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[TCB]

Page Three

[bk]

But you all have one piece of the trivia puzzle now - that usually will lead to the others.  I'll post the answer in the notes tonight.  I only found this one because I was listening to an older album of a band playing songs from Broadway shows and literally half the songs were by this composer I'd never heard of - and it had no info on the show they were from so I researched it and found all these interesting things.

[TCB]

TRIVIA

1.  THE GIRLS AGAINST THE BOYS
2.  Richard Lewine
3.  Bert Lahr THE WIZARD OF OZ
4.  Nancy Walker  RHODA
5.  Shelly Berman - comedian
     A FAMILY AFFAIR
6.  Dick Van Dyke - BYE, BYE BIRDIE
     THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW
      MARY POPPINS
7.  Martin Charnin - ANNIE   
     
 

[Jane]

One online news place said, "PLANE HIJACKED AND CRASHED INTO SEATTLE."

Great reporting.

[elmore3003]

Richard Lewine was, I believe, a cousin of Richard Rodgers.  When I was restoring Dearest Enemy in 2002, I spoke to him about lost music from the show.  He was also a producer, and he used to play duo-pianos with my late friend Al Simon, Gershwin's rehearsal pianist, at the annual New York Library of the Performing Arts bazaars.  His and Al's book on musical theatre songs went through several editions.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0506851/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[elmore3003]

TRIVIA

1.  THE GIRLS AGAINST THE BOYS
2.  Richard Lewine
3.  Bert Lahr THE WIZARD OF OZ
4.  Nancy Walker  RHODA
5.  Shelly Berman - comedian
     A FAMILY AFFAIR
6.  Dick Van Dyke - BYE, BYE BIRDIE
     THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW
      MARY POPPINS
7.  Martin Charnin - ANNIE   
   

I believe Bob Fosse was called in to doctor this show.

[FJL]

TRIVIA

1.  THE GIRLS AGAINST THE BOYS
2.  Richard Lewine
3.  Bert Lahr THE WIZARD OF OZ
4.  Nancy Walker  RHODA
5.  Shelly Berman - comedian
     A FAMILY AFFAIR
6.  Dick Van Dyke - BYE, BYE BIRDIE
     THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW
      MARY POPPINS
7.  Martin Charnin - ANNIE   
   

I believe Bob Fosse was called in to doctor this show.

In searching, I saw in ibdb a credit I'd never noticed on there before,

for "Seventh Heaven"
Directed by John C. Wilson; Choreographed by Peter Gennaro; Uncredited show doctoring by Jerome Robbins

and for "Wonderful Town"
Directed by George Abbott; Dances and Musical Numbers Staged by Donald Saddler; Uncredited show doctoring by Jerome Robbins

for "The Act"
Directed by Martin Scorsese;  Choreographed by Ron Lewis;  Uncredited consultation: Gower Champion

for "The Conquering Hero"
[this was on the listing out of Bob Fosse's credits https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/bob-fosse-4563 ]
Unbilled choreography by Bob Fosse

[FJL]

The Shelley Berman part of the clue got by me when I was looking at shows Martin Charnin was in.  Looking at wiki, it's clear the question and BK are 100% right, since so many more people think of him as a stand-up comic above all other things, but I remembered him from all his work as an actor. 

[FJL]

Such an odd tsimmis on the wiki page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_Berman
under "Personal Life," that in 2012, he said he thought Bob Newhart had taken his idea of comedy monologues in the phone.  But as they say there, it had been done by so many people before Shelley Berman. 

In a 2012 podcast interview with Marc Maron, 87-year-old Berman accused comedian Bob Newhart of plagiarizing his improvisational telephone routine style, describing its genesis and saying it was a "very special technique that couldn't really be imitated. It could be stolen. And it was." He continued, "I was coming to work at night and a guy stopped his car, passed me by, and said 'Hey, Shelley! There's a guy [who] stole your act!'"When asked by Maron if it was done maliciously, Berman replied, "Maliciously? He wouldn't do it maliciously. Nobody does that. But he did it to make a living. And he became a star."

Berman later added, "I thought it was a rotten thing to do. I thought the agents who sold him — I thought they were just as guilty as everybody else. But, my God, to go into a town and do my show, and the critics saying that I borrowed some stuff from Newhart..."

When asked in interviews about the telephone issue, Bob Newhart noted that:

Shelley Berman did it before I did it. Mike (Nichols) and Elaine (May) did a version of it. There was a thing called 'Cohen on the Telephone,' which was a very, very early recording by Edison [Records] of a guy on the phone....George Jessel had a radio show...At the end, he would call up his mother and tell her how the show had gone. As a kid growing up, I remember listening to him and he would call his mother up and say, 'Mama, this is Georgie'" – he paused, skillfully – "'from the money.'"

On his website, comedy writer Mark Rothman discussed the history of comic "telephone" monologists:

As far back as the 1920s, George Jessel was doing phone conversations with his mother in vaudeville, with the opening line "Hello Mama? This is Georgie." In the 30's and 40's there was this radio comedienne named Arlene Harris, often referred to as Arlene "Chatterbox" Harris, who did telephone monologues to one of her "friends." The only reason I know about this is that she was featured doing one of them on an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show that featured many old radio entertainers. And she performed one of them. Brilliantly. Then, in the 50's, a great comedienne, Betty Walker, made about a zillion appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, doing essentially the same kind of act as Arlene Harris, talking to her friend Ceil. Only it was intensively Yiddishified. They talked about marriage and children, and how impossible it was to maintain both. Whereas Arlene Harris was white bread, Betty Walker was challah. Betty Walker's catchphrase was "Ceil....Ceil....Ceeeee—ullll!!!! Really, really funny. Also brilliant. All of this pre-dated Shelley Berman. Even Mike Nichols and Elaine May, who were contemporaries of Berman's at Second City, engaged in telephone dialogues, with very similar styled material. And who's more brilliant than them?

[FJL]

And there's that Martin Charnin is married to Shelly Burch.

[Jrand73]

WOW  and just like that we have an answer!!

Good work DR TCB!!!

[Jrand73]

Shelley Berman forgot one thing in that interview....Bob Newhart was funny....HE was not....he was just angry.....

[Jrand73]

I shall soon be on my way to play an audience member in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

[George]

What an incredible story (about the plane), TCB!  I just saw it on the news.

I totally missed that!  That's terrible!

[George]

Closing performance tonight, with a full day and night of rain in the forecast. It looks like they’re going to do what they ended up doing last year with the closing night of Into the Woods — move everyone into the old house on this property and give a very simply staged concert version of the show. The logistics are a little hard to explain when typing on the iPad. I’ll try to capture some photographic evidence.

~~~Closing Night Vibes for ChasSmith and Cast!!~~~

[George]

Shelley Berman forgot one thing in that interview....Bob Newhart was funny....HE was not....he was just angry.....

[George]

And Ellen DeGeneres had a hit with her Phone Call to God.

[George]

I'm now at the theater.  I got here a little after 11 a.m., and got everything moved from my car into the theater.  The stage manager and I went through everything and hopefully it's everything they need.  Right now, they're just rehearsing individual group numbers and getting used to the theater.  I don't think that they're going to have a full run today.

[George]

Here's a picture of the women (Elle is kneeling at the front of the stage) and the set with lights:

[George]

The guy on the far left is the choreographer.

[George]

Here's a shot of the set with more light:

[George]

The woman on the left wearing the cap is the director.

[Jane]

Nice photos.

[George]

Thanks, Jane! 

[George]

And we're done for today!  I'm off to my parents' for some food and visiting with some out of town guests.

Until later!

[Jane]

Have fun.

[George]

It's raining in Lacey!

[Jane]

Lovely.  We had sprinkles early, barely

[Jane]

It is only 75 degrees right now.

[Jane]

I was wrong, it is raining here