LOWER EAST SIDE LIVE! from page 49

The big production number is "The
Bubbie Song," when the old kerchieved
and bewigged bubbies (grandmothers)
kvetch about how unappreciated they
are.
"Audiences should be prepared for a
primer on Yiddish," Kholos pointed out.
"There are lyrics like how scandalous it
is that the mohel eats meat with butter.'
Eventually, the stoop residents break up
and drift off, one by one, being absorbed
into New York's melting pot, to places
like Brooklyn and the Bronx."
Although playing to predominantly
Jewish audiences, Stoop's cast of 24 non-
union actors is only about half Jewish —
making for some amusing match-ups.
While Jill Solomon is Mrs. Lipschitz,
Jon Peterson, a non-Jewish performer,
plays Sid Lipschitz. Steven Glickman is
Schiomo, but Lauralee O'Connell, of all
people, plays a bubbie.
Sean McClelland designed the heavily
Jewish-flavored set, including a replica of
a tenement facade, with a piece that
slides open to reveal the Lomans s
apartment. On the other side is a win-
dow from which Mrs. Lipschitz, the
neighborhood gossip, makes her obser-
vations.
Carrying out a dual role in Stoop is
Jewish director Lon Gary, who also plays
Benny as an old man and does most of
the narration. Jason Summers is assistant
director and choreographer. Musical
director is Benjamin Healey. Gary's
mother, Jeannie Reynolds, was a per-
former in New York's Catskills
Mountains.
Stoop has been playing at the Lower
East Side's Mazur Theater, appropriately
located only six blocks from the
Tenement Museum. It's the longest-run-
ning show in the 115-year history of the
199-seat Mazur, a house that once was
home to vaudeville stars and lecturers,
such as Eddie Cantor, Zero Mostel and
Mark Twain.
Kholos, who operates Orchard Street
Productions with his family and is the
sole investor in the show, credits word-
of-mouth, targeted advertising and
group sales as the reasons for the many
sold-out performances and the fact the
show already has recouped his invest-
ment.
Now 64, Kholos — whose father
wrote music for Israeli singers in local
shows — played Little League baseball
rather than take piano lessons. He
received a communications degree from
the University of Southern California
and got a part-time job as a tour guide
at CBS, leading to a production career at
CBS-TV He worked on such classic
programs as The Jack Benny Show, Red
Skelton Hour, Make Room for Daddy and

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52

tics, history, fine wines, you name it. It's
exciting to have him in the family."
Kholos actually started writing Stoop
in Nashville, Tenn., where he was doing
production work for singer Loretta
Lynn, and where he met his second wife,
Paula, who had been married to a pro-
ducer there. He's now writing a sequel to
Stoop, titled One Summer in the Catskills.
Reflecting on the success of A Stoop on
Orchard Street, Kholos offered: "If noth-
ing else, I hope our story, the story that
millions of immigrants lived, adequately
portrays the hopes, dreams and aspira-
tions of a generation so unique and
influential. You can almost feel their
presence on every block and stoop. It
was a time like no other." Li

"Stoop" follows the successes and struggles of the Lomansky family as it adjusts to a
new life in America.

The Dick Van Dyke Show.
clack Benny was the greatest guy in
the world," Kholos reflected. "During
lunch breaks, he would gather all of the
young production assistants and others
around him and tell stories of the old
show business days; we all loved it.
Skelton was really a character. His shows
always were pure and clean, but we liked
hanging around him during rehearsals
because he would ad lib some of the
dirtiest jokes you ever heard."
Kholos later wrote, produced and syn-
dicated the TV Vanguard Award-win-
ning History in the Company of Women
and Ford Foundation winner History in
the Company of Children, starring John
Ritter. He also created Rod Serling's Zero
Hour, a syndicated radio series, and has
produced more than 1,500 radio and
TV commercials. "I always wrote music

as a hobby, and I used a lot of that in
the commercials and infomercials," he
said.
Kholos takes special pride in the fact
that he's machuten (father-in-law) to the
son of Mel Brooks, the comedian and
producer of many movies and the
Broadway hit show The Producers.
Kholos' daughter, Michelle, is married to
Brooks' son, and is a playwright. Her
play Two Parents, Two Weddings, Two
Years will open in New York soon.
"The whole family is pretty busy
now," Kholos added. "Mel is turning his
old movie Young Frankenstein into a
Broadway musical. They're making a
movie of The Producers, and his wife,
Anne Bancroft, is rehearsing for a play.
"Mel is one of the most intelligent
men I've ever met. He's very knowledge-
able on any subject: current events, poli-

A First For Seligman

Because A Stoop on Orchard Street holds
a special appeal for Jewish audiences,
producer/writer/composer Jay Kholos
is happy to stage the show at the
Seligman Performing Arts Center at
Detroit Country Day School in
Oakland County, the county which is
home to a majority of the Detroit area's
Jewish population.
It will be the first Broadway-type
show, not including those of Country
Day itself, to be staged at Seligman,
usually reserved for concerts only, such
as those featuring nationally renowned
artists presented by the Chamber
Music Society of Detroit. "Theatrically,
we're now on the map," enthused Jeff
Nahan, the Jewish director of
Seligman. "Musically, of course, we've

been on the map for a long time. But it
was a real challenge because it was dif-
ficult to find an open week to fit in A
Stoop on Orchard Street."
Nahan, a former actor and director,
hopes to increase the presence of the
professional theater at Seligman, which
opened in 1999 with a major grant
from the Jewish community's Seligman
family.
"It's been a pleasure to work with Jay
Kholos on this show," he said. Kholos
calls Seligman "gorgeous" and praises
Nahan for "being terrific in offering his
support and enthusiasm" for the proj-
ect.
Kholos wasn t content to have Stoop
play eight shows a week (dark Monday
and Tuesday) at the 199-seat Mazur

'

A Stoop on Orchard Street runs
Tuesday-Sunday, Nov. 23-28, at
the Seligman Performing Arts
Center on the campus of Detroit
Country Day School, 22305
West 13 Mile Road at Lahser, in
Beverly Hills. Performances are 8
p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 23; 10 a.m.
and 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 24;
closed Thanksgiving; 2 and 8
p.m. Friday, Nov. 26; 2 and 8
p.m. Saturday, Nov. 27; and 3
and 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 28.
$43-$55. For tickets and infor-
mation, call the box office, (248)
712-1367. Tickets also are avail-
able through Ticketmaster, (248)
645-6666. For group sales of 20
or more, call (877) 358-7764.

,

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1, ..,\\*„.
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Theater on New York's Lower East
Side, so he organized a traveling troupe
to play Monday and Tuesday engage-
ments in the suburbs.
He explained: "They were sellouts,
and that encouraged me to start the
18-city national road tour that's corn-
ing to Seligman. I drove to every
potential venue to personally check out
the theaters. Somebody had heard
about Seligman, so I came here. The
700-seat capacity sure beats where we're
playing in New York."
Kholos, who fashions himself as an
old-style show business impresario, also
will take care of his cast on
Thanksgiving, when there will be no
shows. He's catering a Thanksgiving
dinner for them with all the trim-
mings.
— Bill Carroll