You Fascinate Me So: The Life and Times of Cy Coleman (33 page)

In this regard Coleman did something quite unexpected. Baker related, “Cy got his New York psychiatrist on the phone one afternoon and must have started discussing the psychological makeup of the main characters in our floundering play. This was absurd, of course, since the chief characters were little more than bloodless stage cartoons. It became sillier, however, when Cy switched the shrink onto a conference call so he could lecture Barbara, Gene, and me on our failure to grasp the psychic ordeal our characters were undergoing.”
37

Overall, said Fried, “it was really like a Warner Bros. movie.”
38

As all of this was happening, both the company and creative team began to sense that Meyer and Friedman might opt to close the show out of town. Fried recalled, “Irwin and Steve were not there, and when they were there they were not helpful, and they were always complaining about how much money we were costing them.”
39

The producers assured the team that the show would play Broadway, and yet they were not doing anything to promote it there. In the weeks leading up to the scheduled first preview, April 19, there was no advertising until April 1, when the producers took out a full-page ad in the
New York Times
to promote both
Home Again, Home Again
and another show they had on its way to Broadway, Ira Levin’s
Break a Leg
. The ad promised that the Hellinger box office would be open for business the following day, but “when people went down to the box office,” Fried said, “there weren’t any tickets for sale.”
40

Subsequent to the ad, the producers ran no more advertisements and even eschewed placing the show in the theater listings until April 15, less than a week before previews were set to begin. At that point they opted to insert a small listing, which, confusingly, announced that the box office would be opening for business the following day. Even more telling is the way in which the producers were promoting their other show, giving it a continual albeit minimal presence in the
New York Times
theater listings. (
Break a Leg
did eventually make it to Broadway, where it lasted a single performance.)

Jacobs believed the producers, whom Baker described as “two shrewd Brooklyn street kids,”
41
never intended to bring the show in. “Actually, one of the mothers of one of the kids called the box office in New York to order tickets [and none were available],” Jacobs recalled.
42

Meyer and Friedman were in Toronto during the final week of performances there. “They had a series of conversations with Cy, and with Gene and with Onna, to which we were not privy, or . . . I was not privy,” said Fried. “Russell didn’t know anything about it either. Then they told us we were closing. Well, Cy and Gene had a fit. Neither one of them was used to failure.”
43

A few years later, when Coleman was being interviewed by Paul Lazarus for the WBAI radio program
Anything Goes
, he described his feelings about the folding of
Home Again, Home Again
: “That was my first show that ever closed like that. But what was heartbreaking about it was to leave a show that’s playing and the audience is howling with laughter. So the timing was off.”

The company was informed of the producers’ decision on April 12, when there were just two days left in the Toronto run. Ralston recalled, “I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t think we would go in. There was disappointment that we weren’t able to get it together, but I also knew that we’d get killed if we went into New York. We knew it wasn’t good enough. So I was not surprised. I wasn’t relieved like I was when I found out
The Baker’s Wife
was closing. There I jumped for joy.”
44

After the closing notice was posted, news came out that Warner Communications had withdrawn from its agreement to finance the theatrical projects that Meyer and Friedman were developing through their company, Regency Communications. The
Variety
story on April 18 about the closing and the producers’ troubles also mentioned that the two men were “defendants in a Federal civil suit brought by the Securities & Exchange Commission alleging securities violations in connection with a coal mining tax shelter venture.” The paper printed a retraction the following week, saying that they were no longer defendants in this suit; however, by the end of 1981 they had pled guilty “in Federal court to charges of conspiring to help investors file false tax returns” in conjunction with tax-shelter fraud.
45
The men ultimately received six-month sentences.

Almost immediately after the word hit that
Home Again, Home Again
would not be arriving in New York, Coleman announced, “The authors are revising the show and intend to seek other management auspices for a production next season.”
46
A few years later Coleman was still talking about his plans for the show, telling Paul Lazarus on WBAI, “I’ll just have to thank those producers for giving me a wonderful workshop. Because we’re going to do it again.”

Home Again, Home Again
would never materialize as a show unto itself, but Coleman, Fried, and Baker would eventually resurrect material from the musical. Before that, however, and true to form, Coleman was off on another project that would require most of his attention for the first few years of the 1980s.

23.
Barnum

Coleman’s habit of having myriad projects in various stages of development was instrumental in helping him rebound from the disappointment of
Home Again, Home Again
. Only five months after that show’s closing out of town, he had another on its way to Broadway as the first casting notices for his newest musical, a look at the life of circus impresario P. T. Barnum, began appearing.

Coleman first encountered the project in the mid-1970s, when Mark Bramble, a young writer whose day job was working for producer David Merrick, brought the book for
Barnum
to Coleman and asked if he would consider writing the music.

“I have no idea why Cy agreed to see me, because he didn’t know me from Adam, except that I said I am working in the Merrick office. And that may have gotten me in the door,” Bramble recalled. “Cy read it, and he asked me to come and see him again, and he said, ‘I’m not going to do this.’ And he talked a little bit about it. Not a great deal. But as I was leaving, he said, ‘But if you can’t find anybody else, you can come back.’”
1

After
Barnum
became a success, Coleman looked back on his first impressions of the idea when talking with Robert Viagas for the book
The Alchemy of Theatre
: “The circus part was interesting but there was no story. Barnum got married and started a circus. That was it.”

Despite Coleman’s rejection, Bramble persevered and approached other composers. “I tried every living composer who had ever done a Broadway show, and they all said the same thing: ‘This is a terrible idea.’ Except Jerry Bock. He almost did it, but he had decided to retire, well he was retired. He was tempted to come back and do it with Lee Adams, but in the end, he said, ‘No, I’m done.’”
2

Bramble went on to other projects, such as cowriting—with Coleman’s frequent collaborator Michael Stewart—the book for Jerry Herman’s musical
The Grand Tour
, which opened on Broadway in January 1979. It was during this show’s San Francisco tryout in late 1978 that Bramble found himself talking with Merrick, who was then in Hollywood, having produced such films as
The Great Gatsby
and
Semi-Tough
. Merrick asked about the status of Bramble’s Barnum project. “Well, I can’t get any traction on it. I just can’t get anybody interested in it,” Bramble told Merrick.
3

Bramble remembered the veteran producer’s unexpected response: “He said, ‘I’ll do it.’ And I said, ‘What?!?’ He said, ‘I’ll produce it for you. I want to come back to the theater. I’m tired of the movies. I’ll produce it.’ So he optioned it.”
4

Merrick did have one condition: Bramble had to agree to casting Jim Dale, who had been the toast of Broadway in 1974 thanks to his bravura performance as the roguish title character of
Scapino
, an adaptation by Dale and Frank Dunlop of Molière’s seventeenth-century comedy
Les fourberies de Scapin
(“Scapin’s Deceits”).
Scapino
came to New York from London for a limited engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and, thanks to Dale’s performance, proved so popular that it moved to Broadway. In addition to attracting glowing notices, the show inspired many theatergoers to see it repeatedly, including Bramble, who recalled, “You fell in love with him. He was just so adorable.”
5
So he readily agreed to Merrick’s casting suggestion, and Dale was on board, realizing that the show “was what I had been waiting for. ‘Scapino’ was the training ground for ‘Barnum.’”
6

It was at this juncture that Coleman reentered the picture. Stories vary as to the specifics of how he became involved with the musical. Bramble remembered that Merrick asked him who he wanted as a composer, and “I said, ‘Cy is the one, but Cy has turned it down,’ and [Merrick] said, ‘You call Cy and tell him that I’m producing it and that Jim Dale is starring in it, and he’ll do it.’ So I called Cy. ‘David Merrick is producing. Jim Dale is set to star.’ And Cy said, ‘I’ll do it.’ So I went back to Merrick, and he said, ‘Now, who’s going to do the lyrics?’ And I said, ‘I want Michael to write the lyrics, but he also turned it down.’ And he said, ‘You tell Mike that I’m producing it. Jim Dale is starring in it. Cy Coleman’s composing, and unless he wants to be left out of a good thing, he better sign on now.’ Which he did.”
7

Coleman offered a different version of being reapproached about
Barnum
. “Michael Stewart called me up and said, ‘I think we can do this.’ A lot of people had talked about doing Barnum’s life in the past, but that was all. I thought there was something intriguing about a circus show. Then I called Michael, after a sleepless night, and said, ‘If you can put this show in the middle of a circus ring, I can bring in all kinds of chases, to keep it going, and I love to write chases.’”
8

It wasn’t long after Coleman and Stewart had come on board as Bramble’s collaborators, however, that the question of who would produce
Barnum
was reopened. The problem arose because of another project that was on Merrick’s docket, a stage version of the 1933 movie musical
42nd Street
. This show, like
Barnum
, was to have a book by Stewart and Bramble, and Merrick was struggling to find a director. Gower Champion had been involved but had backed out. Merrick was coming to realize that putting
42nd Street
together was going to require all of his time and concentration, and so he went to the
Barnum
team and announced he wanted to postpone the show, at least until
42nd Street
was up and running.

But, as Bramble recalled, “Cy didn’t want to wait to do
Barnum
. Cy said, ‘No, we’re ready to go,’ and David, very graciously, said, ‘You can have it back.’ I will assign you the contract I have done with Jim Dale, and if you return the advance, you can have it back.’ And that’s what happened.”
9

Coleman, who was still stinging from the shoddy managerial oversight on
Home Again, Home Again
and also recalled the way in which
Seesaw
struggled because of its undercapitalization, decided that Merrick’s withdrawal from
Barnum
was an opportunity to ensure that he would be better able to control how the musical reached the stage, so he stepped in as producer and convinced Michael Stewart to serve as his coproducer.

Stewart’s involvement in this capacity was relatively short-lived, however, and so Coleman turned to Judy Gordon, who had produced
2 by 5
, a revue of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s songs at the Village Gate, and gained her first credit as lead producer of a Broadway show in 1978 with Christopher Durang’s
The History of the American Film
. Self-described as “an aspiring and ambitious young producer,”
10
Gordon introduced herself to Coleman at a party just after the revue opened and suggested that she would like to do something similar with his music. Nothing had come of this idea or several others that they explored before
Barnum
came into the picture, but in the process of investigating the feasibility of different projects, a solid relationship was built.

Gordon recalled how, after Stewart backed away from producing, she got a phone call. “Cy said, ‘Come over and hear the score, and if you like it, then you can produce it, and I’ll do it with you.’ . . . It was a great opportunity for me and a big deal.”
11

With the partnership established, Coleman and Gordon set about raising the capital for the show. Gordon described watching the writers as they performed for potential investors. “There was nothing like seeing Cy and Michael Stewart do a backers’ audition. I mean, if you wanted to raise money, you did it with the two of them. They were just captivating. I mean, our largest investors, Maurice Rosenfield and his wife, Lois, originally had no interest at all.” The Rosenfields’ reticence to invest in
Barnum
came, Gordon said, because, “They had put a little money into a show [a revival of Herb Gardner’s
The Goodbye People
, which had lasted all of one performance] and lost it. So they had decided they had had it with Broadway.”
12

Knowing the impact that a performance by Coleman and Stewart might have, Gordon decided to persevere with the couple. As the writers were preparing to do a performance of portions of the show, she said, “I just decided to call [the Rosenfields] again, and it turned out they were going to be in New York on that date, and so I said, ‘Just come over to Cy’s and you’ll enjoy it anyway.’ And that was what did it. Lois just fell in love with Cy, and they ended up putting in half the money, half the budget.”
13

But it wasn’t only the financing that needed to be secured; a director had to be found. At one point, Coleman thought of Harold Prince and sent him the script and score. After he had read and listened to it, Prince had a meeting with Coleman and Stewart, telling them, “You guys. You’re all rich. You’ve all got hits on Broadway, and you’re all going to be successful your entire lives. Why don’t you put this show in a brown paper bag and stick it on the shelf? And come back to it in a few years and see if you really want to do it?” When they asked why, Prince responded, “I just don’t think it’s any good at all.”
14

A director who did see potential in the script was Joe Layton, and he took on the show, serving as both director and choreographer. He also made a bold decision about what his approach would be in staging it. Bramble explained, “The concept was that we were going to use circus elements to tell the story and that there was not going to be any choreography per se. . . . Joe said, ‘I’m not doing any steps.’ He said everything that would be choreographic should be replaced with something to do with the circus. And he was very, very true to that and stayed very much on point with that.”
15

Layton’s vision for the show could be seen in the first casting notices, which appeared in late September 1979. They said that anyone auditioning “must have some special ability that could be used in the circus.”
16

One performer who eventually landed a role in the show was Andy Teirstein, who, in addition to having a music degree from Bennington College in Vermont, had studied with a master mime in Mexico and toured that country with a circus. When Teirstein heard of the
Barnum
auditions, “I thought, ‘What the hell? I’ll try.’ I went to Woolworths to get a dollar mug shot from one of those photo-booths and took it to the audition.” When he went to the call he found “a patchwork of performers there, and they lined us up across the stage and went down the line, each proclaiming his or her circus skills and instruments.”
17

Eventually it came time for Teirstein to perform his solo, and “I was terrified. I stepped out onto the stage in whiteface, in my bare feet. There were murmurings . . . ‘Is this his picture?’ someone asked. ‘Where’s the résumé?’ But Cy said, ‘It’s all right.’ He stood up, introduced himself, and asked me to play something. From the first moment, everything was going wrong. I opened my violin case and the fiddle fell out. The music stand fell over. But Cy laughed. I tripped over my hat. He bellowed. I looked at his face and saw encouragement, warmth, camaraderie. Cy said, ‘That’s great. Can you sing?’ I had prepared the first song I would ever sing in public, a Fred Astaire thing entitled, ‘A Fella with an Umbrella.’ I sang through it and left, ushered out by audition assistants, and feeling sure I would never be back.”
18

Teirstein left the theater but remembered that he had been advised that after an audition a performer should always shake hands with the director, so he returned, only to find that the auditions were over and Layton was unavailable. Undeterred, Teirstein sneaked into the balcony in the hopes that he might figure out a way to pay his respects to Layton.

“From there, what I saw on stage I will never forget,” Teirstein said. “Cy Coleman was prancing back and forth excitedly, merrily banging out chords on an upright and the next moment rushing downstage gesticulating to his creative team about his vision of their new show. Watching him on his feet, possessed with the excitement of his ideas, I felt that I was receiving a gift, a glimpse of how a show comes to life. And then I heard him say, ‘Here’s where that white-faced fiddler steps in. He’ll do this little waltz with Charity Barnum; it’s like he’s her own muse, or he’s Barnum’s inner spirit.’ From there Cy moved on to other ideas, igniting his collaborators in a dialogue about each character. I picked up my fiddle case and sailed home feeling as if I had swallowed the moon. Here I was, a street performer with no résumé, and they were going to put me on Broadway.”
19

The waltz Coleman described that day was part of the script by the time rehearsals for
Barnum
began a month later, and the moment—which comes just after Barnum has learned that his American Museum has burned to the ground—remained a part of
Barnum
. By the time the musical began performances at the St. James Theatre, Teirstein was also an integral part of the preshow entertainment that director Layton devised for his environmental staging.

Barnum
actually began on the street in front of the theater as one actor welcomed theatergoers and performed magic tricks while they entered. Inside, ticketholders were greeted by another member of the company, who guided them through memorabilia about Barnum’s life that had been loaned to the production by two other members of the producing team, father and son Irvin Feld and Kenneth Feld of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Inside the auditorium, audiences enjoyed performances by Teirstein and Bruce Robertson. Another member of the company was also in the house as audience members filed in: Glenn Close, at the start of her career and playing Barnum’s conservative wife, Chairy, as she was familiarly known. She was seated in one of the theater’s boxes, deeply immersed in a knitting project, above and apart from the merry happenings taking place.