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[0:00] Michael Riedel: Michael Riedel here with Singular Sensation, based on my best-selling book that pulls the curtain up on all the juicy gossip of Broadway in the 1990s. Now, the interviews you will hear on this series are my personal recordings I made when I was reporting and writing the book Singular Sensation. They've never been heard by anyone but myself until now. These recordings were made at crowded New York cafes and restaurants, in theater offices, on the phone, and so they have varying levels of quality, but our great editor has digitally restored them to enhance clarity, but you will still hear the occasional clinking of glasses, a few were raised during some of these interviews, I can tell you that, fuzziness of a phone call and voices, and you will hear ambient sounds, but it should give you a sense of what it was like when I was recording these interviews at places like Sardi's and Joe Allen. It gives you a little flavor of what Broadway is like. I hope you enjoy Singular Sensation.

[2:42] Nathan Lane: We did it in '92, but I don't know when we auditioned a year or so before. So I was doing the plays with Terrence McNally and had been noticed for those and had been around a while. It was certainly I had auditioned for Jerry before, but had never gotten anything. I remember that, you know, he was very nice. I think they were seeing a lot of people. I think there were a lot of, as what I heard later, I think they had offered Bernadette Peters either Adelaide or Sarah if she wanted to do it, and she wasn't interested in doing revivals. I think Kevin Spacey was also up for the role of Nathan. I think they were mixing and matching people and trying to decide age-wise which way they wanted to go, younger or older.

So, you know, I think they were just bringing in, you know, many different people just to mix and match and see what combination worked and what looked good. One of the things Jerry said, the big discussion was should they make sure that they cast a Jewish actor?

[4:43] Michael Riedel: Oh, yeah.

[4:45] Nathan Lane: Yeah, that was the big thing. And then, you know, it was before you came in and they said, you know, well, you know, Nathan's not Jewish. Should we have a Jewish actor? And according to Jerry, then you did the audition and the whole issue of whether Nathan Detroit had to be Jewish just went out the window after your audition.

[5:03] Nathan Lane: Well, I guess, you know, one can say I have a New York Jewish sensibility. Yes. Well, it's funny because I've, you know, gone on to play many Jewish characters.

[5:20] Michael Riedel: Yeah, well, that's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I could understand that, you know, because it was written for Sam Ladeen.

[5:25] Nathan Lane: Exactly. That's what they had in mind. Famously, and Sam Goldwyn, what he told us, you were getting Sinatra for the film. I mean, that's great. It'll be wonderful. It's Skymasters. And then he said, no, he's playing Nathan Detroit. He said, well, I was hoping Sam Ladeen could do it. He personally wrote it for and he said, oh, Sam Ladeen, no, too Jewish.

[5:51] Nathan Lane: Yeah, well, that's, you know, understandable. And but I'm glad they didn't hold that against me. Now, I'm always curious when you're in the rehearsal period and you're working with Jerry, you're working on the show. Did it feel like a hit from the beginning? I mean, I spoke to Walter, Bobby and Jerry, and, you know, they had concerns and there were previews that didn't go very well. I mean, when did you get a sense that it was going to come together or did you have any concerns about it not coming together at some point?

[6:22] Nathan Lane: When I saw the photograph of Faith Prince and myself on the front of the New York Times, I would say that it was, you know, Jerry was under a lot of pressure because he has this spring of hits at the Lincoln Center. But this was his first commercial venture. So I think he was feeling the pressure of that. And also, as we all did, just the notion of the show hadn't been done since, you know, the late, because it was a production, an African-American production, which I rather enjoy. So it hadn't been done since the late '70s. And so there, you know, it's and it's such a brilliant piece of craftsmanship. You know, you can only screw it up. So there was, you know, you wanted to do it well and do it right and do it justice.

And so I think that was that that was a little bit hanging over our heads. And and then he had cast a lovely actress, Carolyn Manini, who Jerry had cast, who he had worked with in Pentypes. And they were close friends and to play Sarah. And she was, you know, older, a little older than Peter Gallagher. And so there was that they were to he was sort of playing with that notion. And and, you know, from everything I didn't I was in, you know, you're in the middle of this thing, you know, you're trying to do your job and and, you know, and, you know, everyone certainly got along. There was no you know, but I later was told that they, you know, they weren't hitting it off. They didn't have a lot of chemistry.

[8:04] Nathan Lane: Yeah, no. Yeah. He told me it was very pain. That was, you know, very painful for him. And you know, I don't you know, and I don't know what I don't know how Peter took to Jerry's direction. And it was just whatever whatever was happening in that room when they were working on those scenes, it wasn't I guess it wasn't clicking. And then when we got into performance, you know, look, I yeah, I didn't have look, I didn't have much to do with. So in the in the in the show, so I just thought, oh, you know, it was all going fairly well. And and then, you know, suddenly one day, we were told that, you know, she was being replaced with, you know, it literally it literally happened very quickly. Yeah.

After, you know, a performance. And then the next day, Josie Guzman was the standby was playing it. She's a lovely, lovely woman. And, you know, and and at least Peter felt I had worked with her and felt comfortable with her. Yes, I can remember Jerry being upset with us. Why? I remember him gathering us together and then. And saying that we, you know, some people had walked out at an intermission, and I thought he was going to give us a pep talk.

[9:37] Nathan Lane: We weren't really trying, and I thought, you know, if I try any harder, I'll start hemorrhaging. I don't, bewildering, and yet it was all about, I think, the pressure of making it work. I mean, what I did feel was working with the, you know, the relationship with Faith on stage and our chemistry. We had worked together before, but this was, this was, you know, really a partnership, and it just, that thing that happens sometimes, you know, you just connect with someone. And there was a thing, and, you know, Jerry had, you know, at least he used to anyway, give a speech where, you know, he basically said at the beginning, you know, I want this to be a safe room and a room where don't give people, other people direction.

Don't, you know, if you have an idea, bring it to me and we'll discuss it and we'll try things, but don't direct other people. Don't discuss this or that. Don't discuss the play. Anyway, well, what are you going to do? I mean, you have to discuss it. And, you know, the ones at one point, there were so many big numbers to be choreographed. Nobody was bothering with "Sue Me." That was, you know, that's a, that was like just a little throwaway acting. Jerry Zaks has one rule, big, big rule that you don't do anything behind his back. You can go to him with suggestions, ideas, problems with his direction. He is open to that, but you do not do anything that he does not know that you're doing. But there were so many problems and difficulties on the show that Jerry wasn't really getting around to dealing with Faith and my relationship on stage.

So Faith and I, we went behind Jerry's back. And I said to Faith, let's go off somewhere and work on this. So even though, you know, we're not supposed to discuss it, let's discuss it and work on it and stage it ourselves because, you know, they're busy with this other stuff. And it's it really is more of an acting than a, you know, a dance number. And so we did it. We worked it out. And we didn't tell anybody. And then when we got to it, we just did it. And then everyone seemed rather pleased with what we had done. Jerry did tell me he credits you and Faith for putting that number together.

[12:05] Michael Riedel: Oh, well, you know, it's just sort of our own, you know, I need to work on it. And, you know, and people, I think, were busy. And you and Faith had that, did you have a sense of the chemistry with her right off the bat from, you know, the very early on in the rehearsals?

[12:14] Nathan Lane: Oh, yes. Yes, definitely. When you started the first previews, how did it play before the audience? Did you feel it was working or it was sort of hairy?

[12:27] Nathan Lane: I don't quite remember. I get the feeling, you know, it wasn't going as well as I thought it was going. People were nervous about it.

[12:34] Michael Riedel: Yes, they were. The opening was too long. The running in the land thing was too long. And they were worried about that. And the chemistry with Peter and Carolyn. And there was some worry about all of that. They were worried that, you know, Walter Bobby wasn't fat.

[13:00] Nathan Lane: Yes. No. Yeah. Walter told me he was worried about he was going to get fired. He thought he would be the next. You know, when when things aren't going well, people start, you know, let's change the hat. Let's let you know what they focus on other things. And that could be a problem. Anyway, but that was because it was not non-traditional that they didn't have a big heavy set nicely. You know, that was I know that was discussed.

[13:22] Michael Riedel: Oh, yeah. We'll be back soon with Nathan Lane. And we're back with Singular Sensation and the story of Guys and Dolls. Do you then remember the opening night and when, you know, that moment when you saw yourself on the front page of The New York Times?

[13:38] Nathan Lane: I was outside the Martin Beck, then Martin Beck and Don Barlow from Donald Brian Brown. And he had graphs. He got to get a copy of it. He showed it to me outside the theater. And that we hadn't before been a picture of, you know, like an arts and an arts picture on the front page at the time of a show, you know, a musical. And he showed it to me. And that was a big deal. And and then the review was, you know, quite sensational from Frank Rich.

[14:17] Michael Riedel: Yeah, absolutely. And then I think you wound up on the cover of that.

[14:20] Nathan Lane: I wasn't Jewish, I think.

[14:27] Michael Riedel: Oh, yeah. I have to go back and look at that. Yeah. But it didn't seem to matter.

[14:35] Nathan Lane: No. And then the show really seemed to some I think Jerry may have said this and Jack Fertel told me that the show really captured something in New York that it helped seem to lift the city up a little bit from the kind of doldrums it was in in the early 90s. Did you have a sense of that that was happening? That was the perception of the show?

[14:48] Nathan Lane: You know, you know, I don't know. It was a hit. Yeah, that's what it was. It was a hit. It was a big hit. Yeah. It really was a big hit with lines down the block and that kind of articles being written about it. And Faith and I were on the front of New York magazine. And, you know, look, in some ways, there was a kind of daring, at least in terms of the design, what Tony and William I.B. Long were doing, you know, that kind of when you walk down, maybe that was part of the what made the figuring it out on stage more difficult. They weren't naturalistic sets. You're walking into a technicolor world, you know, not slightly cartoonish, one might say. And you had to kind of live up to that. You had to, you know, it was painting and, you know, a little broader strokes.

And it was so that was tricky. And yes, you know, be still keeping it real, you know, and yet hiding. So that might have added to some of the issues in the beginning. But it was, you know, a striking looking production and always and kind of joyous, you know, and I think once we opened and the pressure was off and the cast to take a breath and relax into it and and and favor it, you know, you know, I think it got better. And and we knew how to we just knew how to do it. It was certainly the biggest thing I'd ever been involved in. And, you know, yes, the show does symbolize New York or at least a kind of New York we remember, but maybe never really existed. But it is a New York show if there ever was one.

And and so, yeah, you know, maybe on a certain subconscious level, it did that. But it was just it was a wonderful thing to be a part of. And it's very it's a nice it's nice that I'm very it makes me happy when people remember it so fondly.

[17:09] Michael Riedel: And that, of course, it made you, you know, first ranks of musical theater star. Did you start getting all sorts of offers to headline all sorts of different Broadway musicals after that?

[17:16] Nathan Lane: No, no, not that I remember. I forget what came after that. You know, I did the Neil Diamond play with Jerry. You know, I was I was I worked a lot with Jerry. Yeah. At that point, we did Lassar on the 26th floor. Right. No, it wasn't like my life changed because of it. I mean, really, Faith was kind of the star is born moment. You know, she really you know, because obviously because of the nature of the part is is such and and also because she was so tremendous that and so she certainly got, you know, there was a lot of interest in television interest. And there was a lot of other offers. But no, I don't you know, I don't remember. No, nothing drastically dramatic happened.

[18:10] Nathan Lane: Call it dumb, call it clever. Ah, but you can get odds forever. That's a guy only doing it for somehow, somehow, like I'm only doing it for some.

[18:23] Nathan Lane: So that wraps it up for Guys and Dolls, which I consider the greatest musical comedy of all time. But coming up next on Singular Sensation, you're going to hear the story of the revival of Chicago, which, believe it or not, was a show that few people wanted to invest in. And we'll hear about that in the next episode of Singular Sensation.

[18:41] Michael Riedel: Thank you for listening to Singular Sensation. I'm your host, Michael Riedel. To find out more about Singular Sensation, the book and the podcast, visit bpn.fm/singularsensation. This episode was edited by Sarah Goodman and produced by Dori Berenstein, Kimberly Garris, Alan Seals and Sarah Goodman for the Broadway Podcast Network. Special thanks to Liz Armstrong and the entire BPN team.