Notes on a Saturday Night

This is the most writing I have done all week...the people at the York asked me to write a short (ha!) history of Grossinger's...this is the result.

Author's Note by Stephen Cole

When Claibe Richardson and I first started working together we didn't have a project, so we just wrote some songs to get to know each other. During this time, Claibe would play me some Jewish sounding musical numbers from a show he had been working on for some time with Ronny Graham, Rita Lakin and Doris Silverton. This show was then simply entitled Grossinger's. I would politely listen and we would go on to our work which eventually turned out to be the beginnings of our musical adaptation of The Night of the Hunter. One day, early in our process on that serious and very ambitious project, Claibe asked me to read the latest draft of the big fat Broadway bound musical (it was being written for Lainie Kazan and Karen Morrow!). It seems that Ronny Graham had come up against a brick wall. So I read it. Well, they had strayed far away from the story of Jennie and the Catskills and Ronny had written a bizarre Mel Brooks-ian treatment that defied description. He had also realized how far he strayed, threw his hands in the air dramatically and said he had had enough of Jennie, the Catskills and the show. Ronny was very dramatic! In this script, though, I saw the kernal of a story...what they had started with, the story of Jennie and her indomitable will and how, she, as woman ahead of her time, had built an empire in upstate New York. A haven for the Jews. Having spent many a childhood summer in those very Catskill mountains, I knew who she was. I knew the territory. I was Jewish! (Oddly enough neither Ronny nor Claibe were!) I knew I could write this show. If I could start all over. Claibe and I put Night of the Hunter aside (for a while we wrote both at the same time...The River Jesus playing comfortably in the background while we wrote songs about blintzes) and wrote a whole new first draft, with new plots, new songs, revised lyrics, everything. And the first place we brought it to was the York Theatre, who gave us the most wonderful reading directed by Larry Arrick starring Tovah Feldshuh as Jennie. This was still the big Broadway version of the show and it was a smash for one night only. The York was turning people away at the elevator. People (including columnist Peter Filicia who wrote about it) were standing on stage with the actors and seated in the aisles. The laughter and fun was permeating the air along with the imaginary smell of Jennie's famous rye bread. From the York we took the show to Ft. Worth, Texas. Of course! There we cast Ruta Lee and Gavin MacLeod and the "goyish" version of Grossinger's ran for over a month at the huge Casa Manana. Somehow, even in Texas, the Jews found us. And you know what? They weren't all Jews. They just loved the show. After that, there were options, and promises and suddenly it was very difficult to get such a huge show off the ground. So when a small theatre on Long Island (after doing the four character After the Fair, originally produced by the York, not so incidentally) asked to do Grossinger's I told Claibe that he wouldn't be getting that big orchestra he dreamed about, but maybe a small trio. He countered with, "why don't we make the whole show smaller?" I thought he was nuts. Jennie's huge epic saga small? Then I got the idea of the Grossinger family telling us the story as part of one of their famous Saturday Night shows. The big stars are late and Jennie in her infinite egotism and brilliance saves the day and tells the story of how she made it all happen. Along the way, her family teaches her a lesson or two about herself. Wow! A whole new book happened, more song changes and a reading out on Long Island with Claibe and me singing the score (including the last song he would write ironically entitled "Dead on Her Feet"...for sadly, Claibe did his final Grossinger rewrite and departed for heaven before the production could take place). The production on Long Island happened (starring my good friend FD) and it was attended by my good friend Jim Morgan of the York, who gave me some great artistic advice and filed the show under "the future" in his head. I took the advice, did another rewrite and the show was produced in its 6 character version at Theatre West in LA, where it proved a critical and popular hit, running for four months...In LA time that's years! It starred Barbara Minkus and Barry Pearl and they made the show so much their own that when a new production was mounted last Winter in Ft. Lauderdale, it was inevitable that they once again play their roles. And now, "the future" has finally arrive and Saturday Night at Grossinger's is coming home to roast at the York Theatre once again. What a full circle! Janet Hayes Walker, who was there at that fabled first reading would be so surprised and thrilled. Ronny, who died in 1999 would be in shock! Claibe, who sat on the board of the York for years, would be delighted. As for me, well, it's like Jennie and the entire Grossinger family sings in the opening and closing of the show..."Welcome Home!"