Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof (63 page)

“It wasn’t like I was seeing yellow”
quoted in Lampert-Gréaux, “Patricia Zipprodt,” 31.

The effect “swept me away”
quoted in Graeber, 20.

“how to create the structure for anything”
quoted in Lampert-Gréaux, “Patricia Zipprodt,” 31.

“gone over eight thousand reds”
quoted in Lawrence,
Dance with Demons,
304.

“shook him until his hat fell off”
ibid.

She was to read the Sholem-Aleichem stories
Zipprodt notes, PZP10:6.

Rothbort had traveled
For Rothbort’s background with work samples and news clips, see
www.samuelrothbort.com
; Cabon (Rothbort granddaughter) interview.

“
Don’t romanticize the characters”
Robbins’s notes to Zipprodt, JR13:11.

“the guts and toughness of the people”
Robbins’s “notes on the score,” JRP5:4.

“a rural unsophisticated area”
JRP13:11.

“combine elements of fantasy and reality”
BAP35:5.

together they made up less than 10 percent
There are no direct figures for 1963. Estimates range from 4 percent (Charles Liebman, “Orthodoxy in American Jewish Life,” in
The American Jewish Yearbook
, 1965) to 11 percent by 1970 after a resurgence, according to
The American Jewish Yearbook
of 1971.

Hasidism represented a radical challenge
This idea is argued by Samuel C. Heilman in
Defenders of the Faith
and his Foreword to Beclove-Shalin,
New World Hasidim
, xi–xv. See also Jack Kugelmass, “Jewish Icons: Envisioning the Self in Images of the Other,” in
Jews and Other Differences: The New Jewish Cultural Studies
, ed. D. Boyarin and J. Boyarin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 30–53.

Lapson took Zipprodt
Lapson expenses list, July 13, 1964, HPP113:7.

“with best wishes”
Lapson offprints, JPR13:2.

Robbins headed across town
Robbins phone message and appointment books, JRP567:2,3.

Their dancing came as a revelation
Harnick-1 interview.

Robbins sent Lapson a big bouquet of flowers
Lapson thank-you message, phone log, JRP567:3.

“I am a friend of the Rabbinical families”
Lapson letter to Rabbi Tennenbaum, October 21, 1963, JRP5:3.

“virile ferocity”
Robbins draft letter to Clurman, JRP16:43.

she’d call with reminders
Robbins phone message log, JRP567:3.

For a fee of $500
Lapson expenses list, HPP113:7.

“My great wonder”
Robbins draft letter to Clurman, JRP16:43.

“the man balances a bottle”
Lapson, “Jewish Dances of Eastern and Central Europe,”
International Folk Music Journal
(n.d.): 59; offprint in JRP13:1.

“Mr. Redbeard”
Lapson phone message, Robbins log, JRP568:1.

“intense research”
Robbins letter to Mary Hunter Wolf, October 22, 1963, JRPP122:6.

Stein felt his own family background
Stein interview.

“Money is the world’s curse”
Samuel,
World
, 172.

“You want some Jewish customs”
letters to Harnick from his mother and from his aunt Chone, n.d., SHP3:5.

“feel more Jewish”
Harnick-3 interview.

“I knew who I was”
quoted in Altman and Kaufman,
Making of a Musical
, 25.

“feel my father’s feelings so strongly”
Robbins notes, JRPP19:4.

“juggling and bending”
Robbins notes, JRPP2:18.

“both awed and scornful”
Robbins notes, JRPP19:5.

“laid open for me”
Robbins notes, JRPP19:6.

Stein had restored
This draft can be found in JSP-W26:6.

Robbins had complaints
Harnick-2 interview.

“a race with time”
Zborowski and Herzog,
Life is with People
, 39.

“We’ve Never Missed a Sabbath Yet”
unused lyrics folder generously provided by Sheldon Harnick; and bonus track on London cast recording.

“darts from broom to oven”
Life is with People
, 39.

“What is this show about?” … like a district attorney
Harnick-1 interview.

“That’s ‘The Previous Adventures’
” Harnick, Stein interviews.

“a pair of comfortable old shoes” “
The Goldbergs March On,”
Life
, April 25, 1949, 59.

“about the dissolution of a way of life”
Harnick interview; Bock tells this story on the
Fresh Air
interview and the authors repeated it on many occasions.

“quiet, growling presence”
Prince interview.

Right away, an image took shape … “I’ll begin it with”
Harnick-2 interview.

“Shtetl means my community”
JRP13:10.

CHAPTER 4: IT TAKES A SHTETL

Pendleton auditioned seven times
Pendleton interview.

October to January, Robbins saw hundreds of actors
audition sheets, SHP2:8, JRP13:3, 4, 5.

“Golde: wife of Tevye”
“cast breakdowns,” n.d., HP108:1.

he might attend a voice lesson
Merlin, Aberdeen interviews.

Stuart Damon
Altman and Kaufman,
Making of a Musical
, 79.

a Baptist who had gone to a Catholic boarding school
Tanya Everett interview.

“Marvelous. Sings well”
SHP2:8.

audition on Friday, November 22
Merlin interview; audition sheets, JRP13:3.

Jackie Kennedy … told
Life
’s Theodore H. White
“For President Kennedy: An Epilogue,”
Life
, December 6, 1963, 158–59.

Plymouth Rock to Ellis Island
Jacobson,
Roots Too
.

the Anti-Defamation League
“Kennedy Will Get Award by League,”
New York Times
, October 21, 1962.

auditions resumed on November 26
Robbins calendar, JRP567:3.

Jackie Kennedy came to see
Fiddler
message from her theater companion, Kitty Hart; Robbins phone message log, November 25, 1964, JR568:1. See also an item about Kennedy’s attendance in Leonard Lyons’s column, “The Lyons Den,”
New York Post
, November 24, 1964.

“ordinary” quality
Harnick-2 interview; Robbins quoted in Robert Kotlowitz, “Corsets, Corned Beef and Choreography,”
Show
, December 1964.

arrangement with the Hebrew Actors’ Union
phone message log, JRP567; audition sheets, JRP5:2.

“lovable schnooks”
annotated script, JRP10:1.

since “the part is written very Jewish”
Stein letter to Prince, HPP101:6.

jottings on audition sheets
SHP2:8, JRP5:2.

“Don’t use your conscious past”
Stella Adler quoted in
New York Times
obit, December 22, 1992.

Robbins’s undated notes from the Adler sessions
JRPP1:10.

combine
the blustery certitude
See Altman and Kaufman,
Making of a Musical
, 78.

scores of eager young men
audition schedules, JRP567:3.

Fielding had decided
Prince message to Robbins, March 9, 1964, JRP368:1.

“insisted on examining
” Stein interview.

Bock and Harnick had also seen him in
The World of Sholom Aleichem
Harnick-2 interview.

Da Silva’s “natural voice”
Harnick-3 interview.

the actor never auditioned for Robbins
audition sheets and Harnick-3 interview.

The actor’s family recounts
The Mostel biographies (citing the same or no source) all say Stein brought Mostel the script while he was in
Forum
; his sons Josh and Tobias Mostel affirmed this in interviews; Stein denied it in an interview.

“roar with laughter”
quoted in Brown,
Zero Mostel
, 7.

“Would somebody tell Zero that this show will be good for him?”
Pendleton, Aberdeen interviews.

authors played the score for Mostel
Harnick-3 interview; Bock, interviewed by Nancy Hamburger Sureck, videotape.

by the sixteenth
Robbins phone log, JRP567:3.

the mink coat
Tobias Mostel interview.

Friends, though, remember Mostel’s excitement
Debuskey interview.

“greatest Yiddish character”
Mostel quoted in Richard Christiansen, “Mostel in Excelsis Enlivens a Blossoming Hit,”
Chicago Daily News
, August 7, 1964, 4.

$4,000 a week against 10 percent
Tevye
prospectus, JRP15:1; in
Contradictions
, Prince says the payroll for the cast, including Mostel, was $15,000 per week; 107.

“I’m sorry that it hasn’t worked out”
HPP108:5.

might object to his number one fix-it man
Mostel and Gilford,
170 Years
, 9; Prince,
Contradictions
, 94–95; Prince interview.

“Naming names … is not Jewish”
quoted in Brown,
Zero Mostel
, 126.

“crude, vulgar, but healthy and satisfied”
Robbins notes, October 8, 1976, JRPP2:18.

roguishly buttered a roll
legendary incident referred to in Dora Jane Hamblin, “Zero,”
Life
, December 4, 1964, 108–18.

“Could you imagine my father”
quoted in Brown,
Zero Mostel
, 4.

Harvard lecture
transcript of “The Art of Comedy,” delivered May 21, 1962, Z&KMP9:10.

one Broadway reporter
The story appeared in an article by Ernio Hernandez in
Playbill
(February 26, 2004) on the occasion of the 2004 Broadway revival of
Fiddler
; it quotes
Playbill
archivist Louis Botto saying Robbins practically had to drag Mostel into the theater. The story was picked up from there and retold in Jim Brochu’s one-man show,
Zero Hour
. In interviews, Josh Mostel, Harnick, and Prince expressed enormous doubt about the plausibility of this story. In a phone interview, Botto did not remember his source for it; he simply said it had been “in all the papers.” A search of New York dailies and
Variety
did not produce any trace of it.

“He has a mother?”
Josh Mostel interview.

Mostel sustained a lifelong grudge
Josh Mostel interview.

his father praying privately
Tobias Mostel interview; Josh Mostel said he never saw this.

his name derived from Tevye
Tobias Mostel interview.

Fred Coe had neglected to raise
Harnick-1, Prince interviews; Krampner,
The Man in the Shadows.

cut back to 12 percent
contract, June 23, 1964, HPP105:4.

“preliminary prospectus”
copies in JRP15:1; HPP106:4.

“opera, play & ballet”
Robbins notes, September 14, 1963, JRP13:10.

the prospectus was completed
JRP15:1, HP106:4.

nearly 150 investors
JRP15:1, HPP106:4.

“The resolution is the decision … move on to the new world”
April 16, 1964, prospectus, 6; see Wolitz, “The Americanization of Tevye.”

Robbins met Aronson and Zipprodt frequently—often several times a week—and separately
phone message and appointment books for 1964, JRP568:1, 2, 3; Lisa Aronson interview.

She called Aronson … “intuitively related in style”
Lisa Aronson interview.

“Colors bump into one another”
Zipprodt quoted in Tom Topor, “Confessions of a Costume Designer,”
New York Post
, October 15, 1978.

the evocation of the master’s painterly style
Aronson, “Notes on Designing Musicals,” BAP9:14; Lisa Aronson interview.

Robbins couldn’t decide … “height of the house isn’t right”
Lisa Aronson, Prince interviews.

more weddings, more reading, more poring over pictures … Vishniac’s book
Robbins phone message logs and appointment books for 1964, JRP568:1.

leaving messages every day or two
Robbins phone message logs, JRP568.

“mess around with”
Robbins letter to Nancy Keith, January 15, 1964, JRPP97:12.

return flight was due in New York at 1:55
Friday, January 31, 1964, in appointment book, JRP568:2, 3.

“The drama of the play”
JRP13:10.

“Underlying all his actions”
JRP13:10.

“Her performances astound”
“Barbra: Some Notes,” December 22, 1965, JRPP24:14.

March 18 read-through of
Tevye
at the Hellinger Theater
Robbins appointment calendar, JRP568:2, 3.

“
not written within the time and tempo”
Robbins letter to Stein, April 3, 1964, JRP13:11.

About twenty actors
memo from Hal Prince office, March 16, 1964, HPP105:7.

“Good evening. My name is Tevye”
script dated November 17, 1963, in JSP-W27 and n.d. in JBP21:5. (There is no dated script in the archives between this one and the rehearsal script.)

writers felt pleased. Robbins said little
Harnick-3 interview.

“treasure of the season”
Robbins, “Production Notes on
Fiddler on the Roof
and Letters to Friends and Associates,” audio recording, *MGZTL 4-3119 JRP, NYPL-PA. Transcript, amended by Robbins, in JRP13:11.