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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. This is the first of a three-part series celebrating the extraordinary career of producer-director Harold Hal Prince. This program originally aired in 1983 on the occasion of Prince's 55th birthday and covered the first 30 years of Prince's storied career, from Pajama Game to A Doll's Life.

[0:40] ♪ Musical number: "Christopher Street" — performed by the cast of Wonderful Town ♪

[3:38] ♪ Musical number: "Pretty Little Picture" — performed by Zero Mostel ♪

[6:24] ♪ Musical number: "Buenos Aires" — performed by Patti LuPone and the company of Evita ♪

[11:24] Paul Lazarus: And welcome to Anything Goes, this is Paul Lazarus. You may be wondering what those three shows that I just featured have in common. You heard "Christopher Street" from Wonderful Town, Zero Mostel singing "Pretty Little Picture" from Forum, and finally Patti LuPone and the company singing "Buenos Aires" from Evita. And now, if you can't figure it out, those three shows are all connected to one man, by various means, Hal Prince, and it is Harold Prince's 55th birthday today, and we couldn't overlook that fact here in Anything Goes, so we thought we'd informally trace Mr. Prince's career musically today, and go through many, many of the shows that he's been involved with, either as producer or director, producer and director, and he's been involved in various permutations of those jobs on many, many shows and an extraordinary career.

[12:30] Paul Lazarus: And let's start right up at the beginning. Prince worked on Wonderful Town after he'd come back from serving in the Korean War, and returned to his work with George Abbott, who basically, I think we can say, he served his apprenticeship in the business under, and has often said publicly how indebted he is to Mr. Abbott. Prince's first producing enterprise was with his first partner, Bobby Griffith, and they had been producing a television show together, and Bobby Griffith read in the New York Times a review of a book called Seven and a Half Cents, and immediately called Prince and suggested that it might make a musical, and they went around offering it to just about everyone, every major composer and lyricist and everyone, and they all turned it down.

And Abbott suggested that they send for the novelist, Richard Bissell, to see if he might be interested in collaborating with him, and that worked out. And then, as I'm quoting from Prince's own book, Notes on 26 Years in the Theater, "We had no money, not for options, not for stationery. George Abbott provided everything. He gave us an office with telephones, and we did our own secretarial work, and that's it. Although he must have kept a record of all of it, he never billed us. After the Pajama Game opened, we began contributing to the rent," and that's the rent of Abbott's office, "and ever since, Prince and Abbott have shared an office."

[14:11] Paul Lazarus: You are listening to Anything Goes with a tribute to Hal Prince, which first aired in 1983 on the occasion of Prince's 55th birthday. Frank Lesser, the composer and lyricist,

[14:25] Paul Lazarus: Introduced Prince and Griffith to Dick Adler and Jerry Ross, who'd had a couple of hits on the pop list, Rags to Riches and, as Prince says, something of Harry Belafonte's, the name of which escapes me. They had the team of Adler and Ross wrote three audition pieces on spec. Steam Heat was one, and the opening number, Racing with the Clock, was another. As Prince writes, the show was theirs.

[15:17] ♪ Musical number: "Racing with the Clock" — performed by the cast of The Pajama Game ♪

[17:52] Paul Lazarus: Racing with the Clock from The Pajama Game, the first effort of the team of producers of Griffith, Prince, and a man named Frederick Grissom. I was just looking at Stanley Green's book, Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre, and Prince's first show as a producer was in 1954, which means as a producer and or director, he's been involved in the theatre 29 years, and I think as you will see as we progress today, it's been a very fruitful, roughly 30 years in the theatre, and we all wish him happiest of birthdays. The next show that the same producing team, Bobby Griffith, Hal Prince, and Frederick Grissom, became Damn Yankees, based on a book called The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, and it was first brought to the attention by two of George Abbott, by an agent at William Morris named Albert Taylor, and I guess Abbott liked it, and Prince and Grissom and Griffith chose to produce it.

And all throughout the program today, I'm going to be quoting from Hal Prince's book Contradictions, which is I think a very apt title and a good one for a book written by Hal Prince. It's very interesting to see how often there's a fluctuation of opinion. The only other lesson to be learned from that show, referring to Damn Yankees, was that despite the pretty good reviews, there was a resistance to the baseball theme. Our advertising had been keyed to a picture of Gwen, Gwen Verdon that is, in a baseball uniform. Saucy was the word. Still, we never sold more than $250 worth of tickets a day during the first four weeks of the run, so our success suddenly looked to be a disaster, until we changed the ads to a picture of Gwen singing Whatever Lola Wants, and excised all references to baseball, even changing the color of the ad from ballpark green to red. One Monday morning, three and a half weeks later, there was a long line waiting for the box office to open.

[20:05] ♪ Musical number: "Whatever Lola Wants" — performed by Gwen Verdon ♪

[23:17] Paul Lazarus: Gwen Verdon, saucy, singing Whatever Lola Wants from Damn Yankees. And if you just joined us, this is Anything Goes with Paul Lazarus. And today, an informal tribute on Harold Prince's 55th birthday, born January 30th, 1928. And a voyage, musically, through his career from the writing, actually the producing of Pajama Game in 1954, well, up to his latest show on Broadway, that is, A Doll's Life. The last production of the team of Brisson, Prince, and Griffith was a Bob Merrill show called New Girl in Town, based on Anna Christie, and also featured the talents of Gwen Verdon. In retrospect, Prince has written that even though the show was a hit and ran well over a year, he doesn't feel it was nearly as good as it could have been, and felt that Anna Christie should have been made into an opera, really, and not a musical comedy.

And if they had stuck with their original concept, which was to not have Gwen Verdon dance and do the kinds of things she was known for, but to really play the part of this downtrodden woman without dancing. But when apparently they were out of town and thought they were in trouble and the panic button started to be pushed, more and more dance numbers were put in, and Prince feels, or at least writes in his book, Notes on 26 Years in the Theatre, that the show really went downhill. Here from that score by Bob Merrill is The Sunshine Girl.

[25:04] ♪ Musical number: "The Sunshine Girl" — performed by the cast of New Girl in Town ♪

[28:25] Paul Lazarus: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and follow us. Thanks for listening.