TITANIC

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from page 81

`Titanic' Cast
Sings At Beth El

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At 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 13, cast members
from Titanic: The Musical will join Cantor
Stephen Dubov in the sanctuary at Temple Beth
El in a concert to benefit Broadway Cares: Equity
Fights AIDS and Michigan AIDS organizations.
Titled "Sink AIDS," the program will feature
musical selections from Titanic and other songs
from shows by writer Peter Stone and composer
Maury Yeston. Also, says Cantor Dubov "the cast
members will sing songs from their own favorite
roles they've always wanted to play." Among those
featured will be Jewish cast members Mark
Heller, who plays ship owner J. Bruce Ismay, and
S. Marc Jordan, who plays Isidor Straus.
Tickets are $25 per person/$50 Friends/$100
Patrons. To purchase tickets, make check payable
and mail to Temple Beth El, 7400 Telegraph Road,
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301 (Atm: TITANIC). For
more information, call Sylvia at (248) 737-2280.

Passengers aboard the ill-fated liner dance on deck in a scene from the award-winning musical "Titanic.

Broadway hits, including Nine, for
which he won a Tony Award (his
other Tony is for Titanic). The grand-
son of a cantor, he was educated at a
yeshiva in New York, went on to earn
an undergraduate degree at Yale, a fel-
lowship at Cambridge and his doctor-
ate at Yale, where he became director
of undergraduate studies in music.
It was while working at a New York
music workshop for composers of
popular music that he decided to put
his efforts into writing musicals.
Stone, the only writer to ever win a
Tony, an Oscar and an Emmy, grew
up on the opposite coast, in the shad-
ow of the Hollywood studios where
his father produced many of the early
films of Shirley Temple.
"I attended her 6th birthday party,"
he recalls with a hint of nostalgia. "I
was 4. She didn't take me seriously,"
he adds with a chuckle.
But for all his access to the film
industry, Stone found himself attract-
ed to the realm of live theater, even
though he says there was precious lit-
tle to be seen in Los Angeles when he
was growing up.
It was the in-the-moment thrill of
theater, he says, that fascinated him.
From the moment he saw his first
play, he was hooked. The chance for
his big getaway came with his gradua-

Jim Farber writes for Copley News
Service. Alice Burdick Schwei ger con-
tributed to this article.

9/3

1999

84 Detroit Jewish News

))

lars," he says, laughing again, "is that we
tion from high school. And with
deal only with the real people who were
diploma in hand, he packed up and
aboard. I was astonished by the film. I
headed east. His first stop was Bard
appreciated it and I certainly admired its
College.
technical fireworks; they were amazing.
"Bard was a small liberal arts col-
"But what surprised me was the
lege," he remembers. "It was so small I
absolute
absence of, for all intents and
had the chance to write and direct my
purposes, the real people. Yes there
own plays. "
was sort of a surrounding of officers
That was fine. But in 1953, Stone
and a couple of references to million-
decided he needed a bigger
aires, but the fact was most of the real
pond to play in and
stories were eliminated.
transferred to Yale.
2
"One of the things that made writ-
Since then his
4
ing our show so
lengthy career has
1
difficult,"
he says,
E>
included Tony
k his voice picking
Awards for 1776,
up speed, "was
The Will Rogers
the dilemma of
Follies, Woman of the
deciding who to
Year and Titanic.
eliminate. There
(He most recently
were so many rich
worked on the book
• characters, intriguing subplots and
for the Broadway hit
fascinating exchanges to choose from.
revival of Annie Get Your Gun, which
It was very difficult to boil it down."
won a Tony this year for Best Revival
Stone says he was attracted to the
of a Musical.)
tragedy of the Titanic for several rea-
When he was finally lured back to
sons.
Hollywood as a screenwriter, Stone
"Very little in historical fact makes
gathered in an Oscar for his screenplay
for good theater," he says, sounding a
for Father Goose. Some of his other
bit professorial. "Dramatizing usuallv
noteworthy film credits include the
does a disservice to history because the
scripts for Charade, The Taking of
real facts tend to diminish the theatri-
Pelham 1-2-3, and Sweet Charity. His
cal impact of the subject.. As someone
Emmy Award was for an acclaimed
once pointed out, 'God doesn't write
episode of The Defenders.
second acts.'
When asked what he thought of
But the Titanic;- story is inherently
the film version of Titanic, Stone
theatrical
because ix is so confined to a
pauses, then responds.
given space of time and has a great
The difference between the film and
built-in climax — the bitting of the
our Titanic, besides about a billion dol-

,

-

iceberg. It's a story that's filled with
acts of courage, heroism, survival and
shameful behavior."
Stone also was captivated by the
notion that the sinking represented
the first major setback to the relentless
forward progress of the Industrial
Revolution.
"The Titanic disaster represented
the first real failure of technology
which was visible, emotional and pal-
pable," he says. It has all the classical
hubris of men thinking they could
overcome nature. Drama is everywhere
in this story."
And is he concerned that people
will come to the theater expecting to
see the same type of razzle-dazzle spe-
cial effects that drove the film?
"It's not incumbent on us to com-
pete with them," he says adamantly.
In fact, I think the film has allowed
us to present a more impressionistic,
sparer production. -We don't do digital
effects. We don't have a cast of 2,300.
We don't have an iceberg. What we
are counting on is the audience's
imagination." LI

Titanic:A New Musical runs
Sept. 7-26 at the Fisher
Theatre. The curtain goes up at
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays,
7:30 p.m. Sundays and 2 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays.

$32.50-$70. (313) 872-1000.