This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:26] David Armstrong: Welcome to another episode of Broadway Nation, the podcast that tells the remarkable story of the Broadway musical with a special emphasis on the immigrant, Jewish, queer, and black artist who invented it.

[0:39] David Armstrong: Today, my guest is author Ron Fassler, whose latest book is titled The Show Goes On — Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements. And it's a fascinating collection of insider theater stories that range as far back as the 1930s and go right up to today. Fassler is a theater critic and former actor whose previous book was the well-received Up in the Cheap Seats — A Theatrical Memoir of Broadway.

[1:04] David Armstrong: It would not be possible for me to create this podcast without the generous support of our patrons, with a special shout out today to Alan Teasley. If you would like to help support the work of Broadway Nation, please listen for the information at the end of the episode regarding how you too can become a patron. Here we go.

[1:24] David Armstrong: Welcome, Ron Fassler. It's wonderful to have you today on Broadway Nation to talk about your recent book, The Show Goes On — Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements.

[1:34] Ron Fassler: Yeah, there's no good book published these days without a good subtitle.

[1:39] David Armstrong: Absolutely. It really does cover what the book is about.

[1:42] Ron Fassler: And in fact, I knew that I was on to something because every time I pitched it to people, they said, "Oh, you're writing a new book? What's it about?" I said, "Well, it's really a history of Broadway replacements and how people take over from long runs and how people run to Boston to replace an actor who's floundering and take over a role in three days." Really mainly acts of heroism. And everybody said to me, "Oh, what a great idea for a book." And I was like, "Yeah, that's why I'm gonna write it." So after two and a half years, I finally finished, and it was published last November, and it's been thrilling to get the feedback I've been getting on it. People really seem to respond to the stories. There's over 400 pages. I mean, I had to stop at some point.

[2:18] David Armstrong: But you clearly could have gone on and on with the book.

[2:21] Ron Fassler: Oh my gosh, no question. And of course, the inevitable, "Well, why didn't you cover such and such?" And I'll be like, "Well, I actually did. I had to cut it for space because nothing should ever go to waste, and I'm a very prodigious blogger." All of those stories became columns that I published recently in tandem with the release of the book.

[2:38] David Armstrong: Well, that's actually a great sort of gimmick in a way that you can get sort of additions to the book or sequels to the book, at least in your blogs.

[2:44] Ron Fassler: Absolutely. And nothing goes to waste. And stories happen all the time. In fact, just before I was ready to publish, a story happened on Broadway when there was the opening night of Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone in The Roommate, and the very next night, Mia Farrow was out of the show. Rather than put the understudy on, who had never really had a rehearsal, they threw Marcia Mason into the show, who had been an associate assistant to Jack O'Brien, the director, who is in real life her best friend. So she was there kind of hanging out. And it was kind of interesting to me that they would rather put on a star with a book in their hands than the actress employed to be the understudy, but then they got publicity out of it. I understood. I was gonna put it in the book, and I went, well, in order to really research that story, I would have to go back and talk to Marcia Mason and all those people.

[3:31] David Armstrong: And for this book, you did do firsthand research for most of these stories.

[3:35] Ron Fassler: A lot of these are stories that people will have heard in some version or other, but what I appreciated so much about your book is I felt like we were getting a more complete and a more firsthand or at least from the source version of these stories.

[3:47] Ron Fassler: Yes, yes. I think my greatest compliment came from Michelle Lee, because when I told the incredible story of when she took over in Seesaw out of town in Detroit, which was a massive firing. She was one of 12 people who went into the show when Michael Bennett came on board and did a mass firing. She wrote to me in a note and said, "Ron, I love your version of how it all happened so much. That's the version I'm gonna tell now." I think what she really meant was that it was very accurate. After all, it did happen almost 50 years ago.

[4:19] Ron Fassler: The thing that has been just phenomenal is the people who've been reading the book. Get this, David. I got a nine-page handwritten letter last week from Hal Lindon. He's 94 years old, and he was so moved after reading my book that he actually wrote me a nine-page letter. Mostly it started off saying, "Ron, this book brought back so many delicious memories. I had such a great time reading it. A few notes." And then he went on for nine pages to...

[4:43] David Armstrong: That's hilarious. Why don't we start there? What's the Hal Lindon story in the book?

[4:50] Ron Fassler: The ones that I told that he's involved in had to do with the famous replacement of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever when it was out of town in Boston. They had Louis Gaudin, who had been in Gigi for Alan J. Lerner. He was employed to star in this musical, which was written for a really good singer. It was not to be talk sung like the character he played in Gigi or that Lerner had invented for Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. Now, this called for a real singer because Burton Lane was the composer as opposed to Frederick Loewe. And Burton Lane had written very beautiful soaring melodies for this character to sing, and Louis Jadin was just not delivering. He also was not as proficient in English as you might have thought.

John Cullum was the actor who took over. John Cullum told me that he was walking around the set and he would find he'd pick up a paperweight on the doctor's desk and it would have lines written at the bottom of the paperweight that Louis Jada was trying to do that during the performance. So no wonder it was sluggish and slightly off. It was a big site, and John Cullum was called in from Los Angeles where he was filming the movie Hawaii with Julie Andrews. But the Hal Lindon of it was that Hal Lindon was in the cast and was an understudy. This was before he broke through with the Ross Johns in 1970. Hal Lindon was the Broadway understudy of his time. He covered so many famous people in so many shows. And he was very obviously hurt and upset when they passed him over.

[6:10] Ron Fassler: And what he wanted to add, and that he wrote me in his nine-page letter, was that he had bumped into Alan J. Lerner years later, and he thought, "Oh, this is going to be so awkward. I really don't want to talk to Alan Lerner." And the first thing Lerner said was, "Hal, Hal, why did I do that? Why didn't I bring you in? The biggest mistake of my life." There was a little closure there. But yeah, Hal had a lot of stories to impart because man, he was really a part of that Broadway's golden age that a lot of the book details.

[6:35] Ron Fassler: Because you've read the book, you know that I keep the stories very current. And in fact, the very first story in the entire book, the first chapter, is devoted to the recent brouhaha of the replacement of Beanie Feldstein and Funny Girl with Lea Michelle. That's kind of still in the zeitgeist. It only happened two or three years ago. People are very interested in that story, want to hear that story. And I figured if that's my first chapter, if they've read those first 20 pages, they're hooked. Now they're going to want to read about the Mary Martin and the Ethel Mermans. You know, I didn't want to start with some ancient history. I started with something very current. And again, a hell of a story.

[7:08] David Armstrong: Absolutely. But also what I appreciated is that you also then include the story of the original Funny Girl.

[7:14] Ron Fassler: Yes.

[7:14] Ron Fassler: Which also went through its own sort of drama, its own soap opera.

[7:18] Ron Fassler: Absolutely. Yeah, it was a crazy out-of-town run. They had to replace the director, Jerry Robbins, the original director who had quit before there was ever a first rehearsal. In fact, he's the one who approved Barbra Streisand to be cast. He finally came back to the show. And if you ever see the poster of Funny Girl, you'll see "Directed by Garson Kanin and entire production supervised by Jerome Robbins," which nobody understood what that meant, although everybody understood what it meant. Garson Kanin, fired, and Jerry Robbins came in at the last minute and ripped the whole show apart and put it back together.

[7:48] Ron Fassler: And you even fill us in on a few of the actresses who were considered before Barbra Streisand.

[7:53] Ron Fassler: Yeah, I mean, Barbra Streisand was, was she 21 when the Broadway show opened? Something like that. I think so. Yes.

[7:58] Ron Fassler: She had acted in I Can Get It for You Wholesale the season before. She'd been nominated for a Tony. She wasn't an unknown entity, but a giant Broadway musical was being put on a 21-year-old. That didn't happen again until Jennifer Holliday in Dreamgirls, you know, 20 years later. I mean, it's really kind of amazing that they did it, but she was this burgeoning recording star, and she was a real physical dead ringer for Fanny Brice. They originally really wanted Mary Martin, which of course made no sense. I mean, Mary Martin, that just sounds crazy, but she was a big giant Broadway star. So she was a girl from Texas. She wasn't Jewish. Just didn't make any sense.

[8:34] Ron Fassler: And that's when Stephen Sondheim, who had originally intended to write the lyrics with Jule Styne, they had recently done Gypsy, he backed out after the Mary Martin meeting. He went to the Mary Martin meeting and went, "You know, guys, it's just not feeling right to me." And even though Mary Martin passed on it, it didn't bring Sondheim back into the fold. He'd already moved on to Bob Merrill. Edie Gorme was considered, but she really wanted Steve Lawrence to play Nicky Arnstein, which funnily enough is really not a bad choice. He ended up opening on Broadway in What's Make Sammy Run, which was his sort of Broadway musical comedy debut before Funny Girl, leave it open. That show got to town even before that. He was up for a Tony. Carol Burnett was absolutely in the mix. Again, seems in the same department as Mary Martin. How is she gonna play Fanny Brice?

[9:15] Ron Fassler: Well, the story is she actually said to them, "I'm not Jewish." And then Jerome Robbins had it in his head. He really wanted Anne Bancroft. He had worked with her, he thought she was a brilliant actress, which she is and was, but she didn't really spark to it, and she came up with the idea, "Well, why don't we just not make it Fanny Brice? I'll just be some other kind of an entertainer," which that didn't sit well with Ray Stark, the producer, because Fanny Brice was his mother-in-law. He was married to Fanny Brice's daughter. So he was absolutely going to do the Fanny Brice story. But man, I'm telling you, everything I read, Jerome Robbins never stopped sort of dreaming about Anne Bancroft, which is so interesting.

[9:49] Ron Fassler: And of course, Jule Styne, once he saw Barbra Streisand at a little Greenwich Village nightclub, he started writing the score with her in his head. And that's how we get Funny Girl. But what's interesting is, you know, until the revival, Funny Girl wasn't revived for close to 60 years on Broadway. One of the few golden age musicals that really had never had a revival. And people always said, "Well, it's because it's unrevivable without Streisand." She left such an indelible mark on the role. But the truth is that she was replaced on Broadway after a year and a few months by a wonderful singer, comedian, actress named Mimi Hines.

[10:22] Ron Fassler: Listen, kid, I got 36 expressions. Sweet as plight and tough as leather. And that's six expressions more than all of them Marrymores put together. Instead of just kicking me, why don't they give me a lift? Nah, it must be a plot. Because they're scared that I've got such a gift. Well, I'm myths. The greatest star. I am by far.

[11:04] Ron Fassler: Is it wait? They're gonna hear a voice. A silver. Terrific kid. Terrific. What I expose it. Now can't you see to look at me that I'm unnatural Camille. As Camille, I just feel I have so much to offer. Hey, kid, I know I'd be divine because unnatural coffer. Some gotta not alump. I'm a great big club of talent.

[11:54] Ron Fassler: And Mimi Hines ran the show on Broadway almost as long as Barbra Streisand, so absolutely the show could have been done over the years, but it's a very difficult role to cast. And that was, of course, the big problem with that revival that Beanie Feldstein, for all her good intentions, was miscast. And when Lea Michelle took over, she turned this really flop into huge.

[12:16] Ron Fassler: I mean, it made back all its money. Even with all the recasting and re-advertising and all the extra monies, everything involved. Lea Michelle proved herself to be an amazing draw. It'll be very interesting if she returns to Broadway and is able to repeat that success. Yeah, it truly is an amazing feat that she did that she has that kind of drawing power as a money star to that level. That was Asterus Meets Rolfe. I mean, she really the perfect person to play. Even in a production that was somewhat lackluster. Had a little curse over it by that point. In my own opinion, it was not a terribly good production in terms of the physical production. The whole shape of it was not fantastic. So that she was able to overcome all of those drawbacks is really quite amazing.

Yeah. There were people who thought it was one of the greatest musical theater performances they'd ever seen. And then there are other people who thought Julie Benko was the best of the three of them. And I spoke with Julie Benko because one of the things I also cover in the book is the whole nature of how understudies, standbys, and swings who are truly unsung heroes of Broadway needed their due. And I spent an entire chapter really going into that, which happened to sort of break through during COVID when we returned to the theater, and there were still people who would get sick, and we were having these massive. I mean, you would open up your playbill and those little white slips of paper would fall out like it was Christmas.

There was one show, Beautiful Mind, with the you know Diamond musical. Beautiful noise, isn't it? Beautiful noise. Sorry about that. Beautiful mind was Russell Brown. One afternoon, there were 13 people out of a 19 person cast. They had to call in the assistant director who hadn't acted since college. Please come and play a part. They had run out of understudies rather than send an audience home and give refunds. It was all hands on deck. That is something I love about the nature of the community of Broadway theater. Really, everybody's pitching in, and they really did help make, you know, because we're back. We're finally back to the numbers that we were prior to the shutdown in 2020. COVID brought all that to the forefront and made an audience for the first time understand what a standby is and what an understudy is.

But as you point out in the book, those have always been important to Broadway, maybe not to the degree that they are today, because frankly, in the golden age, stars didn't call out very often. They were a different kind of work ethic. They did. I mean, everybody thinks that Ethel Merman never missed a show. She missed a show. Mary Martin missed a show. Carol Channing never missed a performance in Hello Dolly on Broadway. Lauren Bacall did over two years in applause, not only in New York but on the road and then in London, and never missed a performance. There are people like that. I remember you quoted in the book, not in the musical front, but in terms of plays. Richard Burton missed two performances in 20 years, he said.

Yep. In spite of his heavy drinking, he was famous for just not missing. It was a discipline. And of course, today, I don't think people really should be too hard on today's performers because the demands are greater. The vocal things are bigger and greater. The dancing, these choruses are meant to do everything. Don't forget in the olden days, there was a singing course, a dancing course. I mean, they got to do everything. And they're on raked stages that promote terrible difficulties for ankles, legs, feet. And here's another thing. I'm a trained actor. I was an actor for more than 30 years, working steadily in theater and film and television. I was an understudy. I covered in two Broadway shows, two off Broadway shows.

I speak the language, but I do have to tell you, I was trained by my teacher early on when I was studying to be an actor, told at 18 years old that she said, I am your teacher, and this is a discipline. And if I have 103 degrees temperature, I will be here ready to work. And recently I quoted that when I was directing a play with a bunch of young actors in Summer Stock a season or two ago. And when I said that, they literally gasped. Because in this day and age, you can't come with a 103 degree temperature. We don't want your germs. It's a very different world, Willie. And yet there's something in me that still has that. It's so built in. You know, I never listened to performance. I mean, I don't judge because again, we're living in different times, but it's a whole fascinating procedure and the discipline that's required of being an actor and being ready and able.

And that's something that I loved getting into in the book. I guess also it's important to note I covered not just musicals. I talk a great deal about straight plays and actors and the disciplines involved in those particular endeavors. Different from musicals, but again, amazing stories of resilience and bravery. You know, I love actors. It's a Valentine to actors, and also I love telling stories. And this is my commitment now. And this is my second book, and I'm on my third, and this is all I want to do. I just want to have these stories written down. You know, theater is ephemeral, it comes, it goes, and I love chronicling it. The fact that now, if you ever really want to understand what it's like to replace in a Broadway show, I've got a book.

It tells you all about it. It's 400 pages, and you don't have to go to more than six or seven books or read magazine articles. It's all here in one book. So I want to dig into some of those stories, especially in terms of musical theater, because that's the topic of this podcast. But a couple questions. In some ways, you're dealing with sensitive subject matter here. You're talking sometimes about people being fired, about people being judged for not being good enough. How did you approach it? I think from my point of view, you've done a very wonderful job of it's not a gossipy book. It doesn't feel mean spirited in any way. And yet it's telling the stories, and sometimes the stories are juicy and fascinating because they deal with those issues. Talk a little bit about what your approach was in dealing with these stories.

[17:36] Ron Fassler: Well, thank you for that, because I take that as a huge compliment because it was my intention not to be mean spirited, not to be bitchy and gossipy. And look, it's so easy to shoot fish in a barrel, you know? I mean, it just is. Beanie Feldstein's been through hell with what she went through in Bunny Girl. I don't need to pour salt in the wound. I can tell the story without being mean. It's basically the old, you know, just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. You know, I even refrained from quoting from some of the terribly mean spirited reviews that were written. I don't think we need to go through that again. I really did work hard at trying to give everybody their due and get two sides to every story.

I do tell one particular story that does cast bad light on an actor, which is the story of when Daniel Davis, Danny Davis, was fired from the revival of Pakaja Fole, which was with Gary Beach. He was fired not because he was giving a bad performance. In fact, he was terrific in the show. And they did not want to fire him. But he was what we call now a toxic presence. He was unhappy and he made everybody else unhappy. And push absolutely came to shove. They got rid of him. And they brought in Robert Goulet, who was just an absolute prince. He was exactly what the show needed for their morale. It boosted box office a bit. It didn't really save the show in the sense that it didn't have a long run, even though it won the Tony for the best revival of the musical.

But I felt bad, you know, because I was gonna write this whole story of Danny Davis without speaking to him, because I thought I could, but why drudge this whole thing up for him again? You know, I'm just to tell the story. It's a matter of public record. I can't be sued for libel. I'm not doing anything that is untoward. And I took many stories from people, cast members, and I tried not to make it so that we were piling up on the guy, but we just told the story at a very straightforward. And maybe he came to terms with it later. And maybe stepped back from it and said, Boy, I really misbehaved on that one. Everybody's capable of some bad behavior. We don't know what people are going on in their private lives.

So you try to give people the benefit of the doubt. And again, I interviewed Jerry Zaks, the director of that production, and they wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. They didn't want to fire him. But it just became untenable. The show just could not go on. They had to make the change.

[19:37] Ron Fassler: Hey, Mr. Don't go away, Ron and I will be right back with more Broadway Nation right after this quick break.

[19:51] ♪ Musical number ♪

[20:56] Ron Fassler: Among the topics that you discuss are the replacement of star performers. And you talk about that in two different ways. First, what happens when the stars who originated a leading role in a big hit Broadway show move on to other projects? And what are the approaches that the producers take to replacing them? But on the other hand, how do you replace stars when they're out sick or on vacation? Who are those people that replace them and how does that work? Let's talk about the first subject first, because you experienced that even as a kid on your first trips to Broadway. Right with shows such as Fiddler and Dolly and Mame. How old are you when you're I started going to theater steadily at 11, just before I turned 12?

I would go into the city every weekend from my home on Long Island for your listeners. It's very close, Brasil. It's only 13 miles from Manhattan. I would take a little train in, a little choo-choo train. And I would, this is the funny part. I would take a subway from 34th Street to 42nd Street because somebody told me that's how you do it. But it's eight blocks. I could have walked it. I think it was a year into that, but I realized why am I spending get this 30 cents on the subway when I could save a 60 cent round trip and just walk it. So when I came to see these shows, a lot of long-running hits were, you know, fourth and fifth leading actors playing the pivotal roles. Because some of these shows are four years into their run.

Yeah, I saw Fiddler on the Roof into its fourth year with a guy named Harry Goss, a wonderful actor, did a great job. I saw a replacement, a Hello Dolly. I saw the fifth Dolly, but that was Pearl Bailey, which was sensational. And I go into great detail about that particular replacement because it was remarkable what the producer David Merrick came up with. Dolly was starting to get a little sluggish. Channing was replaced by Ginger Rogers, who was replaced by Martha Ray, who was replaced by Betty Grable. These were all once upon a time, very famous women, and they were getting their due on Broadway, and audiences loved the nostalgic aspect of that. But things were starting to slow down. And he had this idea to do a company that would tour the country, and it would be an all-black company led by Pearl Bailey and Cav Calloway.

It was a great idea on paper, and it turned out to be a great idea in execution. It opened in Washington, DC to such raves and such business. Merrick had the idea, forget the tour. I'm gonna take this one to Broadway. And the entire New York company of mostly Caucasian actors moved on into the road, and the black company came to Broadway and gave the show a bolt of box office juice that lightning struck, and you couldn't get a ticket, and it was insane. So when I saw Hello Dolly at that point, it had kind of had this rebirth. And Pearl Bailey was absolutely sensational. She was voted a special Tony, which is only one of three Tony's that had ever been given for replacements. And that was incredible.

And then I saw the fourth Mame. This was all in the same couple of months, mind you. And the fourth Mame was one of the great old MGM stars there ever was, Ann Miller. And they even added in a tap dance for her. That's how Young Knight Feel number in the second act, because Annie was one of the great tap dancers. She was phenomenal in it. Just for now, she ended up closing the show. So they went through four Mames. And wasn't Helen Gallagher Agnes Gooch? Because Helen told me I worked with Helen quite a bit, and she loved Ann Miller and thought that Ann Miller was sensational in that show. She backs up your memory there. Well, I do have a story, and I tell it in the book. I used to also, when I would see all these shows, go backstage because this was another time.

Okay. Stage doors did not have what's going on too. People just went home after a show. And I would just knock on stage doors, this little 12-year-old, and just ask to see Henry Fonda or asked to see James Old Johnson, and they would let me go. And then I would just knock on other people's doors. Like, you know, I had free reign of a backstage of a Broadway thing.

[24:34] Ron Fassler: They can't do that today. I mean, obviously, it's a different time. But I was so lucky to be the beneficiary of. And with Ann Miller. This was, oh, I'm gonna say it was about my 15th Broadway show. And when I went backstage, they said, no, no, wait outside. And okay. I mean, I did that for a few people. But all of a sudden, this crowd gathered around me. And before I knew it, it was quite a group. And it was a Wednesday afternoon. And she came out and she'd sort of made it to her limo, but she signed a bunch of programs. I still have her signature. Flash forward 30 years later, I'm at a party in Los Angeles, and who is there but Ann Miller? And I go over, I introduce myself, and I tell her I saw her name, and instantly she was my friend for life.

I said to her, I waited for you at the stage door and you came out and the crowds, the crowds. I said, was it like that all the time? And she put her hand on her heart and she closed her eyes and she said to me, Yes. And I just loved that she had the memory and could bring it back like that in a second. So yeah, of course. So grateful for all these experiences. I also write about in the book when I would see an actor who didn't create a role, and yet they'd be just as good, if not better, than the person who originated the role. And then it suddenly dawned on me, wow, these original actors, they're terribly fortunate to get a great part on paper like this and be cast. You know, is the reason why you win a Tony.

Sometimes it's not so much for your performance as it is you had the best role of the season, right? Sometimes when actors would take over and get re-reviewed, some of the critics would say, Yeah, I thought that performance couldn't be topped. And look at this actor giving just as good, if not better, a performance. So for me as a budding actor, this was an incredible education I was receiving. I'm so grateful that the ticket prices allowed me as a 12-year-old to go into the theater. Mind you, my parents never paid for one of my shows. I didn't have an allowance. I earned all my own money with a paper round, which they don't get little boys anymore. I mean, the whole nature of what I was able to do 50 years ago was something that, you know, you can't do today.

I mean, if you're a little kid and you have a passion for theater, you want to see Hamilton. I mean, you only have a lottery to depend upon. There's no other way to afford the last row. The last row of that theater when I was a kid was three dollars. Now the last row is $115 or something like that. $130. It's insane. It's sad. And there are ways around it, but it's not the same as me walking up to a box office with my cash, you know, and just plugging it down and for $3 being able to see James Earl Jones in The Great White Hope. $3.60. Sorry.

[26:55] David Armstrong: Well, and to be fair, if we did the translation from 1960.

[27:00] Ron Fassler: Uh, I've done the math. It's 5,000% raise. It's not, it's really, it's not, it's not anything equivalent to what it is on Broadway, but it's more like $20. It's just a crying shame. Following our recording, I did the research, and it turns out that $4 in 1965 is equivalent to the purchasing power of just over $40 today. But as Ron said, that's less than half of the lowest price ticket on Broadway now. They still have certain rushes and things like that. But you know, I remember when Standing Room was a penalty. Standing Room was like, you know, five dollars or something, you know. And now they're charging, you know, upwards of fifty, sixty. I remember going to see the original production of Annie, the first charge of New York, $15 on Standing Room.

I remember that distinctly. You also mentioned about when actors take a vacation. And of course, the story I tell is Hugh Jackman, who when he did Boy from Oz and broke out as this major, major musical theater star, and the tickets were insane. You couldn't get one. It was time for his vacation. I mean, he worked really hard in that show. And what did he have? 12 numbers. He was doing eight a week, and he needed a vacation. He had an understudy and he had a standby. And they decided, the producers, that they just didn't want to deal with everybody wanting their money back. It was just smarter to close the show down for the week. And that's what they did twice during his year-long run. There were two separate stoppages of the show.

And rather than have the understudies who paid for, they never went on, either of them. They would just rather just go dark. And then, of course, when he did Music Man, that was a sellout show for a solid year. Sold out. They made all their money back. Then the choice. Well, do we put a hundred people out of work? Or do we keep this show running with another actor? And sadly, they closed it. I think they weighed the pros and cons. How do we get somebody to compete with the Hugh Jackman name? How do we do it? How do we re-advertise it? Spend all that money, deal with the bad press about how the box office plummeted. And they decided to just throw in the towel, which is a shame, a terrible shame.

They absolutely could have thrown somebody else in. But as you itemizing the book, the number of Broadway stars that will sell tickets at this moment, you can count on one hand, basically. It's a very, very short list.

[29:00] David Armstrong: That can do a musical.

[29:02] Ron Fassler: Hollywood actors can come and be in a play and do very well. But who can play the Music Man? Right. It's a very difficult role to play. Although when they did the first revival back in like 2000, they cast Craig Bierko, who was not a name at all. And it was a very good production, and he was terrific. But we're living in a very different environment. Like somebody said recently, why is George Clooney leaving Goodnight and Good Luck after only a few months? A, he's probably got commitments that he can't get out of. B, they've made their money back. And C, the announcement yesterday was really manna from heaven, if your listeners don't know by the time this airs, that it's going to broadcast live.

They're going to absolutely shoot with as many cameras as they can squeeze in the Winter Garden of the penultimate performance, the Saturday night performance before it closes, June 7th, the night before the Tony Awards. It's going to be broadcast live on CNN, which I think is absolutely a fantastic idea. And you know it absolutely came from Clooney. He's one of the producers. He's the writer, he's the star. He must have said, come on, let's figure out a way. This was too expensive. People couldn't see it. And we did it for a few months and they figured it out.

[30:06] David Armstrong: I am thrilled. I agree with you. And he has the clout to get on the phone and make that happen, or to have his team make this happen. And the fact that it's on CNN is just so interesting because it's so out of the box to a certain extent.

[30:18] Ron Fassler: Well, because it deals with news, and I'm sure they're going to air it in black. I mean, it makes perfect sense, but it's like, when was the last time there was a Broadway play on CNN? Never.

[30:26] David Armstrong: Nor broadcast live.

[30:28] Ron Fassler: Yeah, that'll be interesting. So talking about these standbys and covers, you introduce us, or for some of us, remind us of some apparently brilliant standbys and covers from back in the golden age, people like Martha Wright and Gretchen Weiler, who seldom got to go on necessarily for the stars they were covering because those stars didn't go out, but then they got to replace them and would often play the show for significant amounts of time.

[30:53] David Armstrong: Talk a little bit about Martha Wright. What would we have seen her in? What classic Broadway musicals was she the star of that nobody knows?

[31:00] Ron Fassler: Well, Martha Wright was a great standby, and she ended up replacing Mary Martin in two of her greatest roles, Sound of Music and South Pacific. One of the reasons why was that she was kind of a Mary Martin sound alike. And of course, when she died, even though she'd done some wonderful things in her career, it was basically Martha Wright dead, standby for Mary Martin. I mean, she was kind of branded that way. I made a note that she did 1,200 performances on Broadway as the leading woman in the Broadway show. Yeah. You know, these people were just made of the whole for cloth. There's also the story of Iva Withers, who was a great Broadway replacement. She really didn't get the chance to create that many roles on Broadway.

But my God, she was the go-to woman. She replaced in Carousel. She replaced Jan Clayton as Julie Jordan. She was the next Miss Sarah in Guys and Dolls. She was just a really wonderful performer. There's one story that's actually not in the book, David, that I felt it was just I felt it just it put Mary Martin in such a bad light. I didn't want to ruin Mary Martin for all those who love and adore Mary. But long story short, Mary Martin was doing I Do, I Do, the great two-character musical with Robert Preston. And she had Iva Withers fired. She was very competitive. Iva Withers was a little younger, sounding a little bit better. And she went on for one afternoon when Mary just felt I'm just gonna take the afternoon off.

I know Bob's got to rehearse Preston, but let him rehearse with Iva, and I'll just during this run through. Suddenly, Mary Martin burst through the door and said, That's an somebody had like called Mary at her hotel and said, Iva Withers is really good. And she had her fired. She went to David Merrick and said, I too, Bob and I don't need understudies.

[32:34] David Armstrong: Wow.

[32:34] Ron Fassler: And Merrick, being the showman that he was, he advertised, well, this is a show where the actors are so fantastic and irreplaceable. We have no understudies. Which, by the way, is actually happening right now on Broadway. Sarah Snook playing in The Picture of Dorian Gray has no understudy. They just decided that without her there is no show. And it would be almost impossible to rehearse somebody.

[32:53] David Armstrong: And isn't her image duplicated multiple times in the show? So you'd have to replace all that video with a different actor.

[32:59] Ron Fassler: Exactly. It would be a logistical nightmare.

[33:02] David Armstrong: It is.

[33:02] Ron Fassler: Yeah. So so far, there's even an article, I think, that just came out today about how she's taking care of herself so that she can be guaranteed of not getting sick if such a thing exists. But yeah, the understudies and standbys are just in a class of their own. I especially these swings, which your listeners probably know are the people in the chorus who have to learn what they call tracks. So everybody in the chorus has got a particular track. You know, what they have to do in a show, pieces of scenery they have to move, props they have to pick up. Some people cover as many as it doesn't. How they keep it straight. They have these finders with colors. I mean, it's a whole system.

[33:35] David Armstrong: Well, and as you mentioned, unfortunately, for some of these people who are so brilliant at doing that, they can never get out of doing that because they're too good at it. They're so valuable to the show that you don't want to let them take over the part because then you need somebody else to swing, and nobody else will be as good as they will be.

[33:50] Ron Fassler: Correct. And also certain understudies, when they're really good, the star leaves, and yes, maybe you could promote the understudy, but then it's like, well, they're so well trained. Then we have to get somebody and train them as the understudy, especially if they're covering more than one. Hal Lindon, to go back to him, tells an incredible story. It's in my first book, Up in the Cheap Seats, that he was covering in The Apple Tree, which was a great three, almost for three-character musical on Broadway that had starred Barbara Harris, Larry Blyden, and Alan Alda. And Hal was covering both Larry Blyden and Alan Alda. And he went on a number of times for both. And at one point they said, you know what?

We really do love what you're doing, so why don't you replace Larry Blyden? But why don't you also remain the understudy for Alan Alda? And so he said, Halison, I think I'm in the Guinness Book of World Records. I was starring on Broadway, my name above the marquee, and I was still a goddamn understudy.

[34:40] David Armstrong: That is hilarious.

[34:41] Ron Fassler: And when he won his Tony for The Rothschilds, he specifically looked up in the rafters and said, and this is for all those who sit in the balcony at all those Saturday afternoon understudy rehearsals. This is for you. He'd finally made it. That show put him over the top. It's an incredible, incredible story. Sometimes the understudies really make good.

[35:00] ♪ Musical number: "She's No Longer a Gypsy" ♪

[35:40] Ron Fassler: And of course, I go into great detail about those kinds of stories from the all-time famous one about Shirley Maclaine going on for The Pajama Game, which made her an overnight star because the film producer was in the audience and signed her to a five-picture contract. Again, you give us a more complete version of that story. I mean, a very famous story, which we all know to some degree, or many people know to some degree, but I really felt like I got a fuller view of what actually happened and how that went down. When a story like that happens, you read Shirley Maclaine's autobiography, you read Hal Wallis, the autobiography of him, you read Alfred Hitchcock, and you get all the different versions, and it's sometimes it's Rashomon, sometimes it's not.

When I was researching the about who took over Name, I decided to do a little tangent, as you read on Auntie Mame, the Broadway show that was predecessor to Mame, because that was a role created for Rosalind Russell. When she left to do the movie, she said to the producers, Well, it's a shame we have to close the show. And they went, Roz, we're not gonna close the show, we're gonna keep it going. And she was shocked. No play this part but me. And they said, Roz, you're an investor. She had a significant investment in the show. Don't you want to keep making money? We'll keep that. She listened to. So Greer Garson took it over on Broadway, and some marvelous women played.

[36:52] Ron Fassler: He Bardin, didn't she do it on the road? And B Lily. B. Lily. Yeah, so I told all about that, but I did go and read Rosen Russell's autobiography. And I'm reading it going, oh, I didn't know that. And then I read another book and another book, and I'm like, oh my God, Rosalind Russell is making all this up. She wanted to take credit for everything. And it's absolutely not true at all. She claims that she found the property in galleys. Nobody, the producers had bought the book, and they were the producers of Wonderful Towns, the show that she'd done prior. Of course they brought her into it, but she wanted the world to think that she came up with the whole idea herself. It's quite extraordinary.

So yes, you do have to be careful about what certain things say. And of course, people's memories they're messed up. William Daniels told me once that his audition for 1776 was on the stage of the uh Ziegfeld Theater, the old Ziegfeld Theater. The Ziegfeld was torn down by 1969 when he was auditioning. But I didn't want to break that to him. It's probably another audition he had at the Zigfeld. He probably had some audition earlier on that stage, but yeah, that could exactly. There are very few performers who've actually pulled a Shirley McLean as the line in applause would have it. But you remind us again, and I'm not sure everyone knows the story of Sutton Foster. Why is Sutton Foster a star today?

Because of a very similar situation. Right. She was in the chorus of Thoroughly Modern Lilly when it was trying out in San Diego. The star of the show was an actress named Erin Davy. She was not quite hitting it. There was something off. And they just turned to Sutton at that point. She was not the younger study. They just said, Do you think you can play this? And you know, it's just about that moment. Opportunity meets. And she said, I'll give it a shot. And once she opened her mouth and started moving around that stage, they realized, wow, I think they started crafting the show around her. And no guarantee she was going to do it on Broadway. I mean, this was just still an absolute. Still on La Hoya.

The lawyer, right? Not San Diego lawyer. They just decided at the end of that run, boy, we're gonna just go in with this unknown. I mean, Aaron Davy wasn't a name anyway. So I mean, they had the money, they were ready to take the show in. That was it. Sutton became an overnight sensation. That just cemented her as a Broadway sort of go-to gal. She's still committed to the theater. She works all the time in the theater. She'll go off and do a TV show or something else, but boy, she keeps coming back. So real trooper. Of course, for people who've been around as long as I have, it's great fun to read this book and be reminded of things that we lived through or were adjacent to in some way. And you reminded me of an event that was major Broadway news back in 1987 when Cameron MacIntosh fired and replaced nearly was it like a third of the cast members in Les Miserables.

It was the event of that year, probably. Yeah, of all the firings I read about in the book, this one really it took everybody by complete surprise. And the way it was done was really, really mean. As one actress tells the story, there was a box on the stage. And after they made the big announcement, you were told to go to the box, find the envelope with your name on it. And that's how you found out whether you were in the show or out of the show. And eventually, this made a whole change of the way people can fire people after that. There had to be a just cause after that. But the thing was, the reason Kevin McIntosh did it was that he was a British theater producer. They really don't encourage people to stay with the show for many, many years.

Well, they in fact have a whole different system. They have contracts, I think, even if you're in the ensemble, and you know that your contract's gonna be up in a year or a year and a half or something like that. And they often replace the whole cast every couple of years. Yeah, I mean, even Phantom of the Opera, uh George Lee Andrews, who does hold the book in the Guinness Book of World Records, holds the record for the longest time with a Broadway show. That show ran 36 years, and I think he was in it for well over 20. He had to re-sign his contract every six months. So he said he signed a contract something like 40 times. It was nuts. But just back to Cameron MacIntosh, so he's used to a different system.

So he gets here and it's like, well, what the hell? Why do we have people in this show who are now 20 years older than parts that they're playing? That's right. I mean, to his point, these young students protesting were now in their 40s. But there's a way to do it, there's a way not to do it. Yeah, absolutely. There was also another incident I don't write about that happened with Annie. It was another big firing at the end. Oh, I remember that one, yeah. The producers have a big, big say in a lot of the stories in this book, because after all, you know, they're the ones who make a lot of these decisions when it comes to replacing and firing. And I talked to a number of producers, and they don't relish it.

You know, nobody wants to fire somebody. And sometimes you're firing somebody who is just miscast. It's not that anything really happened or they behave badly. They just didn't get it. It's a story that's not in my book, but Lee Remick was the original star of Agnes of God out of town. And she just did not like, she didn't understand the part. She really did not. They brought in Elizabeth Ashley. This was in Boston, and then Elizabeth Ashley, you know, was on her feet within three days and did it on Broadway, and the show was a very big success. And the producer, Ken Wasteman, told me a story that about a month after the show opened on Broadway, he got a letter from Lee Remick. And she said, I have to tell you, I understand why you let me go.

Liz Ashley understands this part better than I did. A very classy, classy thing to do. Well, she was supposed to be one of the really most wonderful people in the business. I mean, it's sometimes it's just unfortunate. And then sometimes, you know, the actor just simply can't do it. I tell a story about Tony Curtis when he was in a Neil Simon play, out of town. A play called I Ought to Be in Pictures. But by the time he came to Broadway, it was Ron Leapin. But out of town, Tony Curtis just couldn't, he really couldn't learn the lines. He just, he was, he was terrible. He worked hard. But you know, I think certain substance abuse issues with certain actors, it brings them to a premature close to their careers in many, many ways.

Jumping off of that, you actually have several stories that before the show even gets to Broadway, there are trials and tribulations that often involve changes in the cast and changes in the creative team. And we already talked a little bit about on a clear day, but Annie is another one, and maybe today is a great day to talk about Annie since we just lost Charles Strauss. Yes. Certainly one of his triumphs is Annie. That show starts at Goodspeed, and you take us through that whole story. Yeah, I mean, Annie, for those who don't know, I mean, Dorothy Loudoun and Andrea McArdle, as Miss Harrigan and Annie were smashed successes in that show, but neither of them started with it. They were both replacements.

When it played at Goodspeed, which is a small theater in Connecticut, he opened to pretty poor reviews. One critic called it just a poor man's Oliver. Yeah, so Mike Nichols, who lived nearby, came over as a favorite to one of the producers, and he fell in love with it. And he said to them, guys, you're sitting on a gold mine, but you gotta make some changes. They said, Well, what do you propose? He said, Well, I'll tell you what I propose. I'd like to produce it for Broadway. And they were like, I'm kidding. Mike, he never produced them Broadway. But he was Mike Nichols. Nichols wants to do this. I mean, the cachet alone. Sure enough, he came in and they fired the scenic designer. They fired the costume designer.

They changed the choreographer. And it was his idea that they needed a new Miss Hannigan. The actress who was playing it was not playing it for ass. She was playing it just as a meanie. He had the idea to put Dorothy Louden in the show. They worked together. He knew her from her cabaret act, her club act, and it changed Dorothy Louden's life. Little girls, little girls, everywhere I turn, I can see them. Little girls, little girls, night and day I eat, sleep, and breathing. I'm an ordinary woman with feelings. I'd like a man to nibble on my ear. But I'll admit no man has been. So how come I'm the mother of the year? Little cheeks, little cheeks, everything around me. If I ring the little necks, surely I will get an accord.

Some women are dripping with diamonds. Some women are dripping with pearls. Lucky me, lucky me. Look at what I'm dripping with. When she was not at the top of her career at that point, she was sort of down period at all. She had done a number of things in New York and on Broadway, but not recently. No, no. And nor has she ever been nominated for a Tony. I mean, she really had just not had that career that she'd hoped for. She was born a little too late. She would have been quite brilliant in MGM musicals in the 1930s and 40s. But the little girl, Christian Vigard, who was the original Annie. She opened in the show, but they had to let her go during previews. They realized she was a lovely little girl, lovely singer, but she wasn't tough.

They needed that street alley toughness that Andrea McArdle did. Andrea McArdle was one of the orphans. I mean, Martin Charnon, who was directing and co-wrote the score, O Charles Strauss, he went up to her and just said to her, Andrea, do you think you can play Annie? And she was like, When she was 13 years old. Why not? I mean, she said, Andrea McArdle said, We all knew the songs. We, you know, we'd been there for weeks. When you're a kid in a show, you know every word that everybody in the play does. Yeah. We just went out there and just played. And you know, I don't know about you, but I saw Annie the week it opened on Broadway in 1977. And it was such a glorious throwback to old Bro musicals.

It worked like a charm. But it really had just brilliance of Mike Nichols on top of it. He did not direct the show. There are people who will always say Martin Charnon didn't direct Annie Mike. It's not true. He was just a great force for good. He came in and made all the right choices to turn Annie into a hit. But yeah, that show went through great trials and tribulations. And of course, you know, was a man at success. Another show that had very similar trials and tribulations and big cast changes that made that ultimately made the show work was Kiss of the Spider Woman. And that's where Ron and I will pick up the story on the next episode of Broadway Nation.

[47:00] ♪ Musical number: "Little Girls" — performed by Dorothy Louden ♪

[47:27] David Armstrong: If you love this podcast and want to delve even deeper into the world of Broadway musicals, I invite you to become a patron of Broadway Nation. For as little as seven dollars a month, you can receive exclusive access to never before heard, unedited versions of many of the interviews featured on this podcast. I often record twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited public episodes. And you also have the exclusive opportunity to hear additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans. And all patrons will receive special on-air shout outs and acknowledgments of your vital support. To join, simply go to Broadway Nation Podcast.tech. That's all one word, Broadway Nation Podcast. Or simply click the link in the show notes to this episode. Broadway Nation is written and produced by me, David Armstrong. Special thanks to Pal'S Mox for his help with editing this episode and to the entire team at the Broadway Podcast Network.