Contact Information
(press inquiries only)
The New York Public Library
Public Relations Office
188 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
phone: 212.592.7700
fax: 212.592.7729
Archives of Two Legendary Broadway Songwriting
Teams Given to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Papers of Bock & Harnick and Kander & Ebb Reveal
Evolution of Musicals such as Fiddler, Cabaret, and More
At the press event on June 15, left
to right: Harold Prince, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Fred Ebb, and John
Kander.
New York, NY, June 15, 2004 -- At a press conference today,
Dr. Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library, announced that the
professional archives of two of the most illustrious songwriting teams in American
musical theater history -- Bock & Harnick and Kander & Ebb --
will become part of the extensive musical theater collections of The New York
Public Library for the Performing Arts. Thirty-five boxes of music, lyrics,
letters and other materials -- scrawled, hand-printed or typed on everything
from manuscript paper to yellow pads and hotel stationery -- shed light on the
enigmatic combination of expertise and inspiration that led composer Jerry Bock
and lyricist Sheldon Harnick to create such landmark musicals as Fiddler
on the Roof and She Loves Me. The gifts from composer John Kander
and lyricist Fred Ebb include not only the synergistic wealth of their original
musical compositions for Cabaret but also documentation of every detail of the
show's rehearsal and production process, from pencil-frenzied blocking notes
and dialogue changes to discounted vendor contracts. "These new acquisitions
to our vast holdings are a reminder that The New York Public Library is not
just about books," said Dr. LeClerc. "We've got baseball cards, Japanese scrolls,
scientific patents, historical ephemera, comic books, and illuminated manuscripts.
Here, at our performing arts library on the Lincoln Center campus, we have set
and costume designs, recordings, scrapbooks, programs, and videotaped stage
productions. These new gifts from the very best of Broadway are sensational!"
Indeed, the story of Broadway itself would be missing a crucial, cohesive chapter
without the contributions of Bock and Harnick, Kander and Ebb. Both teams combined
an intrinsic understanding of classic stage song construction with an innovative
bent that revolutionized musical theater in the 1960s and beyond while honoring
its past. Begun in 1958 with The Body Beautiful, the Jerry Bock and Sheldon
Harnick partnership soon flourished with classics of the musical theater genre
including Fiorello!, She Loves Me, and the unqualified phenomenon, Fiddler
on the Roof. The continuing, 40-year collaboration between John Kander and
Fred Ebb is responsible for such milestones of the musical stage as Cabaret,
Chicago, Woman of the Year, and Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Among the several thousand facets of the creative process that make up the collections
are the first glimmers of some of the most famous songs of all time as well
as many fully realized compositions that never made it to an opening night.
Multiple versions of scripts and lyrics and melodies in-the-works provide a
window onto the ineffable, now open to public view, while production notes,
cost estimates, call sheets, and correspondence give a master class in the business
of mounting a Broadway show. "Jerry and Sheldon, John and Fred are the American
musical theater at its best and I've been lucky enough, as director and/or producer,
to have worked on ten musicals with them. The addition of their collections
to the Library for the Performing Arts' vast treasure trove is invaluable,"
says Harold Prince.
Jerry Bock has transferred to the Library the entirety of his own collection.
Sheldon Harnick has already donated many of his professional papers and musical
compositions, with the rest to join the Library's holdings as a bequest. Kander
and Ebb have made an immediate gift of all of their materials from Cabaret
and have stated their intention to bequeath to the Library the full remainder
of the archives of their careers.
The Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick Collections The Body Beautiful, Fiorello!, Tenderloin, She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof,
The Apple Tree, The Rothschilds: from inception to production to revival
for some, these seven Bock and Harnick musicals are copiously represented in
the collections -- in typescripts, autograph manuscripts, spiral notebooks,
copyist manuscripts; in pencil, pen, and typewritten lyrics from first stab
to final version, on legal pads, torn corners, hotel stationery; in plot outlines,
telegrams, programs, fan mail, and correspondence concerning creative glitches.
From Fiddler alone there are no fewer than sixteen unused songs, including "If
I Were a Woman" and "Dear, Sweet Sewing Machine." A succession of yellow-lined,
pencil-printed pages documents the development of the meter and lyrics of "Tradition"
from the abandoned "What is the link joining joy and sorrow…what keeps
the fiddler on the roof…" through "Who must devote each minute he can spare
to studying the words in all the holy books" to the familiarly rousing "Who
day and night must scramble for a living…." Says Sheldon Harnick, "Fifty
years ago when I started writing lyrics for the professional stage, I never
imagined that the thought process that went into writing the lyrics for a song,
like ‘If I Were a Rich Man,' for example, would be something worth saving
and studying. But I've come to understand how seeing the evolution of an effective
song is invaluable to anyone interested in learning this craft. I'm very happy
our materials have found a good home at the Library."
In addition to their collaborative works for stage and television, the acquisitions
from Bock and Harnick each contain materials from their individual careers and
other collaborations prior to and following their legendary partnership, including
pop songs, parodies, and compositions for film and television in addition to
work for the musical stage. The evolution of the 1976 Richard Rodgers/Sheldon
Harnick musical Rex is present in scripts, scores, and perspicacious
revision notes from Harnick for a 2000 revival. The program from the 1945 Flushing
High School production of the musical comedy My Dream (starring George
"Mahairas") states that its young composer, Jerrold Bock, intends to forsake
music for advertising; second thoughts prevailed shortly as evidenced by a college-years
musical based on the Paul Bunyan legend and programs from The Tamiment resort
where Bock's colleagues included Neil and Dan Simon, Jack Cassidy, and Barbara
Cook.
The Bock-Harnick archive is vivid and exhaustive, and will soon be available
for aspiring tunesmiths, cultural historians, and theater buffs alike to peruse
first-hand and free of charge, due in large part to the efforts of Curator George
Boziwick of the Library's Music Division. "If it weren't for George, I wouldn't
be here," commented Jerry Bock. "I have seldom had both arms so gently and persuasively
twisted to convince me of giving to the Library for the Performing Arts whatever
I may have saved along the way. In the end, however, it was learning that Sheldon
would also deliver his savings that made it all worthwhile since I do believe
that the musical, unlike the poem or the painting or the novel, is the art of
collaboration. So with both Sheldon's and my accumulated savings of our work
deposited in the Library for the Performing Arts, I hope that those who come
in, either out of curiosity or research, leave at least with something of value.
And, by the way…I mean by the Broadway; I'm glad that New York City
is the place they'll have to come to find it."
The John Kander and Fred Ebb Collections
"Our gift to the Library is going to come in stages. Fred and I are thrilled
that today you'll get everything we have from Cabaret: original lyric sheets,
music manuscripts, even a quote on the price of a gorilla suit in 1966 for those
who are interested. The rest -- Flora the Red Menace, Chicago, Spider Woman,
The Rink, Steel Pier, Woman of the Year, and everything else -- the Library
will get later on as a bequest," John Kander said. The Cabaret collection
contains spiral-bound sketch books, copyist transparencies, original holographs,
lyric sheets, letters, contracts, production and rehearsal scripts showing revisions
and rewrites and director's notes, prop lists, and more. All the show's well-known
songs are here, as are "Down, Down, Down," "Never in Paris," "It Must Be Love,"
and several others left out of the final production. Significant dialogue changes,
character and thematic interpretations, and all the conceptual, practical, and
legal intricacies of producing a Broadway musical are chronicled in their various,
original forms, from the days of the working title "Welcome to Berlin" through
Cabaret's shocking Broadway debut and on to a 1987 reworking of the musical.
Cabaret grew out of a quintessential collaboration begun three years
before the show opened in the fall of 1966. Producer/director Hal Prince, book
writer Joe Masteroff, choreographer Ronald Field, and, of course, John Kander
and Fred Ebb met together frequently to coax Christopher Isherwood's rather
bloodless Berlin Stories into an evocative but thoroughly original musical
impression of Weimar Germany. The Emcee, who is now one of a handful of iconic
musical theater characters, was not born in the script at all, but emerged from
a set of five opening songs Kander and Ebb wrote for five different singers.
Four of those songs were eliminated, while the fifth, "Wilkommen," remained;
and the minor role of the nightclub denizen who would sing it henceforth commandeered
the structure of the entire show. This is but one example of the dynamic process
that leaps repeatedly from the coffee-stained pages of John Kander and Fred
Ebb's incomparable gift to the Library.
The Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, John Kander, and Fred Ebb materials join a
distinguished and unrivalled roster of musical theater holdings at The New York
Public Library for the Performing Arts. "By giving our collections to the Library
for the Performing Arts, John and I are insuring that the fun and inspiration
that has always fueled our collaboration will never end. To be among the likes
of Richard Rodgers, Frank Loesser, Yip Harburg, Jerry Robbins, Hal Prince, Bock
and Harnick, and so many others who've already donated their work is like attending
a party in perpetuity with all our greatest heroes and friends. I hope those
who come after us will do the same," said Fred Ebb.
Jacqueline Z. Davis, The Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director
of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, adds, "The stuff of
Broadway musical history belongs forever in New York City, the heart of the
American theater. How lucky for all of us that these four history makers agree."
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B.
Cullman Center houses the world's most extensive combination of circulating,
reference, and rare archival collections in its field. Its divisions are the
Circulating Collections, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Music Division, Billy
Rose Theatre Collection, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded
Sound. The materials in its collections are available free of charge, along
with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and
performances. The Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections
of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts,
correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters,
and photographs.
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts gratefully acknowledges
the leadership support of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman.
