WORDS AND MUSIC BY JERRY HERMAN

- Documentary Explores Life and Work of Legendary Broadway Composer/Lyricist Jerry Herman -

"When they passed out talent," Broadway star Carol Channing says of composer and lyricist Jerry Herman, "Jerry stood in line twice." Herman wrote the words and music for some of the greatest Broadway musicals ever mounted, including Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles. WORDS AND MUSIC BY JERRY HERMAN, airing Tuesday, January 1, 2008, 9:30-11:00 p.m. ET on PBS, uses insightful on-camera interviews, behind-the-scenes rehearsal sessions, rare photographs and never-before-seen archival footage of original Broadway performances to create a warm, humorous and moving portrait of a living theater legend.

Five years in the making, this documentary by award-winning filmmaker Amber Edwards chronicles Herman's rapid rise from witty, topical off-Broadway revues during the 1950s to his first Broadway hits in the 1960s (Milk and Honey, followed quickly by the record-breaking Dolly and then Mame) through the less successful shows of the 1970s (Dear World, Mack & Mabel and The Grand Tour) to his triumphant return in 1983 with La Cage aux Folles, which made social and political history.

The "supporting cast" is a Who's Who of Broadway: Carol Channing, Angela Lansbury, Charles Nelson Reilly, Marge Champion, Arthur Laurents, Charles Strouse, Fred Ebb, George Hearn, Phyllis Newman, Michael Feinstein, musical director Donald Pippin, singers Leslie Uggams and Jason Graae, author Francine Pascal and historians Miles Kreuger and Ken Bloom. Theater aficionados will marvel at the collection of archival motion picture footage: Carol Channing and the original Broadway Hello, Dolly! company performing the title song; Angela Lansbury in the only known footage of Mame and Dear World; film of the 1955 college musical Herman wrote at the University of Miami; Robert Preston and a bevy of showgirls from Mack & Mabel; and other material that captures these original, ephemeral theater performances that, until now, existed only in the memories of those lucky enough to have seen them on stage. Naturally, the film is filled with music, with original cast recordings and live performances, while the piano underscoring is played by Herman himself.

True to the spirit of its subject, who describes himself as "a builder," WORDS AND MUSIC BY JERRY HERMAN creates a dramatic arc that honestly examines a career of hits and flops and highs and lows, culminating in Herman's final act as a Broadway composer/lyricist: La Cage aux Folles (1983), which was not only a critical and commercial smash, but a political and social turning point. Never before had two men held hands romantically in a musical or sung a love ballad to one another. George Hearn's star turn as Za Za, belting out the dramatic act one closer, "I Am What I Am ," still brings audiences to their feet with its forceful call for tolerance and dignity -- a surpassingly powerful statement from a composer/lyricist who declared all along that he wanted only to entertain people. It was, Hearn recalls in WORDS AND MUSIC, truly "the best of times" -- until shortly after the show opened and cast members began dying of a mysterious illness. AIDS swept through the theater community. Half of the original La Cage chorus didn't live to finish the run. Herman himself was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1985; he is one of the fortunate ones who survived to see experimental drug therapies take hold and is still, as one of his lyrics proclaims, "alive and well and thriving."

With his ebullient, optimistic and hummable songs that exemplify the "show tune," Jerry Herman extended the Golden Age of Broadway almost single-handedly, as new generations keep discovering his tuneful, optimistic and deceivingly simple songs. Yet, as Michael Feinstein says, "Jerry has succeeded so well in his mission that people don't give him credit ... because to be simple without being cliche is nearly impossible."

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