Backstage with Richard Ridge: The Man, The Glasses, The Legend... Hal Prince!

Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge

SAG-AFTRA Foundation and Broadway World continue their filmed conversation Q&A series, which celebrates the vibrant theater community

here in New York City. This event, which is coming from the Robin Williams Center

is a very special career conversation with the most honored director-producer in the history of the American theater

He is the recipient of 21 Tony Awards and is back on Broadway this season

at Manhattan Theater Club, with a musical that celebrates his illustrious 70-year career called Prince of Broadway

Please welcome Harold Prince. Well, first of all, thank you so much for sitting with me

You know, I have to tell you, Hal, growing up, my parents took me every year to a Broadway show

and it was always a Harold Prince show. Uh-uh. I don't believe it

Oh, yes. they told me that I would be entertained to the highest level and I would learn about something

or a subject that I didn't know so as we start off I want to thank you for that sir thank you

yes well now welcome back to Broadway this season with Prince of Broadway what have you

enjoyed the most about working on this show well I backed into it I think I better say that right

way. It wasn't, I didn't desire to do an advertisement for myself. And I sort of decided

a week ago, this is the last occasion that I'm going to do anything like this. I'm a director

and I, you know, it's uneasy doing advertisements for yourself. But I backed into it because a

Canadian impresario asked me to do such a show. And I thought, sure, I'll do it. And then he ducked

it because it was too expensive. So now I'd been working on it. And the whole deal was really

to illustrate that I think the two sentences that mean the most that are expressed on the stage

One is you can take an audience anywhere, and you can. You don't have to talk down to an audience

and I think there's an awful lot of talking down, a lot of trying to figure out what the formula is that makes a success

As close as I could ever get to that is surprise them

the other sentence in the show that means something to me is something my wife said to me

after a number of years being married she said I'm so sick of you saying that follies was a flop

it was one of the best things you've ever done it was a success you've got to distinguish between

hit and flop were box office terms and success and failure which is artistic terms

And I so loved that. And I've lived with that in my heart somewhere ever since she said it

And I believe it. I believe it. So though you were mentioning a bunch of shows that were flops, i.e. Pacific Overtures

it was a success as far as I was concerned. It was a very dangerous and adventurous show

And I thought we pulled it off. Did I ever think it would be a success on Broadway

Not really. I know enough about Broadway not to think that. You know, there are certain shows you do that you know you'll run out of your audience at some point

But your audience can be just, you know, West Side Story, around a year and a half

with a break in the middle for six months to go to Chicago and come back

the movie was everything the film was later people knew what West Side Story

was by the time the film was done and suddenly it was an international success

and now of course it's played everywhere including in opera houses but not then, that was something new however

well worth doing Cabaret, same experience it ran three years but The film was the best film of the year, as was West Side

And it, interestingly enough, it became an international film. So I think we sometimes are ahead of what they do in films and so on

Sometimes films are ahead of us. But it matters what you're doing

And certainly astonishing them, which is a Diagola phrase, he said astonish me, is a pretty good standard by which to develop projects for audiences

Because you have always surrounded yourself with talents that work at the same level as you do

And this show is no exception, Prince of Broadway. What has it been like collaborating with this team and once again with your co-director and choreographer Susan Stroman

Well, Strauss is endlessly imaginative and terrific and among the most cheerful collaborators that ever lived

She's just, I'd love to needle her sometime and find out whether there's a temper somewhere

I haven't seen it. And she's a perfect collaborator. Tommy Thompson did Choosing the Words selectively

and the set designer, Beowulf Borat, and William Ivey Long did the costumes

They are spectacular. I threw the worst task at them in the world

I said, I want the scenery and the costumes to look as close to the original as possible

and there was a reason for that. Though I don't remember what I staged

and I couldn't possibly dredge up memories. So we did each number and each segment

as if it was a brand new piece of material. I spend as much time dealing with scenery

and costumes as text. And so I usually put a scenic designer on

at the same time we're developing the project. And so I couldn't revisit every single one of 17 musicals

We have 17 musicals on that stage and very often full stage sets

It's kind of a brilliant job of design. But those designs are familiar to me

And it takes me six months to come up with the way a show should look

So I couldn't possibly have done that with 17 shows. You assembled a stellar cast of nine What did you look for when you were casting Because your cast is flawless in this show Yeah I think so too I think they the nine most talented people I ever worked with

Now, I've worked with other people equally talented. But these nine people do, they do probably on average three huge segments in which they are perfectly cast

But if you can find somebody perfectly cast to play Amalia in She Loves Me and Sally Bowles in Cabaret, it's astonishing

And Brianna can do that. And Emily Skinner can do that. They all can do that

That's protean stuff. I can't imagine. it's going to be hell when we

take it elsewhere which we will hopefully all over the world and then around the country

it's going to be hell to recast but there is nobody more talented than

the talented people working on Broadway and that's changed in my lifetime I've been around long enough to know

that there was a time when you had a singing chorus, a dancing chorus, usually 12 or 14 of each

and then leading actors, stars. And the stars were all great personalities

who could not sing or dance as well as the chorus people

So the singers came on, and then they left the stage, and the dancers took over

And then came West Side Story. And Jerry Robbins insisted that everybody do everything

And that was a huge gift to the theater, but a gift to all those people working in the musical theater

Because now they have to sing and dance and act. So nine people can do what normally 27 at minimum would have to do

They're brilliant. What I love the most about Prince of Broadway is watching the progression of how you help

change and further the face and shape of the American musical theatre

Was that one of the goals you had when you were putting the show together? No

Or just played out that way? No! I was just trying to express myself. No. No

What happened really was I didn't want... I hated musicals. I thought musicals were just stupid

And they were. They were musicals when I was a kid. Except for Show Boat and odd exceptions, Porgy and Bess is not really a musical

It's an opera. But they were there when I was a kid. However, most musicals were collections of terrific songs from the Gershwins

from Porter, from Rogers and Hart, linked together by crazy, silly books

I have two examples of that. One is a musical called Something for the Boys with Ethel Merman, Cole Porter score, big hit

And it was during World War II, so the plot was essentially about how Merman got graphite on her teeth

and Nazi spies could send messages out through her mouth. And the other one was a show of Rogers and Hearts

that George Abbott directed called Too Many Girls. And Too Many Girls was about a college called Pottawatomie

There's actually a place called Pottawatomie. I didn't know that until fairly recently in the Middle West

and the girls all wear beanies, signifying that they're virgins. That was something that Desi Arnaz said to somebody else in the show

Why are they wearing beanies? Oh, that's it. So the whole plot turned on the fact that the leading lady

who wore a beanie through the first act came out on the second act without a beanie

So we know that someone had nailed her. And that was the plot of that huge hit

However, both shows had great scores. And that's what musicals did. By the time I was becoming a producer

music was no longer the popular music of theater. Theater music was no longer popular

R&B and jazz, rock and roll, big time. And so the popular music was elsewhere

So inadvertently almost, you could address subjects that you could never address before

and Steve Sondheim could write text that could be really advanced character

and plot and so on. And that was a new opening for all of us

A fellow who never liked musicals could finally do a musical about a subject

that he really was interested in because it was not a traditional musical subject

So a lot of the shows I did subsequently, first as a producer, certainly Westside, and then as a director, were not normal musical material given the 30s, 40s, and even early 50s

Yeah, I love that. I never knew something for the boys. I never realized that. She got graphite on her cheek

That was, well, that was the plot. That was the book. well you know let's talk about your book you also have a brand new book called sense of occasion

where you look back and assess your 70 year and counting career

actually i'm lying it was only about 62 or 4 fabulous with creating some of the most famous landmark musicals for our audiences if you love the

american musical theater and you want to know how it's done from the greatest director producer

then you have to get this book. How did you come about writing it, Hal

Well, it was unfinished business, really. What happened was when I was a young man

in my late 20s, early 30s, I became a successful producer. And beyond my wildest dreams

and the editor of Harper's Magazine, a very estimable Harper in Atlantic are the best called me and said you should write a book And I said I 30 or something He said

no, you should write a book. So we met and had a lunch and I said, sure. And then I got chicken

and I didn't write the book. I just kept writing him notes saying, I'm writing the book

And, but then finally I decided I'd write it. And so in 1974 it came out, it was called Contradictions

And it deals with everything up to 1974 and including 74, I guess 73

Anyway, there's a whole lot of shows, many more shows from 74 to now than before

so I thought you really it's sort of like you stopped a little night music or something

and maybe you should set the record straight also it was an opportunity

to address what's happened to the theater because a lot has happened to the theater

the other most important line in Prince of Broadway is when someone says

Follies was the most expensive musical of its time ever done, it cost $800,000

And the audience always, the smart, the wise ones in the audience went

well, the fact is you can't do a one-character play, a solo play on Broadway for $800,000

So in the interim years, from 1971 to now, the escalation in cost has been extraordinary

and I don't particularly want to address that because I think a lot of it

is probably due to the fact that no one ever wanted or would want to take a strike

because you can keep these theaters going all the time and now of course we've

inherited a new theater where everything runs 15 weeks When you do a show at Manhattan Theatre Club

you know you're good for 12 to 15 weeks. We've just been extended. That's great

But that's it. And that's fine. But you know what you're getting into

Now, of course, you do know what you're getting into. You're a Hollywood star. You go to Broadway for 12 weeks or 14 weeks

and the show closes. And what they think they're doing, the investors, the producers of these shows

because the producers are now the investors. That never was so. I couldn't have raised, I couldn't have put a nickel in pajama game

I was making 75 bucks a week as a stage manager and happy to do so

But now all these producers are investors. And so they bet on a movie star coming in for 12 to 14 weeks

and that the show will pay off. and make a small profit

It's like a guarantee. Well, that has nothing to do with the theater

as far as I'm concerned. And I do disapprove of it, actually

because it's cost us something. Too many people now are saying, sure, I'll come to Broadway for 14 weeks

and not even movie stars. And you see, when we did a show

it was not uncommon to sign a cast for a year and a half, right off the bat

You signed a contract for a year and a half, and you were damn grateful for it

And the likes of Ethel Merman and Mary Martin would take a Broadway show, and if it was a hit

stay with it the length of its run on Broadway, and then go on the road for four or five years on one show

because Annie Get Your Gun was worth that trouble. And that's not true anymore

You can't get anybody to stay more than a year. And then they're out looking for a show again

It's not advantageous. But you were a creative producer. Is that something that's lacking

Oh, sure. Sure, there are creative producers, no question. But fewer. And because none of us financed the shows we did

So two things. One thing observation worth making is when I went to theater

and I went to theater more than I go to theater now, I would sit down, and if I looked at the stage

and didn't look at the program first, I could tell you who produced that show

because of the nature of their taste. You know? And that was very easy

There were fewer Martin shows and Abbott shows, of course, but then there were Theater Guild shows

and Playwrights shows. And they were not, I mean, Playwrights Horizon, I mean, Playwrights Company

a group of playwrights got together and said, we want to produce our shows. Well, they couldn't have financed them either

so we did backers auditions now they do them anyway they do workshops

we never did a workshop in our lives and the quality of the shows

did not betray that at all there are two things that you might assume wrongly

we did a show a year and some of the shows we did in a year were

Company Follies night music well cabaret

I opened a show with Kander and Ebb that I did not direct

called Flora the Red Menace which turned out to be a disaster

and I sort of knew it when we were in Boston so I said to the guys the day before

the opening on Broadway will you come to my office tomorrow the day after the opening

and we'll meet at 10, I have a project. And it was Cabaret

And that opened almost a year to the day. Pajama Game opened in April

Damn Yankees opened almost to the same week a year later. And Rodgers and Hart and Porter and Gershwin's

all those people were used to shows running only a season. that's how much audience there was for a Broadway show

the reason that something like Phantom is running 30 years now is that we get

a huge audience from all over the world nobody from all over the world ever went to Broadway

and now they do and it affected the projects we have Phantom Lion King those shows are running because you don have to know the language

You can look at the show, hear the music, and understand the story

You started producing with the late great Robert Griffiths. And, you know, when you started producing

there was already a slew of very successful producers working on Broadway. what did you and Robert think that you could do that was different from what other producers were

already doing that would make you two stand out? Well it started with arrogance you see I really was

I really was 24 as a stage manager backstage and I we were on Wonderful Time which is a huge hit

with Rosalind Russell and the cast and I'd stand on the wrong side of the stage because he called

the cues and I did it once in a while and I'd say well it's awfully easy what they just did

They got George Abbott to direct a musical. They got Comden and Green and Bernstein to write the

show. Why the hell can't we do that? And I whispered that to Bobby Griffith who was about

30 years older than I. I don't know exactly what but plenty and he'd been a production stage

manager all his life. And he said, you really want to do this? I said, yeah. And so one day he called

me and he was doing, for Leland Hayward, he was doing the Ford 50th anniversary show. And he said

there's a book review in the Times. Read it. If you like it, I can't read it. Do something about it

So I read the book review in the Times. It was a book called Seven and a Half Cents

which became The Pajama Game. And it was about a strike and a pajama factor

What could make me happier than a strike? You know, I wanted musicals to go to strikes and pajama factories and the Middle West

And so I read it. And that very day, I made an appointment to the agent for the book, Harold Mattson

And we went in. I said, Bobby, take a half hour off and get

And we went. It was in Rockville Center. and we went to his office and we said we want to do this as a musical and he said well I've already

had an offer from Leland Hayward and from an offer from elsewhere because it's that kind of a book

and I said we said yes but what if we gave you George Abbott and he said can you and we said

we'll see so we went right back and and George Abbott said sure I'll do it and uh uh and then

we started to put a dream team together. Asked Frank Lesser to write the music. He refused

But he said, I have two kids who I think are great. So we hired the two kids, Adler and Ross

and they were great. We asked Jerry Robbins to choreograph, and he said no. Joan McCracken

who was an Abbott favorite dancer, said my husband's a choreographer. And who is he? Well

his name is Bob Fosse. So first show. All these people's first show. So it was like that. But then

I had some input, if I say so myself, because I'm hipped on this scenery thing. And I thought it has

to have the integrity of, well, Oklahoma. So Lem Ayres was a great designer. We got him. And he's

one of the hardest designers to get. And we got him. And then we thought, we got to get a book

writer. And I thought, let's get Bill Lenge, because he'd written Picnic and he knew the

Middle West. Bill toyed with the idea and then turned us down. So ultimately, we ended up with

the author, Richard Bissell, of the book and George Abbott, who agreed to collaborate with him

Abbott was a great collaborator. And so we took compromises every way, not so much in the Abbott department

but we did, and it all worked out. However, I knew that this was, I was very ambitious, far more than I am today

And I knew that we had to have a hit. First time out, had to have a hit

And now I'm going to answer your question. So we had to not only have a hit

but we had to deal with that hit in a way that separated us off

from all the other very successful producers of musicals. And there were a lot of them

Fear and Mind, all of them in the place. So two things fed into that

In terms of the choreography, I didn't know that Bob Fosse could do it. I just was told by his wife that he could do it and George Abbott believed his wife

well, she was right actually but I Said do you mind if I asked Jerry Robbins

We'll pay him to just sit on the sidelines in case we need him and

Abbott said No, of course. You're the producers. So we went to Jerry, and Jerry said, no, I don't want to do that. I want to be a director on Broadway. He had not yet directed. And so I have to have co-directing credit. So I didn't do anything about it. Abbott said one day, whatever happened to Jerry Robbins? I said, oh, he passed. He said, really, what happened? I said, well, he wanted to get co-directing credit. And Abbott said, oh, give it to him. Everybody will know who directed this show

And that's precisely what happened. My final question is, what is the best bit of advice that you've been given

either personally or professionally, that you live by? Gee

Oh, I think the final song in Prince of Broadway says it all

Do the work. and we had a hard time getting that final song

because you know Jason Robert Brown is a great composer great lyricist and he wrote

pions and anthems to you know the greater part of creativity and so on

it didn't smack right this just do the work pal and he took pal from me

and that's what it is. Just do the work. Well, I wanted to tell you

this has been a bucket list for me to sit with you and do an incredible interview with you

and I want to thank you for all the many musicals that you've given all of us

and millions of theatergoers around the world through your incredible 70-year career

May I have the last word? Yes. Okay. Thank you. And thank you

Mr. Harold Prince