62 Friday, January 24, 1986
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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SOUTHFIELD (Country Village Center)
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Continued from Page 49
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•
to toy with the idea of turning
the "hobby" into a business, and
forming her own dinner theater
company.
With a little financial support
from husband, Don, to get
things off the ground, Nancy
Gurwin Productions was formed
in 1976.
The company's first offering, I
Do! I Do! opened at the Botsford
Inn in 1977 and starred Gurwin
and local singer-composer, Phil
Marcus Esser. It would go on to
become Detroit's longest-
running musical.
"We opened it for a three-
month run, and were absolutely
sold out from the moment we
opened until the ninth month,
when we closed," says Gurwin.
"We did it three months at the
Botsford, extended it a month
there, then moved to Vittorio's
in Livonia, and did it for an-
other five months. We did it
longer than they did it on
Broadway."
Gurwin attributes the show's
phenomenal initial success to
"wonderful articles written
about us, and absolutely fabul-
ous reviews." Esser, just after
closing his own highly-popular
"Jacques Brel," was a definite
attraction too, she adds.
Encouraged by the success of I
Do! I Do! Gurwin decided to try
something else. She chose Last
of the Red Hot Lovers, which
opened one week after I Do! I
Do! closed, and was sold out a
month in advance of its opening.
"That's how it started," she
says. "and I've been doing it
ever since.
"Dinner theater is a very dif-
ficult medium, though," Gurwin
says, emphasizing that the years
since I Do! I Do! have not al-
ways been easy ones, and have
definitely, not been a road to
fabulous riches.
"I've been very successful in
building up my name," she says,
.adding that there's always a
demand for the company and its
productions. "But," she says,
"financially speaking, most of
the time, we pretty much break
even. My runs are three and
four months, and you're talking
payrolls of 30-35 people. So, you
have to have full houses in
order to pay your royalties, your
people — and breathe and be
successful."
Some openings have actually
had to be postponed because of
low ticket sales. Some nights,
actors have fallen off the stage.
Some nights, the lights have
gone out onstage. Some nights,
the scenery has fallen over. One
night, a dentist who had
watched the show from the front
row even told Gurwin backstage
that she needed to have her
teeth fixed. ("After that, I de-
cided not to open my mouth so
wide when I sing!")
But she's never ever really,
t; uly,.seriously thought of quit-
t g.
Back when I started this, my
mother would keep saying, 'How
can you do this? How can you
possibly handle the kids and the
career and your husband and all
of it?' But I just made up my
mind that I wag going-to.
Nancy Giirwin: "Financially
speaking, we pretty much break
even."
"Along with being supported
by good people in my business, I
think the most important thing •
(for me) is to have had a very,
very supportive husband," she
says.
In some ways, Gurwin actu-
ally sees her career as a kind of
"family affair."
Youngest son, Danny (who re-
cently appeared in I Pagliacci at
the Fisher Theater) is thinking
of making show business a
career, she says, and 15-year-old
Sam works occasionally as stage
manager for his mother's prod-
uctions.
And then, there are the at-
home rehearsals.
"The musical director has all
of her stuff in my basement. My
director (Edgar Guest III directs
most shows) can be in the base-
ment, or he'll bring people up-
stairs and we'll push the furni-
ture back. There've been times
when I've seen him working up
here, somebody else working in
the basement, somebody else in
the dining room — they're all
over. Then, all of a sudden, you
see it all put together, and it's
very exciting."
What's in the future for
Nancy Gurwin?
"The thing I'm really hoping
for is that I can finally get (my
own) theater," she says. "I think
that would be really marvelous.
"With your own place, though,
there's more involvement, of
course. And, even now, I'm hys-
terical two weeks before open-
ing. I keep telling Don, 'I'm
supposed to be relaxing! I'm
opening in two weeks! And I
have so much to do!' — Can you
imagine if I had my own place?
I'd be a basket case, I guess."
In the meantime, she will
open The Fantasticks at Mama
Mia's in Union Lake in Feb-
ruary.
Gurwin and the company are
performing at the Macomb The-
ater in Mt. Clemens this month.
Their show will mark the
opening of the newly-renovated
Theater, which seats 1,400
people, and will represent a
marked departure from the
smaller restaurant-theaters in
which the group usually works.
They're scheduled to open with I
Do! I Do, perform Fttnny Girl in
May and Annie Get Your Gun in
SePte0iir • ❑