Michael Kantor: Your parents loved the theater, which show had a profound impact for you as a child?
Jerry Herman: Annie, Get Your Gun made such a difference in my life. If it’s possible for one night in the majestic theater to have turned a kid’s head in the direction of writing for the musical theater, that was the night. I was in front of that great powerhouse called Ethel Merman, listening to a bouquet of gorgeous Irving Berlin songs that I had never heard before. I literally danced out of the theater, and I went home and was able to play at least a good part of five songs that I had never heard before in my life. And I remember thinking, what a gift this man I had ever met had given me, and that I would like to be able to do that one day. I would to give people melodies like that to take home. That night was quite a night for me.
Michael Kantor: Great. One of those shows is the There’s No Business Like Show Business, which I think is going to have to make it into our series. What do you think Irving Berlin meant to Broadway?
Jerry Herman: I think he was able to give Broadway a common denominator, more than anyone else. Cole Porter gave Broadway sophistication. But Irving Berlin was the boy next door. And he was to give us songs that anyone could relate to, situations that anyone can understand. And he able to people like my mother and father. Lovely middle-class people who were not that sophisticated, that brilliant, a place to go, songs to listen to, songs to cherish for the rest of their lives. My mother played always for her lifetime, and how deep is the ocean, for her life time. And I think she played more Irving Berlin. She was a wonderful pianist and… At one point in her life, before I was born, had her own radio show called Ruth Sachs Sings. And she was very proud of that. But I think I heard her play more Berlin than anything else. So of course, that had to have an influence on me.
Michael Kantor: Describe, you said you went home from a show and you could play the melodies.
Jerry Herman: I was given a gift by whomever. And that gift is that I can hear a song. If I went to the movies right now and heard background music that I had never heard in my life, I could come home and play it. But play it fluently. I don’t mean pick it out. I mean play it as if I had known it all my life. And I started doing that when I was six. My mother always told me a story that we lived in a house in Jersey City and one afternoon we were alone in that house and she knew that we were alone in the house. And somebody was playing the piano in that house. And she ran down the stairs and said, who’s there with you, Jerry? And of course what she found was her six-year-old seated at the piano playing the Marines him correctly with both hands. And that started the whole thing. She was smart enough not to make it a hysterical discovery, not to feel like I knew how to do something that nobody else knew how do. And she made it fun for me.
Michael Kantor: Um. You used to spend your summers at Stissing Lake Camp, where you’d play songs on the piano for 300 voices. How is that like a lot of the upbeat feel-good songs that you’ve written for Broadway?
Jerry Herman: My Stissing Lake days really were without my knowing it at that time, because at that I had no idea that I wanted to do what I did actually have done for a living. I thought I wanted it to be a designer and an architect. But I was learning about those simple songs that became the best of times, that became Mame and Hello, without knowing it, because hearing all those voices sing, hail, hail, the gang’s all here, or some of the other camp songs that we would sing, was thrilling to me, because the simplicity of those songs made them instantly recognizable to all those kids. And there wasn’t one voice out of the 300 that couldn’t join in. And I learned the value of simplicity at a very… Tender age.
Michael Kantor: In general terms, as you wrote, how do you write a song for a show? What’s important to you in creating this show?
Jerry Herman: The most important thing for me when I’m writing a new score is to find the characters, the leading characters’ voice. The best example I can give you is when I began working on Mame, I had absolutely blank paper on the piano, not an idea in my head. I just knew that there was this great piece of material called anti-Mame, and I was asked to musicalize it. And I knew that the first thing I had to do was to find a philosophy for Mame that I could musicalize. And I know that the play had to start at a big party. And party songs are the most terrible things in the world to write, because they’re about nothing. So I had to find Mame’s reason for having a party. And I remembered coming home from school when I was about six or seven and finding my mother surrounded by hundreds of hors d’oeuvres. And it was a Tuesday or a Thursday in the middle of the winter, and there was really no occasion going on. And I remember saying, Mom, you know, what’s the occasion? And she smiled at me and said, it’s today. And in a flash, I had my opening number. I wrote, light the candles, get the ice out, roll the rug up, it’s today. Though it may not be anyone’s birthday or, you know, and it goes on from there. And I found Mame’s philosophy. I found her inner voice. That’s the most important thing for me. I did that in Dolly with I Put My Hand In, a very garrulous song that has more lyrics than any song I’ve ever written in my life because she never shuts up. And finding those keys. Songs are are the uh… The first things i look for
Michael Kantor: Tell me how you met Frank Lessa and what he taught you.
Jerry Herman: I was very fortunate that my mother had a friend who had a friend who knew a friend, who knew Frank Lesser. And she arranged this meeting through all these people for her son to go and play these songs that I had been writing. And I was a very apprehensive. And I said, I’m not going to go make a fool of myself in front of Frank Lester. This great Broadway songwriter. And she said, go waste a half hour of your life. And I wasted a half of my life and changed my life because Mr. Lesser kept me there for an entire afternoon, told me that he believed that I could make it in this business. And that’s all I had to hear. I came home a different person and announced to my parents that night that I was going to try.
Michael Kantor: How did Frank Lesser think of a train as a song or vice versa?
Jerry Herman: While I was in Frank Lester’s office, he drew me. He had wonderful colored marking pencils on his desk. And he had big, wide pads of paper, which I inherited from him. I went out and got the same kind of paper. I thought it would rub off. And he drew a freight train with wonderful colored cars and a- black locomotive, and then he put a red caboose on the back. And he said, songs have to be like this freight train. They have to give you an intriguing opening line. And all the cars in the middle have to the filler, but they have to end with a caboose. And I knew exactly what he was talking about. And I’ve never written a song since then where I didn’t think. Does my song have the caboose? Does it end with, and roses suit you so? Which is my best caboose. Or does it end with, promise you’ll never go away again? Which is a wonderful caboose, and he taught me a lot about construction in one afternoon, because that was really the only time I ever had that kind of quality time with him. But I’m very grateful to him for my career.
Michael Kantor: At this point, you’ve done a Broadway show, Milk and Honey. David Merrick calls you in to talk about a show with Ethel Merman. What was it like to meet David Merick in that situation and what happened?
Jerry Herman: I was terrified meeting David Berrick. I had heard that he was difficult man, and his reputation preceded him. And he had this bright red office where everything was red. The walls were padded in red felt. The carpeting was red, the upholstery was red and he was all in black sitting in front of this enormous desk. And it was the most intimidating scene you can possibly imagine. It was calculated, but it was still very intimidating. And I was, don’t forget, in my 20s. I was a baby in this business. And I I was shy. I was not as assured as I am today. And I, I was literally shaking in my boots. And Mr. Merrick told me that he was interested in me to write his new musical, which was to be based on Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. But he wasn’t sure whether I was American enough. And I looked at him, and I said, I am apple pie. I am mother. I am, you know, there’s nobody more American than I am. My parents are both school teachers, you know, and, I don’t understand. And then I realized that he had just seen Milk and Honey, which was an Israeli operetta. And that’s where he got the Impression that I perhaps couldn’t write, you know American stuff. So I assured him Milk and Honey was the departure. And I went home and wrote four songs on Speck that I brought back to him on Monday morning that if my agents had known about, they would have been very angry with me, because I had a hit show on Broadway, and you don’t do that. But I wanted that job, like the kids in Chorus Line. And I knew that the way to get it was to write four songs and show Mr. Merrick that I could do the job.
Michael Kantor: What did David Merrick teach you about an audience?
Jerry Herman: We were having problems with Hello Dolly in Detroit. And Mr. Merrick said to me one night, I want you to sit in a box, and I want to turn the chair around and watch the audience all night. Don’t look at the show, you know what the show is. And if at any point during the performance, you see people thumbing through their programs or in any way. Losing their concentration, you know you have trouble in that particular scene and boy it was good It was good advice. I did exactly that They must have thought I was some kind of a nut because I was sitting backwards in this box But I learned where the weak spots were and I learned what to correct I immediately went up went to the hotel room and wrote so long dearie because that moment that I had I had a another song there, was a program looking, everybody started looking at their programs and I knew I was in trouble. And so I went home and wrote a song because of that. He taught me an awful lot. He really did. He was difficult but he was brilliant.
Michael Kantor: What did David Merrick say about keeping, if you could repeat the question, keeping the theater cold?
Jerry Herman: David Merrick also taught me something very amusing. He said, never have a show of yours in your lifetime in a theater that is hotter than 65 degrees. Keep that thermostat down. And he said, when they’re cold, they’ll applaud to keep warm. And he’s right. The worst way to lose an audience is to put them into a hot theater.
Michael Kantor: Thank you. David Merrick is renowned as a monster. A man who makes people feel two inches tall. How did he try to intimidate you on Dolly?
Jerry Herman: He was very difficult to work with on Dolly, because Dolly didn’t get great notices out of town. And his way of working was to try and intimidate. But once I understood that, once I learned that… I knew had to rise to the occasion. And instead of packing my bags and going home, I wrote a couple of new songs which really changed the fortunes of the show. And I was upset with Mr. Merrick because he was gruff and he had no bedside manner. And he never took me aside and said, Jerry, we need this, we needed that. He just, he just hurled, uh, uh. Insults at me, and that was not the way to work with me, but he didn’t know that. But once I got his, the reasons for all this, I knew how to work with him. And to prove that I knew had to work with him, I did a second show with him voluntarily and very happily. We were good friends on Mac and Mabel.
Michael Kantor: How did Before the Parade Passes By save Hello Dolly? How did you create that song?
Jerry Herman: I had written a song that ended act one called Penny in My Pocket and it was a terrific number brilliantly staged by Gower Champion by the way it took place at an auction and he had every prop every 1890s prop known to man out on that stage and the song was working and the number was working but something was wrong and I knew something was And the something was that they didn’t care about Horace Vandergelder at this point, because they had fallen in love with Dolly Levi and Carol Channing. And they wanted that final number in Act One to be about her. And when I realized that, and when we all realized that. I went to work one night and wrote what became for me, the most important song from Hello Dolly, which is before the parade passes by. It really embodies Thornton Wilder’s philosophy of that show. And it was a very exciting experience because I knew as it was pouring out of me that this is what was missing. The decision to come back to life was missing. The moment of the return, which is the Dolly number, was there in all its glory, but that step was missing, and when that was put in place, and we put that in in Washington, the show became a complete whole, and it was very exciting to see that happen and to be part of that change.
Michael Kantor: Tell me about the night that you wrote the song and you were in your white bathrobe and came home. Okay.
Jerry Herman: It was at the Park Shelton Hotel in Detroit. And there was a very nosy night watchman roaming around the hotel. And I was always very conscious of the fact that I had to be very quiet because I was the one with the piano in my room. And so I played everything at, you know, very, very, ver, very quietly. And this night when I was writing, before the prayer passes by. Which is a big, stirring march. It’s very difficult to write that and worry about not disturbing your neighbors. But I got so excited that I didn’t really care, and I played one full chorus of it out, and I knew I had something, and immediately called Carol Channing. And I said, Carol, forgive me, it’s Jerry. I know it’s late, but I have something to play for you. If you like it, then we’ll play it for Gower. And she came running down in a white terry cloth bathrobe with Park Shelton on it, which I had on also, because it was 2 o’clock in the morning. And very quietly, I played her this one chorus before the parade passes by. She got so excited, she grabbed the lyric from me and started singing it herself. And she ran over to the phone and called Gower Champion’s room. And a couple of minutes later, a third figure in a white terrycloth bathrobe ran down. By this time, I was sure that the house detective thought there was something very strange going on in my room. But he came in and at this point, I didn’t care if I got evicted from the hotel. The two of us sang the song with all its power and Gower flipped. He actually jumped on the sofa and said, I know how to stage it. Let’s call David Merrick tomorrow morning and tell him we have a new act one finale. And it truly did save that show.
Michael Kantor: General terms, how did songs from Broadway become popular hits?
Jerry Herman: In the early days of Broadway, all the recording artists waited for the new scores to come out. And they sang Some Enchanted Evening. And they saying Anything Goes. And Broadway fueled Tin Pan Alley. And when I came along, that was still happening. And I remember getting a call in 1964, late in 1964 for my music publisher saying, Jerry, you just threw the Beatles off the top of the charts. And their rendition of I Wanna Hold Your Hand had been number one for weeks and weeks and week. And one… The Louis Armstrong recording of Hello Dolly was number one. I still have that little clipping from Billboard. It was quite a feat to do that to the Beatles. And… We, in those days, recorded songs before we even opened. And a good example of that is the Bobby Darin recording of the title song of Mame was recorded long before the show came to Broadway and was placed on the airwaves and became a big hit. And opening night, the overture of Mane got to the title songs. And when those first bars of music were played, the whole audience applauded. This was a show that was opening that night, and the audience knew the title song from the Darren record. And it was very exciting for me. I saw it’s a ball in the back of the theater.
Michael Kantor: Great. It seems as though my research said that you wrote songs for Hello, Dolly for Ethel Merman. But Carol Channing is so perfect. Tell me about what made Carol Chaning so perfect for Dolly.
Jerry Herman: I was told that Ethel Merman was going to be our Dolly and so I wrote big belting Ethel Merman songs using her famous high C as often as I could and then when the day came for Ethel to come and listen to a new score she told Mr. Merrick that she really didn’t want to work anymore and that she didn’t want to spend her life in dressing rooms and we were all bitterly disappointed. Gower Champion came through with a brilliant idea. He said, I did a review with a lady named Carol Channing. And I know that she can make this something even more special because she’s a unique comedian. We went to see Carol in a performance of The Millionaires. And I fell in love with her immediately. And what she was able to do. And I don’t think Carol ever realized this. She was able to give the entire project a style that it would not have had with Ethel. Would have been a nice musical with Ethle Merman, but it would have been much straighter musical. With Carol, it became a wonderful colorful cartoon. Gower did costumes in poster colors, all because of Carol. And we did orchestrations that were way out front and very bright and happy. And I was able to write some new songs, like Before the Bray Passes By, which were very clean, simple and direct, because Carol gave us a style that is still going on, thank God.
Michael Kantor: Throughout the series I’m trying to find what a show had to do with the time period. What does Dolly have to do in 1964 or the 60s?
Jerry Herman: I don’t know if it has anything to do with 1964. I think we were just very fortunate that in 1964, we needed a feel-good show. The Kennedy assassination had just leveled the country’s joy, and we needed show like that. There also hadn’t been a period musical in years and years and years on Broadway. And so it became fresh and new to see bustles and horse drawn cars and all of that. And I think that was just good luck. And it became associated with 1964 because it was such a hit, but I really don’t think that it had anything to do. I think it could have been done in the in the 70s and still have had that same effect.
Michael Kantor: Let’s talk a little bit more about Ethel Mortimer. You had a special relationship with her. She’s a big person in our series. How did you meet her and how did she handle her celebrity?
Jerry Herman: I had a very special affection for Ethel Merman. I found her a marshmallow inside of a coat of armor. She was very tough on the outside, and had a reputation, by the way, in this business of being impossible to work with. And I was kind of scared of her in the beginning. But in about 10 minutes of teaching her two new songs that I had originally written for her that became hers when she… Decided to do the show in our seventh year on Broadway. She started calling me Jer, and I knew I had a pal. And we had a great relationship. I guess we found something in each other that was very special, very deep, very difficult for me to explain to you. But we sensed that we were. We were kind of kindred spirits and we had a wonderful time. It was a great year for me. I used to go and sit in her dressing room and she would tell me about her daughter and her son and a lot of intimate details that she probably didn’t tell very many people.
Michael Kantor: Was she alone in the morning?
Jerry Herman: I think she was extremely lonely. One night, I very shyly called her and invited her to dinner at my house, not knowing whether this was the right thing to do or how she would accept it. And she said, oh, I’d be so thrilled to come. She said, you have no idea how often I sit home all by myself because people think, well, Ethel’s out every night, you know, doing the town. And so nobody calls me. And she came to dinner in a black dress with a brilliant ruby pin on, I’ll never forget it. And we had the best time and it was just four of us. It was Ann Miller, my friend Mark Reiner, and Ethel and me. And we as much fun as if we had gone out to a great nightclub.
Michael Kantor: Craig, can you tell me the story about Ethel Merman being on a plane with a man and giving him Ethel merman lung power?
Jerry Herman: Ethel had a very raunchy sense of humor and she was on a plane with a man who became ill. She, with all her lung power, called for a doctor and nobody responded. So Ethel became the doctor and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on that plane and actually got the man well by the time they landed. And of course, Merman lung power was the best that there was in the world.
Michael Kantor: That, I love that story. This is a hard question to ask. What was it like to see her, you know, you describe it on the book, on her deathbed looking fragile?
Jerry Herman: Seeing Ethel after chemotherapy with a shower cap hiding the loss of hair and knowing that it was very near the end was as difficult for me as any experience I’ve ever had because you’ve got to remember that this was the inspiration for my entire career. This was the woman I saw. Singing, there’s no business like show business, and they say that falling in love is wonderful. And she became the symbol of Broadway for me. And she asked to see me when she knew she was dying. And La Cage had just opened, and I brought her an album of La Cage, signed very sweetly to my pal, Ethel. And she hugged it in that bed. And I have to tell you, it was very hard. For me not to start crying in front of her. I didn’t want her to know how upset I was, but it was very hard to see this powerhouse reduced by an illness.
Michael Kantor: Why is Maine Dennis the best character for a Broadway musical ever?
Jerry Herman: Mame Dennis embodies everything that almost every woman in this country wants to be or thinks she is. I can’t tell you how many people through the years have said, you know, I’m really, I’m anti-Mame. Because she’s glamorous, she’s liberal, she is funny, she warm, she very loving when she inherits this nephew. And she fights bigotry. And you can’t ask for a better character for a musical. I could have written 10 more songs for that character. And especially at the moment when she looks back and realizes that the nephew that she so carefully brought up to have her sense of values has turned into one of these bigots himself. And I knew that it was a moment for a song, because there was never a moment in the play that reflected her feelings at this time. And I know that this was my chance to write something that would strengthen the play, Auntie Mame, and give it a new dimension. And If He Walked Into My Life became that song. So I even had a chance to write up a stirring ballad for this character. I had the best time of my life writing for her.
Michael Kantor: How did open a new window cement the character for you?
Jerry Herman: Mame’s relationship with the boy is really the essence of the play. And the morning after he arrives, after this wild party, Mame wakes up a little hungover and realizes that it’s time to start Patrick’s education. And so in a nightgown and with her hair askew, She just takes his hand and says, there are things out there that you don’t even, the actual line is, she takes his and says. I’m going to show you things you’ve never dreamed existed.” And she says, open a new window, open new door, travel a new highway that’s never been tried before. And it is the beginning of her teaching, this boy, how to live, live, and it became a very important song and a very statement.
Michael Kantor: Um… What happened to Broadway musicals in the mid-70s?
Jerry Herman: In the mid-70s, everybody started experimenting, which is healthy, which is normal. Uh, the operatic musical came back into, into style. And everybody thought, oh, isn’t this wonderful? This is new. It’s not new at all. It’s where it all came from. But the opermatic, you know, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical came back and by the way, I love Phantom of the Opera and I love this man’s work. I think it’s melodic and terrific. So I’m not. Knocking anybody when I talk about these things. It was just a new direction to have most of an evening sung after years and years of hearing dialog and music. And then the more avant-garde musicals of Sondheim and his would-be Sondheims, there’s so many people who would like to write like that but don’t know how. Came along, and musicals started going in very interesting and offbeat directions. And the old-fashioned Broadway musical, of which I am the exponent, kind of got lost in the shuffle, because all this new stuff was going on. And I don’t think it has ever really come back like Hage was an old-fashion Broadway In 1983, and it was kind of daring to do that. I don’t mean the subject matter was daring. The subject matter is as wholesome as can be, in my opinion, because it’s about a family. But the fact that I did it in old-fashioned Broadway terms in 1983 was kind, was kind of gutsy and it worked.
Michael Kantor: You had three hits, and then in the 70s you wrote three failures. How was LaCaja Fall? And if you can reiterate the question, that would be great. Sweet redemption.
Jerry Herman: I had three major hits in the 60s, Milk and Honey, Hello Dolly and Mame, all came pouring out of me. And I thought you just wrote a musical and it ran for seven years. But then the 70s came and I realized that even if you did good work, because Mack and Mabel is good work and Dear World is maybe my most interesting work, but those shows didn’t work in the same way. And Grand Tour was also in the 70s. And so I had three shows that really didn’t work in a decade. And it was very depressing for me, because I thought that the kind of stuff I did was over. And nobody wanted the quintessential Broadway musical any longer. But then I saw a French film. And I knew that I had to write La Cajafal. And when it opened in 1983 and became a huge commercial success, and by the way, it’s now playing in every country under the sun, and it has taken its place with Dolly and Mame as my third, you know, big show, it was maybe the sweetest, I don’t know what term to use, But it was. It was the most satisfying experience of them all, because I thought my career was over. And it would have been all right to have written Dolly and Maim and Mack and Mabel. It would have just been fine. But having had another major hit in the 80s really was the sweetest feeling of them, all. And I have a special affection for La Cage because of that.
Michael Kantor: How do you think LaCage O’Fall influenced public opinion on gay life and maybe even changed people’s prejudices about homosexuality?
Jerry Herman: I know that La Cage changed people’s perceptions about gays because I was in those theaters all over the country and I saw people come in very skeptical and I have a specific story to tell you. One night when we were previewing in Boston and I was very, very nervous about the matter and being in Boston of all places. And I said to Harvey Fierstein and Arthur Lawrence, my wonderful collaborators who were huddled with me in the last row of the theater, I said, you know, we’re crazy. We’re opening the show about transvestites in the city of Boston. We’re really crazy. And they try to shut me up and I would not be, I would be shut up. I was just a nervous wreck. And I say, where do you see what happens when the ballad comes on? We got away with the opening number because it was so fun and glitzy and those wonderful Theoni Aldrich costumes kept on peeling off and the audience just loved the opening number and we were safe. But then about 15 or 20 minutes into the play, the lights of Saint-Tropez came on a little cafe table came on, and Georges sang a love song to Alban. This was the first time in the history of musical theater that a man sang a love song to another man. And we were sitting frozen in our seats, wondering what the audience was going to do. And right in front of us, there was a typical Bostonian couple. He had a blazer and a reptile on, and she had blue rinse on her hair. They couldn’t have been more typical. And so… The three of us were glued to this couple. And when the song started, they sat very stone-faced. And as the song progressed, because it’s a song about remembering a first lovely experience with someone walking on a beach. And it’s, it’s generic song. It’s not about gaze at all. It’s about love. And when it got to the line, I hear la da da da, da da dah, and I’m young and in love. This man took his wife’s hand and squeezed it, and the three of us started to cry. Sound at all, we were bawling in the back of the theater, because we knew that this show would reach a mass audience and that it was not an esoteric show about gays, that it was about love and family. And we were right, because it went on to play everywhere in the world, but that was the night we knew what we had.
Michael Kantor: So, just very briefly, how did Harvey Feirstein break new ground?
Jerry Herman: Harvey Farsene had written a very bold play called Torch Song Trilogy which was funny and touching and pulled no punches. It really told about gay life the way no other play had ever attempted before. And when we were looking for a book writer for La Cage, we knew exactly where to go and was it the right choice. He was a he was the perfect choice as was Arthur Lawrence, and the elegant Arthur Lawrence who was from the Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein world, mixed with this show business guy here and then with this new comet called Harvey Fierstein became the oddest threesome that Broadway has ever known and it worked. It worked because we all respected each other, we all liked each other and we all were in love with La Cajou Fall.
Michael Kantor: Great, thank you. What do you think Broadway has meant to America over the course of the century?
Jerry Herman: I think Broadway, I would think this of course, but I think Broadway is as synonymous with America as hot dogs and jazz and baseball. I think it’s one of our only true original art forms. It is America. And will change through the years as it as we’ve watched it do but it will always be there. There will always people applauding an overture in a theater and that’s a very American heritage of ours and I hope it’s protected by the people who come after me because it is, it is ours, it’s special. It’s imitated by people in other countries, but we know how to do it best.
Michael Kantor: What do you think is the future for Broadway?
Jerry Herman: I wish I knew how to tell you what I think the future of Broadway is, but I don’t know. I only know. I feel that. Something very valuable to hold on to. And I hope new writers, new composers, new choreographers, new directors, keep on coming along and keep on keeping the form alive because I think it is so distinctively American and so valuable to all of us. But I don’t know what the future is going to be. I can only hope.
Michael Kantor: Here’s another very sensitive question. How do you think the, what’s been the effect of AIDS on the Broadway community?
Jerry Herman: AIDS has been devastating to the Broadway community. We have lost more choreographers and more singers. And if I look at the casts of my own shows through the years and I realize how many of those wonderfully talented people are gone, it’s heartbreaking. And the entire industry has been affected by it. By AIDS. And in their honor, we need to go on and create new works. And there need to be new choreographers and new composers and new lyricists. And I just hope that young people will be brave enough. Try and make it in this business.
Michael Kantor: What was Gower a champion like? What was his genius for staging?
Jerry Herman: Gower champion embodied. Cleanliness. I know that’s an odd word to use, but his work was always crystal clear. And he staged the Hello Dolly number the first day of rehearsal in about 20 minutes and never changed it. And it was what it is and what it always will be, which is simple and direct and theatrical. And he had all those wonderful assets. He knew how to beat. He knew how to be to the point. He didn’t skirt around anything. He got right there. And he was a tough taskmaster to work with, but boy, was it worth it. He was wonderful.
Michael Kantor: Why was taking a show out of town so important in the course of the history of Broadway?
Jerry Herman: You really must take a show out of town, I think. Because what you are doing is creating an entire new work, even if it’s based on a play that has worked in another form. You’re creating something brand new. And you must have the ability to work on that piece of material, to change something, to add a song, to throw out a scene, to a change a performer, if necessary. And you can’t do that on 45th Street. So we would always go to New Haven, which was a wonderful quiet town where we could do that kind of work, or Boston, or Philadelphia. Those were the big three. And we’d strengthen all our shows in the few weeks that we’d play out of town and come in with a much better product. Today it’s so expensive to do that that we do that in the glare of everybody watching us and it’s not as good, it’s as healthy.
Michael Kantor: What’s a hotel song?
Jerry Herman: A hotel song is Before the Parade Passes By, is So Long Deary, is Chin Up Ladies, is I Don’t Want to Know from Dear World, which is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. It’s a song that’s written out of town under tremendous pressure. The composer’s hotel room on what is usually a terrible upright piano that’s sort of out of tune because it’s a hotel piano. And it’s most, usually written in the middle of the night. And they’re called hotel songs, and I have a whole list of them, but I’m very fond of them because in many cases, like Parade and I Don’t Wanna Know, they become my favorite songs.
Michael Kantor: Um How is a reprise of the glue that holds a score together? Describe that in terms of all broad-legged music.
Jerry Herman: I remember going to South Pacific with my parents. My parents loved Broadway musicals and took me almost every week to see the new Broadway show. And when they took me to see South Pacific, I was extremely impressed with Some Enchanted Evening, which I had never heard before, in Act One of South Pacific. But when I heard it reprised in Act 2. And I recognized those notes, I realized the value and the thrill of the reprise. And I’m a reprise freak. I love repeating songs because I feel that that is the glue that holds a score together. There’s nothing more exciting to me than hearing bars of music. For the second time, Sammy Kahn said it beautifully, love is lovelier the second times around. Songs are loveliers the second around.
Michael Kantor: Describe your feeling on the opening night of Hello, Dolly. Set the scene.
Jerry Herman: The opening night of Hello Dolly was that once-in-a-lifetime experience that I don’t believe I can even describe to you now, all these years later, because I realized in one instant that I had a mega hit that people would be seeing and singing and going to 50 years from then. 100 years from then, and I realized that my life had changed forever. That’s a lot to assimilate at a party at Delmonico’s, where Mike Stewart ran over to me and said, Jerry, we’re rich. I mean, that’s a a lot too try and deal with in the midst of all that excitement. But that’s exactly what happened to me. I knew that my life had changed forever and that I would always be called the man who wrote, Hello Dolly, no matter how. Many songs I had written that I liked better than that song, no matter how many shows I wrote that I like better than Hello Dolly. It was the kind of a once in a lifetime hit.
