This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Bruce Gotlieb: Recently I got to see the most fun show. It's called Balls the Musical and we're so lucky to have the creator and star Harrison Bryan and Stuart Zagnit. Hello you guys.

[0:08] Harrison Bryan: Hello.

[0:09] Stuart Zagnit: Hi.

[0:10] Bruce Gotlieb: Thank you guys so much for joining us.

[0:12] Harrison Bryan: Thanks for letting us bring Balls into the universe and into your homes and we couldn't be more excited to talk about this crazy, crazy show.

[0:20] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, you say it's a show and of course it is, but it also feels like a party when you're there because it's just like this celebration and it's all about Pokemon.

[0:28] Harrison Bryan: Well, legally I will never agree to that. It is not all about Pokemon, but it suggests something very much like Pokemon.

[0:36] Bruce Gotlieb: So can we say inspired by? Is that?

[0:39] Harrison Bryan: I think we celebrate and lampoon the Monster Catching Universe that we may feel nostalgic about growing up in the 90s and today even. It looks like the Monster Catching Universe has no signs of slowing down and what we do is we take that familiar universe and give you something that's totally flipped on its head. And so, yeah, I would say it's lovingly lampooning.

[0:56] Bruce Gotlieb: Perfect. So Stuart is starring in this show and Stuart is actually in the real Pokemon universe. He plays Professor Oak. So Stuart, how did you get involved in this musical?

[1:05] Stuart Zagnit: Well, they had some compromising pictures of me. No, actually Harrison and Brandon, the creators of this wonderful production, we knew each other through a different project that was non-Monster Catching. So I was in a theater production of theirs a few years ago and they knew me because of my connection to the Pokemon universe. So when an opportunity came for me to join it, they reached out to me just to see if maybe I was interested. And I looked at my calendar and I said, I think I can work this in. And we started there and I guess you'd say the rest is kind of history because we had three really wonderful sellout performances back in May and then we came back, right? Or was it April and then May?

[2:02] Harrison Bryan: It was April, yeah. We brought Stuart on in March, had three shows in April.

[2:08] Stuart Zagnit: So Stuart was so wonderful in learning the entire show in less than a month, basically. We just sort of said, who in our crazy circle could we make the strongest Hail Mary throw to? And getting the actual professor in our world seemed like the craziest idea, but Stuart was so game for it.

[2:24] Bruce Gotlieb: But that's a huge deal because I brought someone to the show and they were so excited. Well, first of all, they were excited because they love the theme of the show, because they love Pokemon. But the fact that Stuart was in it was just over the top. They couldn't wait to get there and they just had the best time and he couldn't wait to meet Stuart after the show. And Stuart is so lovely and greeted so many people afterwards. I mean, it was just the loveliest thing to watch.

[2:50] Harrison Bryan: So, and this is now going on, you have performances people can come to this month and next month?

[2:56] Stuart Zagnit: Yeah, we've got June 21st. We've got a 4:15 and a 9:30 in July. We're also back on July 18th and July 19th. And then we're coming back August 5th as well. It's kind of this crazy pop-up model where you never know where Balls is going to show up. You never know when it's going to be, but hopefully you're in the in and you get to see these sort of mystery pop-up shows.

[3:18] Harrison Bryan: It's so much fun. I mean, the audience is sort of like one entity, right? Everyone is involved in the show and it's interactive and there's a splash zone and you kindly give out ponchos and everything. It's just, it's really the most fun night you can imagine. And you don't even have to like Pokemon to go. It's just, you're going to have fun anyway, but if you are a fan of that or video games in general, you're going to love it.

[3:41] Stuart Zagnit: And it has original music. It's a full entertainment. I'd say it's a multimedia extravaganza in a way, because we have this great back screen. The illustrations are fun and colorful. We've got original music that people have never heard that are just so clever and full of whimsy, I guess that's the word. And, you know, it's a little naughty at the same time without being, you know, grotesque. And I think it's a full evening. It's a full meal of terrific entertainment. The cast is excellent. Puppeteers, Harrison, you're one of them. I mean, it's just, there's everything, but it's not especially for kids. Kids can come if they're mature, but it's really like a midnight kind of thing, right?

[4:20] Harrison Bryan: Yeah, no, I think we wanted to bring to the audience the same type of energy and visual stimulation that you would get from playing the games, watching the anime. I think living in a cartoon universe and a gaming universe is really important to us, and how do you do that theatrically? And theatrically, you do that through a multimedia and immersive experience where there is no fourth wall. The audience and the characters on stage are constantly intermingling. You've mentioned the splash zone, like we're in an actual water fight for the last fifth of the show. You've mentioned the idea of it being a party vibe, right? Like, we are drinking, we are eating in the midst of the show. It is a full meal in a lot of respects in that way.

[4:59] Stuart Zagnit: And I would say, yeah, I mean, currently the show is at Caveat, which is a bar, so you do need to be 21 up to be invited in, but it speaks to your inner child, right? Let your inner kid come to the show.

[5:10] Harrison Bryan: Yeah, absolutely. But I love that it's edgy.

[5:13] Bruce Gotlieb: Harrison, how did this project come to be? Like, I guess sitting around, what birthed the show for you?

[5:19] Harrison Bryan: Yeah, Brandon and I have always been a big fan of the underdog stories and a big fan of the non-playable characters in these games. Like in the Monster Catching world, you're usually like a 10-year-old and you walk into the world and you try and catch all these monsters. And the person who introduced you to this world is a professor. And this professor only knows about the world from the confines of his lab. And nobody questions it because he's the adult figure of this universe. And Brandon and I have always looked at that with a certain whimsy and we're like, well, what is the story of this grandpa figure who's just handing out balls to an endless amount of 10-year-olds? Is there a story to be told here?

Because no one has told this story. And so we wrote one song from the perspective of this character at a talent show, and we played it on a ukulele and people went cuckoo for it and laughed a lot. And we thought, okay, what's something crazy? Why don't we turn this one song into a full musical? And over the pandemic, when we locked ourselves in a Zoom room for three hours every day for a year, we just kept coming back to the idea that we can expand a fictional universe inside of a universe that we love and know. And we took out all of Nintendo IP, we trusted our imaginations. That's sort of where it was born. And then about a year and a half ago, we did a Kickstarter campaign and raised enough money to put on this proof of concept.

And now we had over 400 backers on that Kickstarter, which is still active. And we wanted to give something to these 400 backers and say, hey, your time and your money was well spent. Here's an entertaining evening, and a very theatrical one. And that's where we're at.

[8:03] Bruce Gotlieb: And you don't know who's going to show up because the night I was there, the star of Pokemon, Stuart, your colleague who plays Ash was there and participated and you guys called her up on stage. Did she know that was going to happen?

[8:14] Harrison Bryan: I had just seen her at another anime convention, I think like maybe the week before. And it turns out when I talked about she goes, you know, she and her daughter who travels with her, she's on the road all the time doing conventions, because I think we're going to be in New York that weekend. And maybe we can come see your show. And I went, that would be unbelievable. So sure enough, she didn't know she was going to be called up on stage. That was a surprise. But they did put her in a perfect chair that's meant for a moment in the show where we do bring someone up from the audience. So but she was a really good sport about it. And the audience went crazy.

[9:06] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh my gosh, yes. You know, it was that icing on the cake. The show itself is so much fun, but then to have her also there. And it was such a good sport about it. So I think that just added to the.

[9:16] Stuart Zagnit: And Bruce, correct if I'm wrong, but like pretty historic in the fact that while you were working together, you never actually were in the same place at the same time with Veronica Taylor, right?

[9:25] Stuart Zagnit: Really, too. The entire series was always done one performer at a time. So if I was if I had a session at 10 or 11, I'd come in and the door would open and Veronica would come out and then I'd go in and then maybe Eric Stewart would come in. So we never ever recorded the show simultaneously. They always built it one voice at a time. And so, yeah, this was like a first time for us. We did we did work together on the Pokemon Christmas Bash and we had a number called I'm Giving Santa a Pikachu this Christmas. So that that was the only time that we actually worked in a room together.

[10:05] Bruce Gotlieb: That's funny.

[10:06] Stuart Zagnit: And then we'd always see each other socially if if there were some parties or holiday things, then we'd get together.

[10:12] Harrison Bryan: Yeah. And when I'm on the road doing anime conventions, we do panels. And that's like a big reunion for us for us, too. And we have such a great time because then we can actually banter with each other and play off each other. So it's been it's been a nice like after party to the show.

[10:27] Bruce Gotlieb: So after the August date that you guys have, has there been if you're if you're able to share there, what's the next step from there for the show?

[10:34] Stuart Zagnit: Sure. I mean, we it's a very unconventional way of producing theater. And we are excited to continue to explore and push the envelope of how theater gets made in this city in particular. But the show has ambitions to not only speak to the theater going audience, but also the nerd culture, anime and gaming audiences as well. So right now we're in discussion with New York Comic-Con, right? We're going to apply and hopefully we'll be fully embraced by the Comic-Con conventions, hopefully not only in New York, right? There's Comic-Cons all over the country and quite frankly, all over the world. So, you know, there's there's an audience here nationally and there's an international audience as well for the show.

I think we are just continuing to invite like minded theater producers and gaming producers to the show so that they can fully experience it as well. And we can have larger conversations about how to scale balls bigger and how to scale balls smaller. Like, can this travel like I sometimes I I'm I'm inside the show as well. And I was on a I was on a children's theater tour for six months. And the energy of like a children's theater tour is not unlike balls, right? It's a lot of I mean, there's there's moments in the show where the audience is chucking balls onto the stage as if we are playing a beach volleyball game, right? And it's like, yeah, we are we are actively in a musical, but it's also a game.

And so I think where balls can live, whether that's in an actual theater venue, or in a gutted art gallery in a completely immersive space, like, there's so many ways I think this play can be achieved. And I do say achieved, because it is a feat. Every single time we do this, like, we don't know what's going to survive by the end of this show. And that's part of I think the charm and the adventure.

[13:19] Harrison Bryan: You're right. It doesn't have to be any kind of traditional setting.

[13:22] Stuart Zagnit: Right.

[13:23] Harrison Bryan: I think I'm just excited to see the many different avenues Balls can live inside of. I mean, it's like, it's gonna be up to a large team, I think. I think we are interested in collaborating.

[13:34] Stuart Zagnit: Multidisciplinary. I mean, the show itself is a multidisciplinary collaboration between visual artists, performers, recycling goods. We're even in, like, we're even in discussion with New York Marine Rescue Center about, like, how we can continue to support and advocate for turtle empowerment and rescue and rehabilitation for marine life. So I mean, again, it's just sprinkled into, like, how many people are going to be excited about this project, and where can it go from here?

[14:05] Harrison Bryan: When I was there, I was sitting with the turtle people.

[14:07] Stuart Zagnit: You were?

[14:08] Harrison Bryan: Yeah. It was so great.

[14:11] Stuart Zagnit: Wow. What was their experience watching the show? Can you share, like, were you able to, like?

[14:16] Harrison Bryan: I was so, you know, I was so into the show that I really forgot that they were there to be perfect.

[14:22] Stuart Zagnit: That's amazing. That's amazing. They had a great time.

[14:26] Harrison Bryan: I mean, and then you guys made an announcement afterwards, and you adopted a turtle, and it was just, it's, you know, it was great. It was really, that even added to it.

[14:34] Stuart Zagnit: That's really funny. Speaking of, Warlord Turtle wanted to be on the show today, but he just texted me, he said, my meeting with Spittle is running long. Hashtag world domination. I don't know what he means by that.

[14:44] Harrison Bryan: All right.

[14:45] Stuart Zagnit: I'm a little nervous, honestly.

[14:47] Harrison Bryan: Me too. Me too.

[14:48] Stuart Zagnit: Always good news for him. It's always good.

[14:51] Harrison Bryan: I would be remiss, Harrison, if I didn't mention that you and I have a mutual friend, this wonderful veteran actor who pops up in a cameo in a video in this show. Can you tell me about that?

[15:03] Harrison Bryan: Yes. Rory Lance is our mutual friend, and my high school drama teacher, and a wonderful mentor through the years. Also an author as well.

[15:13] Stuart Zagnit: Yes.

[15:13] Harrison Bryan: Got a couple of books out. And so, yeah, we, there's a puppet in the show that plays Stuart's father in a flashback scene in the second half of the show. And he's wearing, this puppet, by the way, was found just on the street, like on a street corner.

[15:30] Stuart Zagnit: Really?

[15:31] Harrison Bryan: There is a lore in the puppetry community that if you find a puppet, there is a spirit of an old puppeteer inside of it.

[15:41] Stuart Zagnit: So we have this haunted puppet in our show.

[15:45] Harrison Bryan: Yeah, it's very Twilight Zone.

[15:47] Stuart Zagnit: It's very weird, but it's perfect for the part. We were like, where are we going to get an old grandpa puppet? And then we found one creepy on the street. And so this puppet is dressed up in like a sweater vest and a bow tie. And I was looking at him one day and I was like, I think Rory could be this pup. And so there's the scene in an opening where we do a lot of like, again, we do a lot of mixed media and a lot of digital projections on the screen. And Rory is acting in my basement. It was the first time he was over my house and he's in my basement. And he's doing like all this sort of quirky acting that the puppet would do, but in real life. So a lot of times you see like people puppeteering on screen, but this is actually a person pretending to be a puppet on a screen. And in real life, he is a puppet. So Rory was a great sport about it. And, you know, we did, we did almost an hour of filming in my basement.

[16:35] Stuart Zagnit: Wow.

[16:36] Harrison Bryan: And, and yeah, he's, he's great. And for those, he's got a great six second cameo.

[16:40] Stuart Zagnit: He does. He does. And it was a thrill for me to see.

[16:43] Harrison Bryan: Yeah. All right.

[16:45] Stuart Zagnit: When I worked away, he aged me for that sequence.

[16:49] Harrison Bryan: Well, how can people get tickets for the show? So the next show is June 21st. Yes.

[16:55] Stuart Zagnit: Yes. June 21st. We've got two shows. Then in July, we'll have some more shows. That's July 18th and 19th. August 5th is our last summer confirmed show. And hopefully from more there. But I think if everybody wants to go to ballsmusical.com, that's where ticket sales are going to be. We've got promo codes all over our Instagram and our TikTok as well. That's at ballsmusical. I would just say, please feel free to like also hit us up. Like we're very communicative online. So if anybody messages us, we'll, we'll respond. We we're, we're offering people tickets all the time. Like we want as many people as possible to come to this show. So we're happy to chat more.

[17:37] Harrison Bryan: Thank you so much. Both of you for joining us. This was great.

[17:40] Stuart Zagnit: Did I miss it? Did I miss it? Is the whole thing over? Did I miss it?

[17:44] Warlord Turtle: I'm Warlord Turtle and I'm here to take over this podcast.

[17:48] Harrison Bryan: Oh, I'm getting nervous. Stuart, what can we do?

[17:51] Stuart Zagnit: I'll just, just say there's no place like home.

[17:55] Warlord Turtle: There's no place like home.

[17:57] Harrison Bryan: Oh wow. Dark theory. Stuart, you won this time, but I will win the battle. Drama queen, I'm just letting you know.

[18:07] Stuart Zagnit: Oh my gosh.

[18:08] Warlord Turtle: Wow.

[18:09] Stuart Zagnit: That was close.

[18:10] Harrison Bryan: That was really close.

[18:11] Stuart Zagnit: Does that bring back memories of starring as Seymour in the original Little Shop of Horrors?

[18:16] Warlord Turtle: Oh my God.

[18:17] Stuart Zagnit: In that production?

[18:18] Warlord Turtle: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the, probably the highlights of my career was the original show ran from 1982 to 1987.

[18:29] Stuart Zagnit: Yeah.

[18:29] Warlord Turtle: And in the last year, they were looking to, they were recasting the show and I was the last Seymour in the original production. And that was a dream come true for me, because I had seen it at the WPA before it even moved up.

[18:44] Stuart Zagnit: Oh wow.

[18:45] Warlord Turtle: And then 34 years later, I came back and went to the West Side Theatre where the revival is still running and I got to play Mr. Mushner.

[18:55] Stuart Zagnit: Oh wow.

[18:56] Warlord Turtle: That's kind of a bucket list thing that I'm very proud of.

[18:59] Stuart Zagnit: That's really a full circle. Well, I mean-

[19:01] Warlord Turtle: It's so special and it's a great production. I've seen it. It's so good.

[19:05] Stuart Zagnit: Yeah. It so respects the original feeling of the Orpheum production.

[19:12] Warlord Turtle: Yeah.

[19:12] Stuart Zagnit: I love that Orpheum production so much. I saw it-

[19:15] Warlord Turtle: And Michael Madner really did a good job of honoring the original and also coming up with some touches that were new and fresh, which didn't really take away from it. It totally holds the spirit of the original. And it was such a joy to be part of that for a little bit of time.

[19:35] Stuart Zagnit: I'm sure. I'm sure. What a thrill. Well, thank you guys. So everyone go see Balls. It's a perfect summer show because it's a party. It's fun. You're going to laugh. You're just going to want to go back again and again. And you can because I have a feeling that it changes a little bit each time.

[19:51] Warlord Turtle: Yeah. Yeah. We never know what puppets are going to attack Stuart. We never know how Stuart's going to fight back. The audience is helping us save the world each night. So we need you there.

[20:06] Stuart Zagnit: All right. Well-

[20:07] Harrison Bryan: Without giving any away, there is a little part of improv in there that we get to do every night, which is really fun. And then you just get to feel whatever is going on around you.

[20:13] Stuart Zagnit: And we do a lot from the audience. We do. Yeah. Well, this is the next cult musical. So get on early and see it often. Thank you so much. We're so excited.

[20:29] Harrison Bryan: Thank you guys. Thank you guys for joining us. Keep us posted on all your goings on with this show.

[20:35] Stuart Zagnit: Yes, we will. All right. Thank you.

[20:41] Norm Lewis: Hi, this is Norm Lewis. And behind the awards, we'll be right back.

[20:47] Eila Mell: I'm excited to talk to David Rothenberg. He has been around. I mean, he is a veteran.

[20:53] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes. And he's got this great book, Manhattan Mayhem. And let's bring him on because I really don't even want to wait.

[21:01] Eila Mell: Right. No, he tells all about, I mean, he's got decades and decades of history with the city and Broadway and theater.

[21:12] Bruce Gotlieb: I know he's so interesting. He's had a show forever. And I think we just need to get him out. So let's we went from Balls now to David Rothenberg. So let's bring David out.

[21:24] Eila Mell: Absolutely.

[21:25] Bruce Gotlieb: We are so happy to welcome David Rothenberg to our show, the author of the new book, Manhattan Mayhem. Hi, David.

[21:33] David Rothenberg: Good morning. If it's morning, it certainly is. And we're thrilled to have you with us.

[21:38] Eila Mell: Well, modern technology plays whenever a show that it could be any time of the day.

[21:43] David Rothenberg: Couldn't it? It's wonderful.

[21:44] Bruce Gotlieb: That's very true.

[21:45] David Rothenberg: Everything is streaming. It's a new world.

[21:47] Eila Mell: It is. We no longer have these shared experiences of watching TV at the same time.

[21:53] David Rothenberg: It's very different.

[21:56] Eila Mell: I miss the old world.

[21:58] David Rothenberg: I know. So is it OK to say your age? I mean, it's been all...

[22:02] Eila Mell: It's been all over the place.

[22:03] David Rothenberg: I know.

[22:04] David Rothenberg: I've become a spokesperson for the nearly dead.

[22:09] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, so, David, you are 91. Is that right?

[22:11] David Rothenberg: That's it.

[22:12] Bruce Gotlieb: That's amazing. So how is...

[22:16] David Rothenberg: How do you get there?

[22:17] David Rothenberg: Well, that's the lucky part.

[22:21] Bruce Gotlieb: But how have things evolved since, I guess, the beginning of your career to now?

[22:25] David Rothenberg: In the theater or in the world?

[22:27] Bruce Gotlieb: Whichever is more interesting to you.

[22:29] David Rothenberg: Well, they're all connected. Yesterday, I was at a meeting. It was a luncheon with a half a dozen theater people. We had all started early in our careers with Alexander Cohen in the early 60s. And nothing but memories. And we talked about how different things are now in the theater. Jules Fisher was there. Do you know who he is?

[22:48] Bruce Gotlieb: I do. I know Jules.

[22:50] David Rothenberg: With about 800 Tony nominations.

[22:52] Bruce Gotlieb: I didn't know.

[22:53] David Rothenberg: Michael Alpert, who worked with me at Alex Cohen's office, who went on to work with Joe Levine and Ted Chapin. And Davina Belling, Meg Simon, who was one of the outstanding casting directors. She said she was the receptionist at Alex's office.

[23:10] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh my gosh.

[23:10] David Rothenberg: I was the press agent during... The big news, of course, was the Richard Burton Hamlet, which was when I worked with Richard and Elizabeth Taylor. And I brought my Tony book there. And we were reading all the nominations from those early years. Can you imagine in one year there was... Ethel Merman lost in Gypsy. She didn't win for Gypsy. Everybody else who ever played Gypsy won.

[23:34] Bruce Gotlieb: That is so funny.

[23:35] David Rothenberg: Mary Martin and Carol Burnett were the other people. And Mary Martin won for Sound of Music. But we were just reading the names. It was like a gap. In the early 60s, all of these extraordinary... Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Julie Harris, Kim Stanley, George C. Scott.

[23:55] Bruce Gotlieb: And even today, they resonate, don't they?

[23:57] David Rothenberg: Absolutely.

[23:58] Bruce Gotlieb: Absolutely.

[23:59] David Rothenberg: And I think it was... What's different, I think, is people had theater careers, which was different than two minutes after your first review going to Hollywood and getting a series. So that's different. But there's still... When you go to the theater today, you still see extraordinary talent. They come from all over the country. The best and the brightest and the most talented. They sing and they dance. I've always said that if you look at a chorus line in any Broadway musical today or 50 years ago, you think it's the same kids. But the energy, the talent, and the zip and the zest, it's just... They're interchangeable.

[24:37] Bruce Gotlieb: Have you had the opportunity to see anything recently on Broadway?

[24:41] David Rothenberg: Every week I go. I go a couple of times a week.

[24:44] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, amazing.

[24:46] David Rothenberg: I saw Ghost. And contrary to popular opinion, I did not go to the opening night with Ibsen in Sweden. I saw Audre Dieu in Gypsy.

[24:59] Bruce Gotlieb: So you liked Ethel Merman better, I hear.

[25:02] David Rothenberg: Well, you know, the interesting thing, everybody won the Tony. Angela won it, Lansbury, Tyne Daly won it. I saw them. I saw Bernadette do it. I saw Linda Lavin. They're all wonderful, as is Audre. But Merman was meat and potatoes. That was it. I had never seen her before. In 1959, she planted her feet on the ground. She belted it out. There were no mics in those days. I always said one of my life ambitions would have been to see what stage manager had to put a mic on Miss Merman. I could just hear her saying, for what?

[25:45] David Rothenberg: I saw Buena Vista Social Club. That's wonderful. I'd seen it off-Broadway. Have you seen it?

[25:49] Bruce Gotlieb: I did see it, yeah.

[25:50] David Rothenberg: Oh, it's stunning. I saw Death Becomes Her. And then I go to off-Broadway a lot. And I go to the movies, and I watch NBA basketball games, and I swim every morning.

[26:01] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, you are very well-rounded.

[26:04] David Rothenberg: And I do a radio program every week.

[26:06] Bruce Gotlieb: Amazing.

[26:09] David Rothenberg: I was going to say, you've been now, I believe the stat is 60 years on the radio?

[26:15] David Rothenberg: I came in with Marconi. He was the man that invented radio. We went to school together. I came to BAI in 68, so that's 70, 30, 25.

[26:30] Bruce Gotlieb: That is 56 years. Oh, 57, okay, yeah.

[26:35] David Rothenberg: All right, so right on the cusp there.

[26:38] David Rothenberg: Really? Wow. So, you know, you've worked with so many people, but, you know, not just people, legends of theater and film too. Is there any common theme? If I can drop a name, by the way, I do a one-person show called Name Dropping. One of the stories I tell is about working with Bette Davis in Night of the Iguana, and everybody had warned me, you do know who Bette Davis is. Oh my gosh. Of course. When I talk to younger people, I'm always stunned by who they don't know. That's scary. I worked with her on Iguana, and I was just the assistant, assistant press rep. Right. But I was assigned to her because I intruded. I told my boss, Ben Washer, that I, you know, I always thought Bette Davis and Spencer Tracy were my idea of real actors in Hollywood.

And I knew he had a long association working with her. But when Iguana was out of town in Chicago before it came in, I wrote these little couplets of, you know, one was, Will it be, I'll never see my favorite actress, Betty D. And Ben gave them all to her. And she said, Ben, bring the boy around. Oh, I like. So I did the first Wednesday matinee. And I knew, you know, I thought I was just going to meet her and Ben would represent her in all her interviews. We started talking and I made her laugh and she made me laugh. And she said to Ben, you're free. You don't have to schlep me around. You know, those weren't her words. She said the boy can take care of me. And I was assigned covering all Betty Davis interviews.

And, you know, while I was still to meet her, I'd heard the horror stories of how tough she could be. Right. And so I was thrilled and had a great deal of trepidation at the same time. And after the first interview, we went to W.O.R. radio, Martha Dean. And she was funny and bright and all of the things that Betty Davis was. And at one point, Martha said, you know, I was at the I was in Hollywood last year. Mourners wouldn't let me talk to you. And Betty groaned. And afterward, she said, David, take a lesson. Always let a star make her own decisions. And she was referring to the studio. And she said, here's the rules. Come to me with an interview. And it doesn't insult my intelligence. If it sells tickets and I can work my schedule around, it will do it.

And after a couple of weeks doing that, she stopped me and she said, don't bother with me with details, David. If you say it's set up, I'll be there. Wow. She didn't. And it didn't take me. It took me years to realize what she was saying, what she was implying. And our warm, wonderful relationship working was I see you as a colleague, as a professional. And I don't have to worry about it. When they were doing the tech thing for Iguana, I was sitting there and she said to the lighting designer, the wattage is different here than in Chicago on that bulb over there. And it was Edward Steen. And he said, you're right, Betty, the new wattage will be in by tomorrow. Wow. And he turned to me and he said, these old Hollywood broads, they know their stuff.

And what Betty taught me was she was out there alone. She was the one that was out there that everybody was focused on. And she wanted to make sure everybody that was doing that was in the show were professionals so that she didn't have to worry about that. So that was a great lesson. Then the other was working with Julie Harris to learn that a star can make a company happy. Everybody in the theater was happy in a Julie Harris play. And the same with the John Gielgud play. I worked with him four times. And the first play was School for Scandal. We do know who John Gielgud is, don't we? Absolutely. Yeah. All right. And Ralph Richardson was his co-star. And Richard Easton was in it, the beautiful Geraldine McEwen.

And I thought, well, all English people must be so happy because, but it was Sir John. He was the star and the director and produced it with Binky Beaumont. And if you've worked on a show where the tension is heavy, usually comes from the star who creates tension. I mean, work on a Lauren Bacall show when everybody's tiptoeing around all over the place. I'm sure you've heard. Oh, yes. So when you say legends, I considered John Gielgud, Sir John, a legend. Absolutely. And Julie and Betty Davis. And I was privileged to work with them. And those are the stories I tell in my show, Name Dropping. And I was very lucky to work with biggies who were nice and talented.

[31:21] David Rothenberg: Did Betty Davis give you any insight into her relationship with Joan Crawford? Well, not directly to me, but I said it in the interview. This was right after the filming of Baby Jane. And somebody said, how was it working with Joan Crawford? And the eyes rolled around and she said, stand in, stand in, stand in. I even had to kick a stand in. Wow. So whenever I watch Baby Jane now, that scene where you see her kicking Crawford. Yeah, it's not her. It ain't her. Wow. I did work with Christina, though, before she wrote the book. Yeah. Christina was a young actress. Right. Because she did that soap. Yeah. Well, I was working with when she did this soap when she got sick. And, you know, she looked up one day and Joan was playing her part.

The ingenue. Christina was married to a stage manager named Harvey Malinsky, who I had known from, we worked on a lot of shows. And one day he came to me and he said, I knew he had got married. I said, congratulations. And my wife is appearing in a play at the Paramus Mall. Would you want to do press for her? And I said, Harvey, with all due respect, you know, wait till she comes into town. Nobody's going to schlep out the Paramus Mall for a two-week show. And he said, well, I thought because of her mother. And I said, and her mother is a joke. And I said, bring her in. And she was lovely. And, you know, she introduced me to mummy once. There was a benefit, a benefit at Lincoln Center and Harvey was working.

And Christina said, would I come with her? And mummy was there. Have you ever met somebody? And, you know, when they met you and they looked right through you, she couldn't have identified me in a police lineup five minutes later. Yeah. But it wasn't, she wasn't rude. She was just, you know, if it was Daryl's attic, I'm sure she would have noticed. But Christina was lovely. And I met the brother, you know, the boy that was tied up. He was very nice. And they always talked to mummy very nicely. And then the book came out. I haven't seen Christina. I'd love to see Christina. I wonder how she is. She was a lovely young woman. She was probably close to your age, right? Nobody's close to my age, but she's probably up there. Yeah.

[33:40] David Rothenberg: So what made you write Manhattan Mayhem and tell us about it? Well, we had something called the pandemic. Yes. And I was home a lot. And I had all these, you know, I'd written one book. I'd written my memoir, which was published about mostly about going from the theater, working with formerly incarcerated people, which was as a result of a play that I had produced, Fortune in Men's Eyes. And, well, and I've always written. I've been a guest columnist. I've been a columnist for the Chelsea News. I wrote a lot of op-eds for the Times. I was a columnist for News Week. And I had a lot of things going around my head, but never had any time. And during the pandemic, I said, all these things that are running around your head, put them on paper.

And some of them are from the theater. Yes. I've disguised the people that I've met because I made them fiction. Some are about my family. And you can't disguise my mother. I have one story called, Oi, Do I Remember Mama? I love that title. And then, of course, some of the stories from men and women who I met who had been imprisoned. And I lived in two different worlds. Yes, it's fascinating. And when Fortune Society began in my theater office, our building at 1545 Broadway is now where the Marquis Mariette monstrosity is. That was a six-story building inhabited by all theater people. Robert Whitehead was down the hall, Kazan was in the building, Kermit Bloom, Garden, Theater Week Magazine. This is when Times Square was really very bad.

But our building became the safest building in the block because the word on the street was, don't mess with 1545. Of course, guys came in for coffee and for supplies. And the theater people loved our guys. And they kept hiring them. Yeah, I need somebody to paint the office. Can you get me a couple of guys? It was very interesting. People like, well, Bob Whitehead was married to Zoe Caldwell. Do we know who Zoe is, right? Yes. And I had worked with Zoe on Slapstick Tragedy. I'll tell you one benefit we did. God, if we could do it today, well, if they were alive. I did benefits in the early days of Fortune Society. It was tough getting half a dozen guys who had done time and me trying to help people coming out of prison.

There wasn't an avalanche of people ready to help, but the theater people were. And I had worked with Bobby Short before he became the Carlisle. He used to call himself a barroom singer. And Suzanne Goodson, whose husband Mark Goodson was Goodson Todman, said she would do a benefit at our house. Could I get somebody? And I said, well, this guy Bobby Short's a very good singer. And she said, good. Can he sing Sondheim songs? And I said, Bobby sings everything. And she said, well, I'll ask Stephen. So at a house party, Bobby Short playing Stephen Sondheim, and Stephen was turning the pages. I said, we could have filled up Carnegie Hall. Really? If only you had video of that. Yeah. And if I knew how to work it.

Stephen had done Gypsy and West Side Story. But the interesting thing about Sondheim's career, he had two of the great musicals that he wrote the lyrics for. But when people thought about West Side Story in those days, it was Leonard Bernstein, Jerry Robbins. And oh, yeah, this kid with Gypsy, Julie Stein wrote the score, Merman was in it. And the story was Merman said, who's, you know, who's this kid that's writing the lyrics? And so she read. So she had a thing called Some Hum Drum People. And she looked up and said, oh, where's he been? So when we did that benefit, Stephen was in the business, but he wasn't he hadn't achieved legendary status. He was just a young man who had had two big hits and a flop, Anyone Can Whistle.

Right. Was it clear that his talent would take him where he went? I think West Side Story indicated some talent. Yeah. And Gypsy was another. Yeah, there was no doubt that Sondheim was, and I loved Anyone Can Whistle. I didn't know what was, I think the first big hit on his own was Funny Thing, was it not? I think so. I'm not really sure on the chronology. But yeah, you want to do you want the dirt on that musical? Absolutely. Sure. Well, you know, both Zero and Jack Guilford were blacklisted. They could only work in the theater for many years as a result of Jerry Robbins had been very close to Madeline Lee Guilford, who was Jack's wife. Okay. They were they were kids together. When he named names, he named Madeline and Jack.

I became very close with the Guilfords. And Madeline told me this story that when they were out of town with Funny Thing, well, two things happened with Funny Thing. One in Boston, nobody knew it was funny. Right. And they asked Steven to write a song. And he wrote comedy tonight in the hotel room. So we could everybody would know that it was all right to laugh. But when they went to Philly, Madeline and Kate Marstelle arrived at a matinee. And Jack and Zero were sitting dejected in their dressing room. What's the matter, guys? Jerry Robbins is coming in to doctor it. Oy vey, they said. Yeah. And Jack said, we've decided to leave the show. We don't want to work with him. Madeline and Kate said, he kept you out of work for 10 years.

Why would you let him keep you out of work for another show? Smart when they looked at each other and said, they're right. And then the world got Funny Thing and they both did the movie. Without them, who knows if the show would have been such a big thing. And Jack, I only met Zero, you know, through Jack a few times. But Jack was a dear and wonderful man. They were lovely people. I remember his guest spot on Taxi was just so endearing. And then Golden Girl, he marries Estelle Getty. It's wonderful watching the reruns because I see so many of my old friends who have died. Estelle was a friend as well as Jack. I worked with Rue McClanahan.

[39:56] David Rothenberg: And an Off-Broadway show at Cherry Lane. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. But, you know, Jack, John, Joe Guilford married a singer named Mary-Claire Herron, who I was representing. And so I was involved, you know, I was at the wedding, which was at Jack and Madeline's house. And Jack Guilford at the wedding sang, I think it's from Guys and Dolls, "More I Cannot See You." Is that the song?

[40:22] Bruce Gotlieb: Wish You.

[40:27] David Rothenberg: Oh, thank you. Oh, that was a beautiful wedding. Yeah. The Guilfords were wonderful. And wasn't I lucky to have them in my life?

[40:31] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, absolutely. And they were lucky to have you.

[40:34] David Rothenberg: Thanksgiving at the Guilfords. And then the other person who we just lost was Linda Lavin.

[40:39] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes. Yes.

[40:41] David Rothenberg: Linda was in, there were five girls in the chorus of an Off-Broadway revival of OK. And two of them were Penny Fuller and Linda Lavin.

[40:50] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, wow.

[40:50] David Rothenberg: And I was the assistant assistant press person. Linda used to get mad when I would say that was 1959. And she would tell everybody we started talking then and we haven't stopped for 60 years.

[41:04] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, how sweet.

[41:05] David Rothenberg: Yeah. And she died suddenly. And Linda's dying was really rather shocking because there are certain people you just assume they're so full of life. You just assume that they'll be there forever. It was a shocker.

[41:19] Bruce Gotlieb: Did you know she was almost Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show?

[41:23] David Rothenberg: That she was almost Rhoda?

[41:24] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, she.

[41:25] David Rothenberg: No, no. But I did work with Valerie.

[41:28] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, wow.

[41:28] David Rothenberg: Valerie did a one-woman show called, she was the title of it. She was playing Pearl Buck. And the day I met her, she was with her husband. They picked me up. We were driving down and she let out a gasp. And I said, what? And there was a big poster of Cesar Chavez. And she said, well, I, you know, I worked with them. You know, Cesar Chavez was he was the organizer for the migrant workers. And I said, oh, we're going to get along well. And she said, oh, did you work with him? And I said, no. But Paul Chavez, his son, interned with me at the Fortune Society. And she said, what's the Fortune Society? And when I told her, she said to her husband, stop, we're all going to have breakfast together. And Valerie was a delight.

She was a real New York dame. You know, she was full of New York. And when she did that show, Mary came and, you know, all the people came. And I did get to know Ed Asner from that show because he was, Ed came to all of Fortune Society things when we were in California.

[42:29] Bruce Gotlieb: Hi, this is Wendy McLendon-Covey. And Behind the Awards will be right back.

[42:35] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, let's talk about Fortune Society. I'd love to.

[42:39] David Rothenberg: Did you start it because you were at the Attica riots?

[42:43] David Rothenberg: That was four years later. I produced the play Fortune in Men's Eyes. It was written by a man who had been in prison. It was a painful retelling of his story of being gang raped as a 16-year-old on his first night in prison. That's the play. Wow. The play is about what happens to the kid. And by the end of the play, he's ready to get even with the world. I never saw it as a play about rape. I saw it as a play about how the system and the rape is the catalyst. Yeah. But the play is about how the system molds anti-social behavior. Right. It creates criminals. And from after performance discussions with the actors, I met in the audience. First, it was one guy introduced himself as having done time, and then he brought other people and they became the panelists.

And I became the perfect moderator because I asked every naive question that people in the public, these guys thought everybody knew it. And I kept telling them, I don't know any of this. And so we became involved. And as I started meeting many of the men, and I say men advisedly because it was about two years before any women found the courage to come forward. It was the '60s and it was, they were women. I mean, talk about preconceived notions, a female who had been in prison, white, you know. Yeah. So I was meeting these guys and we were having coffee and they were making it, you know, they were working and they were getting married, but they had a lie about everything because if anything was discovered, they would lose jobs, they would lose their housing.

And I kept saying, when does this end? And one night sitting at the limelight across the street from the actor's playhouse, I said, how long does this go on? And that one guy shouted at me, it's for life. And I said, well, it's not fair. And the next week at the theater, I said, with no vision of what was to be, I was a press agent. And I thought through their stories and their lives and their humanity, we could change the public perception. And I said that we could have an, create an organization to give you all a voice. We took the title from the play, Fortune in Men's Eyes, which is from a Shakespearean sonnet. Sixteen people gave me $2. And with a bank account of $32, I opened the Fortune Society's bank account in November of '67.

[45:01] Bruce Gotlieb: Wow.

[45:01] David Rothenberg: Today we have a staff of 600 and a budget of $80 million.

[45:09] Bruce Gotlieb: That's amazing.

[45:09] David Rothenberg: I'm long retired, but I keep, I'm very involved. In fact, one of our first residents, we have six residents. The first one is at Fortune Academy, the castle. I did a play with four of the guys, three men and one woman in it. We did it as a fundraiser and Eric Krebs saw it, moved it off-Broadway and I played at the New World Stages for a year. And that was 15 years ago. And we've been doing it at colleges and prisons and drug programs. So I'm still in the theater working with formerly incarcerated people.

[45:39] Bruce Gotlieb: That's incredible.

[45:39] David Rothenberg: And Attica came about because in the very early days of Fortune, we published a newsletter and you may not know, even know what a mimeograph machine is. It's a little machine that gets ink all over you. It preceded emails. And the warden of Attica in his infinite wisdom banded as revolutionary literature. It was so unrevolutionary. The only thing that was innovative about it is that it was by and for men who had been in prison, which was different. And in that sense, revolutionary. So they banded and a Columbia law student where we had spoken learned about this and said, they have no right to do that. And I said, well, they do. They're wardens. And he took it to a law firm. And we went before a federal judge named Constance Baker Motley.

And the decision is still on the books today that says, when you lock someone up, you don't have the right to dictate what they can read. As a result of that, the mail I was getting from men in Attica was, they assumed we were this thriving big organization. It was me and my theater office with a couple of other guys. And I got in a very intense conversation with two men, Roger Champin and Herbert X, who were obviously extremely bright and very in tune with this whole culture of prison. And when the riot jumped off and the men who were there, they took the guards hostage. It was front page around the world. The lead story on the news every night. They went into negotiations with the state and didn't trust them.

And they wanted outside people to come in and act as observers and moderate. And I get a call from Arthur Reeves saying that you're on the list for people that they will accept to come in. And when I got into Attica, I realized that two of the leaders were Roger Champin and Herbert X. And one of the extraordinary things, I mean, let me tell you, you go from being an activist to being in the middle of something where you go into a prison yard with the hostages in front of you. The state troop was pointing rifles at you from the wall around the place. I was terrified. And then Herbert Blyden, when he got out of prison, I said, you were the head Sullivan of the riot. He was introducing everybody with the microphone and he invited all of us to speak.

And when he introduced me, he said, our next week is David Rothenberg, who started the Fortune site, having produced the Off-Broadway prison drama, Fortune in Men's Eyes. So years later, I said to her, I'm the only person ever in a prison riot introduced with the Athena credits. And he said, well, we tried to stay informed. And I said, well, you missed a lot of other shows that I represented. You could have included that. So we had a big laugh at that.

[48:33] Bruce Gotlieb: Was any of this in the documentary Attica?

[48:39] David Rothenberg: Well, there's certainly those guys talking. I'm interviewed in the one that Stanley Nelson did, the more recent one.

[48:44] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, I think it was just last year.

[48:47] David Rothenberg: If you blink quickly, you'll see me being interviewed.

[48:51] Bruce Gotlieb: It's a great documentary. I'm going to rewatch it now.

[48:53] David Rothenberg: Yeah, it's very tough.

[48:54] David Rothenberg: Now that we're so close. It's a life-changing experience because when you're sitting with these men and the passion about, I mean, when you hear them wanting more than one roll of toilet paper a week, they want education. I mean, basic human things. And then the next day, your government, which could have taken the yard over with mace and gas, which they did, and then killed 39 people. It's terrifying. So I say that's when I went from being an advocate to whatever the next step is. I was a participant in it, no longer on the outside advocating. I felt that I was on the inside. And those of us who were the observers, Attorney William Kunstler, Congressman Herman Bedillo, Tom Wicker of the New York Times, we started meeting every week at Kunstler's house because it was not only was it world news, but we had to solidify how the public got the information.

And we all testified before the McKay Commission and the movies and the books that were written about it. And we wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page. And as a result, you find yourself, I never expected, close to Tom Wicker of the Times and close to Bill Kunstler, the attorney. And when you're going through this, you don't say, I'm involved in history. You're doing what you have to do that day. And then 40 years later, people say, we're having a retrospective on Attica. You're one of the few people still alive that was there. Can you come? And you know, when I talk to young people at the Fortune Society, I could be talking about the Alamo. Attica is 60 years ago almost. It didn't touch them the way it did me. It's the Alamo.

[50:47] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, it's so interesting because you couldn't control the narrative today in the same way because news just travels.

[51:00] David Rothenberg: Yeah, it would be leaked out. It was a horrendous experience. It was life-changing, as was when Ramsey Clark, who I met through all of this, he had been the attorney general of the United States, and he had been picked by Helsinki Watch to go to Nicaragua during the war between the Contras and the Sandinistas. And he was asked to inspect the prisons there to see how the Sandinistas were dealing with the Contras, the Sandinistas being the group in revolt. And I get a call. I'm putting together a team of six. Would you join us? And so suddenly I'm in Nicaragua during a war.

[51:37] Bruce Gotlieb: Wow.

[51:37] David Rothenberg: I didn't anticipate. My mother wasn't thrilled with that one either.

[51:42] Bruce Gotlieb: Sure.

[51:42] David Rothenberg: Whenever there was a prison riot, she would call me and say, they're going to do this one without you.

[51:48] David Rothenberg: But the thing that happened, it was mostly peaceful while we were in Nicaragua and I met wonderful people. But one day at the Honduras border, we were with the peasant militia. And suddenly, I'll always remember, Juan Gonzalez grabbed me and threw me into the trench that they had built there because he had seen a sniper. And as he threw me in, bullets went over our head. And I said, this is war.

[52:12] Bruce Gotlieb: That's scary.

[52:12] David Rothenberg: I wouldn't have changed any of it. I mean, I would have changed the events in history, but my participation in it, it makes you wiser and stronger. And as I say in my play, but none of that prepared me to work with Warren Bacall for a year.

[52:31] Bruce Gotlieb: So she was tough.

[52:31] David Rothenberg: It's all of a beast. I mean, just looking at, you know, scraping the surface of what your life and your career has been and all these different avenues that you've been able to touch your advocacy, your radio show, your life in the theater. I go to the theater. I do my radio show. I swim every morning and I go to the Fortune Society a couple of times a week. And we can read Manhattan Mayhem.

[52:56] Bruce Gotlieb: But you have to go to Amazon. It's published by Amazon.

[52:59] David Rothenberg: Thank you so much for joining us.

[53:01] Bruce Gotlieb: Thank you so much. This has been fun.

[53:03] David Rothenberg: Oh, David, it's been our pleasure. Thank you so much. And everyone, go out and get Manhattan Mayhem.

[53:08] Bruce Gotlieb: And we will see you next time on Behind the Awards.

[53:11] David Rothenberg: Bye-bye.