Fisher Fortieth
The First Season
From the beginning, the Fisher Theatre has offered
the best of Broadway and some of the country s top entertainers.
'
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News
A
lthough Michele Lee, Robert Clary,
Alvin Epstein and Gerald Freedman
have enjoyed very different theater
careers, they readily recall the one
important experience they have in common. All
four, who also share Jewish heritage, were part of
the first season of the Fisher Theatre and are glad
to talk about it.
While their respective productions — Bravo
Giovanni, La Plume de Ma Tante, No Strings and
The Gay Life — were up front for Detroit audi-
ences 40 years ago, their personal, behind-the-
scenes dramas and comedies were kept to them-
selves — until now.
Asked individually to reminisce about the reali-
ties of that time in anticipation of the 40th
anniversary celebration, each one also volunteered
impressions of the theater itself during the season
that also included Advise and Consent, The Best
Finally, one day, I said to him, 'Mr. Siepi, why do you
not look into my eyes when you're saying your lines?'
"He said, 'Because I'd forget my lines if I looked
into your eyes!"'
Still amused by that remark, Lee remembers the
Fisher stage as the largest she had encountered as she
performed her first book musical.
"I remember people talking about how incredible
the theater was," she says. "Because I was so young, I
had no comparisons. I just felt blessed to be there."
Lainie Kazan was in the chorus of Bravo Giovanni,
and the two young actresses became close friends while
working together at the Fisher. When they returned to
New York, they found apartments in the same building.
"The play I'm doing right now has four Jewish
characters, including my character, at its center," says
Lee, who has visited Israel. "I'm the stranger who
comes into their lives and changes everything. We're
having a great time. I'm a lucky girl."
worked in all kinds of theaters, and when we were in
a new theater with everything working, it was very
good and very nice."
Clary, whose newest CD features the music of
Alan Jay Lerner and Frank Loesser, has written an
autobiography, From the Holocaust to Hogans Heroes,
due out in November.
"La Plume de Ma Tante was on the road for two
years, and we were very well received in Detroit,"
Clary recalls.
Alvin Epstein in "No
Strings"• "I remember
the front lobby because
we spent a lot of time
rehearsing there."
Man, Bye Bye Birdie, A Taste of Honey, Do Re Mi,
Prescription Murder, Irma La Douce, An Evening
With Belafonte, My Fair Lady, Come Blow Your
Horn and The Unsinkable Molly Brown.
ALVIN' EPSTEIN
BB t1`0
AtIVANNI
Michele Lee in 'Bravo
Giovanni": "I remember
people talking about how
incredible the theater was."
MICHELE LEE
jli
9/14
2001
R41
Michele Lee, now starring on Broadway in The Tale of
the Allergist's Wife, played the ingenue opposite Cesare
Siepi in the romantic comedy Bravo Giovanni. She
still keeps photos from her time in Detroit — pictures
on stage with co-stars and chorus and in her dressing
room, sitting at her table and standing in costume.
"The play took place in Italy, and my character was
involved in a May-December romance," recalls Lee, whose
dad loaned her the money to fly from California to New
York for the auditions. "Cesare hadn't acted before. He was
from the Metropolitan Opera and had this incredible voice.
"When we rehearsed, he would deliver his lines look-
ing at my forehead, and that was very disconcerting.
Robert Clary in "La
Plume de Ma Tante"•
"When we were in a new
theater with everything
working, it was very good
and very nice."
ROBERT CLARY
Robert Clary, who records one CD of Broadway
music every year, appeared at the Fisher in La Plume
de Ma Tante, a French musical revue. Clary, a
Holocaust survivor who had a supporting role in the
TV series Hogan's Heroes, introduced all the skits in
English.
"The revue was a tremendous hit in New York for
a whole year, and then David Merrick, who pro-
duced it, wanted to put it on the road," the singer-
actor recalls. "We were in Las Vegas for six months,
and then we went all through the United States. It
was a tremendous success everywhere we went."
Filled with pantomime, La Plume de Ma Tante was
a comedy with lots of fast skits and songs. The
biggest segment had monks ringing bells and then
going wild at the end of the first act.
"I was very impressed with the Fisher," says Clary,
who had been a guest artist at the London Chop
House long before touring with the revue. "We
Alvin Epstein, who performs and serves as an
instructor with the Harvard University supported
American Repertory Theatre, had a supporting role
in No Strings, the Richard Rodgers musical about
interracial romance starring Diahann Carroll and
Richard Kiley.
The Fisher Theatre was the first stop on the pre-
Broadway tour, and there were lots of changes made
to the show during its run.
"I remember the front lobby because we spent a
lot of time rehearsing there," recalls Epstein, who
also has toured to Detroit with a cabaret show fea-
turing the music of Kurt Weill. "There were music,
dance and scene rehearsals going on in different
places at the same time.
"During one rehearsal, Richard Rodgers had a lit-
tle piano brought in on the first level up, where he
was composing. We heard him playing, trying out a
song, changing a note here and there and then try-
ing it again. Each one of us was hoping to get that
song. It turned out to be a charming piece called
`Maine,' and it was for Richard Kiley."
Epstein, who played the part of the photographer
whose Paris studio was the setting for the play, recalls
a disturbing incident the first day in town. Cast mem-
bers had to protest when a waitress in a small restau-
rant used foul language and said she wouldn't serve
Diahann Carroll because she was black.
"We used to have parties after the performances on