“Welcome to Sheldon’s 100th Birthday Party,” begins host Deborah Grace Winer. At the party for his 99th, the lively, still working lyricist said, “Let’s do this again next year.” Winer has been a family friend since she was very young. Toasting Margie Harnick (and her son Matt) at the back of the club, she reminds the packed house how beloved the pair were in the community. Tonight’s selections are a curious mix, leaving out iconic shows, offering lesser work from revues.
Deborah Grace Winer
Allison Blackwell opens with “Gorgeous” (The Apple Tree). Possibly in an attempt to be funny, the vocalist is loud and angry doing neither herself nor the song service. Kate Baldwin then offers “When Did I Fall in Love?” (Fiorello). She seems thrilled with her feelings. A beautiful rendition of a beautiful song. I recall Baldwin’s Feinstein’s at the Regency show with Harnick as guest. Affection was clear. No one performed his material like the lyricist.
Austin Pendleton
Austin Pendleton, who created Motel the tailor in the original 1964 Fiddler on the Roof, tells us how the song “Miracles of Miracles” was added after the show was already on its feet. If pianist Greg Kenna had taken the tempo down, Pendleton would have had more ease with lyrics and space enough to act.
“Sheldon was a very urbane, Midwestern man (Chicago). He wrote light verse and played violin growing up, sketches and songs in the army. He was an incredible wordsmith, but also an incredible dramatist, writing for character, furthering plot,” Winer says. Also from Fiorello, we hear Rebecca Spigelman sing, “I Love a Cop.” The artist has a marvelous vocal instrument, but performance is so self-conscious, sentiment is not credible.
Rebecca Spigelman
In the early sixties, Harnick wrote The Body Beautiful with new collaborator Jerry Bock. Though the musical ran only 60 performances, its score came to the attention of George Abbott and Hal Prince who hired the young men to write Fiorello. Ten year-old Edmund Gaynes was cast – “and it was my third show,” the vocalist adds. “I heard about the famous composer Bach and here he was-alive,” he quips referring to Jerry Bock. Throat issues prevent Gaynes from singing. He recites part of “Every Man for Himself.”
Edmund Gaynes
Winer tells us that Harnick and John Kander came up the ranks together and were great friends. Kander told her peers were all jealous of Harnick for his success with revue songs often picked up for night clubs or recorded. Mary Stout performs “Garbage” from The Shoestring Revue. Not unusually, the lyricist peppered his song with double entendres – “threw me out,” “disposal,” “collected.” “If I am the garbage/Take me away,” Stout sings, doffing her hat to reveal a fried egg. Apt characterization reveals a broad who’s had enough. (Music and Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick.)
Adam Kantor
Adam Kantor played multiple roles in Fiddler while growing up in Great Neck, Long Island and was cast as Motel for Broadway’s last revival. “The Richest Man in Town” was one of many songs cut when Jerome Robbins took over. Performance is sweet, surprised, grateful. An iconic evening at the 92Y presented Harnick regaling the audience with songs relegated to his trunk, many from the iconic musical. “It’s clear this was penned by a human,” Kantor appreciatively comments. “It really seems to come from the heavens.”
At ninety-nine, in a hospital for something minor, he told Winer to get him out of there and back home because he had work to do, she recalls. Liz Larsen and Austin Pandleton are Goldie and Tevye for “Do You Love Me?” one of Harnick’s favorite songs and one he and Margie often performed at parties. The usually reliable Larsen is shrill, her accent exaggerated. Pendleton is quiet, humble.
“Margie and Sheldon were like teenagers in love.” Winer almost sighs. “She was in both Tenderloin and Fiddler.” From the former, Mark William renders “Artificial Flowers,” not as it would be performed in the show, but as Bobby Darren interpreted it for pop charts. It sounds like a swinging Edward Gorey. Neva Small, Chava in the film Fiddler, shares the stirring, also cut “When the Messiah Comes.” “This shows the side of Sheldon as history teacher,” she notes: “He will say, I apologize I took so long/But I had a little trouble finding you/Over here a few and over there a few/You were hard to reunite, but/Everything is going to be all right.”
Mary Callanan
“Boston Beguine” (music and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick – New Faces of 1952), was a pushback to the city’s banning all materials on sex education. Replete with the New England “AH” sound, Mary Callanan gives it her all. “…the strings of my heart seem to be knotted/And even the plants seem to be potted…”
Longtime Harnick pal Jim Brochu shares a lovely observation of Harnick’s generosity and a video clip from his own birthday party where the two men charmingly duet “Do I Love You?” “I saw Fiddler the second night in seat A105. Zero Mostel was ten feet away from me. I’d come from Carnegie Tech with my friend Stephen Schwartz – don’t know what happened to him.” His interpretation of “If I Were a Rich Man” exhibits minimum movement, maximum heart. (Brochu would later write and perform a one man show as Mostel.)
Jim Brochu
We close with “In My Own Lifetime” sung by Robert Cuccioli, who inhabited the role of Mayer in York Theater’s production of The Rothschilds. “It’s amazing how relevant a song can be,” the artist says speaking for all of us: “In my own lifetime/I want to see the fighting cease…While I’m still here, I want to know/Beyond a doubt/That no one can lock us in/Or lock us out.” Amen.
Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock (Public Domain)
It would have been illuminating and fun to hear more personal anecdotes from Winer, but love and admiration shine through everything she does say.
Sheldon Harnick was an extraordinary writer as well as a good and generous man. One quality fed the other. The work will live on as example.
Performance Photos by Maryann Lopinto
Opening: Sheldon Harnick by Robert Armin
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
All music by collaborator Jerry Bock unless otherwise noted
To Life: A Celebration of Sheldon Harnick’s Legacy on His 100th
Host Deborah Grace Winer
MD/Piano- Greg Kenna
54Below
254 West 54th Street
