energy. You need Zero Mostel, but he was dead. You need Sid Caesar, but he was drying out in California, although watch his workout video on YouTube and you'll see time was well spent.

I'd even take Jackie Mason. But Bob Preston? Robert Preston looks like the guy who gets nervous when they allow Jackie Mason into the club. In a later interview, Bob Merrill admitted that the show was written for another star. It was not for Robert Preston. It was a farce, and Bob Preston played it seriously. Bob Merrill wanted Walter Matthau or Danny Kaye. Some said that the show was better in Philadelphia before the rewrites. There were rumors that Cy Fuehr, the producer, would take it to the LA Civic Light Opera, but alas, that never occurred. This was Robert Preston's last new musical, the final original musical role of one of Broadway's greatest leading men. There would be acting work. There would be Victor Victoria, for which he would get an Oscar nomination.

There would be the films. There would be television. There was a rumor that he was the original choice for George in Le Cageau Faux, but there would never be another major Broadway-bound musical built around the great Robert Preston. The prince had reached the end of the road, and nine years later, in 1987, Bob Preston would pass away. Somehow that's fitting, because Nathan Ryschomsky spends the entire show trying to stop time, trying to remain young, trying to preserve a theatrical world that's disappearing around him. The Yiddish theater was fading. Nathan didn't want to accept it. Broadway was changing. I don't think Robert Preston wanted to accept that either, or perhaps he simply understood it better than anyone.

At the beginning of the episode, we asked, why did Robert Preston agree to play a Jewish matinee idol? The answer isn't because he was Jewish, it isn't because he loved the score, and it isn't because he thought he had another Music Man. He said yes because Nathan Ryschomsky scared him. And sometimes the roles that scare actors are the ones they need the most. The Prince of Grand Street wasn't Robert Preston's greatest musical. It wasn't his biggest hit. It wasn't even his best performance. But it may have been his most revealing, because for one brief moment, Robert Preston wasn't playing a con man, or a revolutionary, or a king. He was playing an aging actor, desperately trying to hold on to a world that was disappearing.

And if that's not theater, I don't know what is. Now, both We Take the Town and The Prince of Grand Street were not successful in execution, but the stories were both ripe for musical theater potential. So what happens when the material is not ripe for musical theater potential? Like a musical about, oh, I don't know, an auction. Or maybe a musical about Watergate. Both starring TV's Jean Barry, who ended up playing George in Le Cageau Faux. Yes, friends, Spotlight and Watergate the Musical on our next episode of Broadway Bound, the musicals that never came to Broadway. Bye-bye.

[1:10:21] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, friends. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Broadway Bound, the musicals that never came to Broadway. Just a reminder that it takes a lot of research and assistance to get these episodes produced, and any financial assistance is always appreciated. If you like what we are doing, please head over to robwschneider.com, that's R-O-B-W-S-C-H-N-E-I-D-E-R.com. Click the tab that says AMTA, that stands for the American Musical Theater Archives, and make a tax-deductible donation to keep shows like this one on the air. Oh, my gosh, I sound so much like PBS right now, I'm so sorry. And sadly, I can't even send you a tote bag, but I can wave energetically if I see you on the street, and isn't that worth the price of a donation alone?

Actually, donate to PBS, that way they can send you a tote bag, you can put it over your head so nobody sees me waving at you if you're really ashamed and embarrassed of my vociferous energy. Once again, robwschneider.com, click AMTA, make a tax-deductible donation, and I will be forever grateful.