Transcripts For KQEH Tavis Smiley 20140319

And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Tavis Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman have collaborated on a new musical called harmony which has just had its premiere. The musical is based on the true story of six young men and germany prior or world war ii who became world famous entertainers. Then, they had their dream and in some cases their lives destroyed by the nazis. Lets take a look at a scene from the musical, harmony. I am honored to have you both on the program. Barry has been here before but it is my first time seeing you, mr. Sussman. Favorite ofne of my all time interviews that i have ever had, you. Really, it is such a pleasure to be with you again. Tavis we had a great time. You saw yourself on the law . I did. Right next to the president. [laughter] tavis Barry Manilow on the hallway wall. I loved your lyrical genius. Thank you for your gift. Speaking of your gift and your work, how did this come to be . Who saw this first . Who figured out, we have to do this . We had been looking for one for years. 42 years. Tavis a lot of hits. He played accordion at my bar mitzvah. [laughter] , mys i have told you before goal was never to be a performer or singer. Ofwas to be a writer musicals. That is where i was heading. Suddenly i wound up with this fantastic career as a performer. Tavis so you kind of started in musical theater. Bmiruce and i met at the workshop, learning how to write musicals. That was where we wanted to go. I took a left turn, bruce always says that. Away. Nnoying song took me it takes like five years or so double what of these shows together. I never had the five years. Did a lot of we work, a lot of great work. , loadsd movies, tv shows of album cuts that eventually we found those five years that it would take. We wrote the one that we wanted to write. Tavis how did you know harmony was the one to write . We have been offered many projects. I had gotten very good advice from someone, that you better love it at the beginning. It is such a long, hard road that the piece has to be there for you to sustain you to get through all of that. We never found that. 1991, i am having my Morning Coffee over the New York Times and there was a review of a documentary playing at the Public Theater downtown. They have a little Screening Room down there. The headline of the review has several words in it that made me go, what . It read, epic documentary, comedian harmonists at the public. Epic, really . Comedian harmonists, who are they . This very compelling photo of six young man in white tie and tails, 1920s, 1930s. I read this review and said, i have to go down and see this. I went down on a cold, rainy four hours ofred german documentary making with subtitles. I was overwhelmed. I live in new york, he lived out here. I went to a payphone on lafayette street and called him and said, i think i found it . Are there still payphones on lafayette street . I dont know. He said, i dont know what you are talking about. Go get it. It that hit you so hard . Two things. Saying, how do i not know this story . I came out realizing that the reason why i didnt know the story is the story. That was compelling. The other thing was, we always look for that spine line. What is this piece about from which all else comes . It came very quickly when i saw the documentary. This was a piece about the quest for harmony in what turned out to be the most discordant chapter in human history. That seemed like a very fertile ground. Artist let me ask you a question as an artist. Tell me more of the story. Topline what the story is. As barry calls them, they were the first boy band. Between wars in germany is a very difficult time. Political turmoil, economic collapse. Impoverished young men got together and created a brand of entertainment that had never been seen before and has not been seen since. They took the intricate harmonies of a modernday group and merged that with the physical humor of the marx brothers. It was an amazingly fresh and original thing to do. They were brilliant. They sang in the streets and in alleyways. They got discovered and they rose to phenomenal stardom. Millions of records, over a dozen films, performed with josephine baker. They become rich, famous, are acclaimed. Ends33, the turmoil because the government succeeds but unfortunately it is the National Socialists and the nazi party. Several of our members are jewish. What i first described it to you is the first act. What happens next is the second act. Tavis when you got to dig into this, as an artist, what struck you about their journey . What struck me is that i didnt know who these men were. I know a lot about pop music. To think that they were the beatles of germany and maybe even around the world and i had never heard of these people. To what theyed did, it was so complicated, interesting, funny. So then i went to work. When i went to germany that next time, there was Tower Records there. On the wall of Tower Records, there was a full wall of comedian harmonists. These are really famous men. Before i put a note on paper, i did my homework for a full year. In germany, i bought what they call the schlage. Parade ofhe schlage 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923. I brought a suitcase back. To say nothing of classical in german was soaking music. Here is the creepy thing, i found a nazi marching band theme and as creepy as it was, it was brilliant. They were brilliant. They were monsters and yet they were brilliant. I was soaking in the music of the 1930s in germany and so was bruce. Before we put anything on paper, we had to do our homework. Tavis you both have made the point and i take this from you and others, that it takes a long time to pull this together. What makes it so tedious . Tedious . Is anhink a musical especially thorny thing to crack. It takes barry calls it circling the airport. We did it for four or five years. It is such a massive story. What part of the story are we telling . Why . Of musicals are based on something, whether it is a book or movie. This was a true story with dozens of characters. How do you whittle it all down to a twoact play . We started usually you start with a book. We started the hard way. That took a while. Then it is a matter of, you have a first draft. The first draft had everything there but there was no score. When i got to a song, i described what i thought that song might be and what it would do and how it would serve the characters and move the story. I sent it to him and he sent me back 16 melodies. Back and forth, back and forth. Tavis i am glad you went there. How much of the score is mr. Manilow and how much of the score is their stuff . It is all original. We replicate tavis i see why it took a while. We replicate what kind of material the comedian harmonists did. When they are in a scene, we are writing what we call a book song. It is all original. High compliment paid in form of criticism once. One producer said when he was looking at the piece, he said, i really like it but i think you ought to use more of those old songs that you found. Well we wrote all of those. [laughter] audiencew does the come to understand what their sound was like and what they did if it is all original . Good question. We tried as much as we could to make sure the audience knew how brilliant they were. There was ang section of their act where the lights went down and you heard what you thought was an orchestra. The overture of barber seville. Trombones and all. You thought there was a small band in the pit and they would come up and it was them replicating the sounds. Tavis with their own voices . Got it. We wrote one like that. That is the kind of thing we did. When we put them on stage, we were trying to tell you how brilliant they were. Tavis this is the type of song they did or the type of piece they did. Ofartists, what do you make their sound . Were they that good . They were that good. Any musician i play it for, their jaw drops. So complicated, six part harmony. No autotune, no multiple takes. They dropped a needle on waxed. They were standing around a single microphone. They are singing barber of seville, complicated work so in tune. You know they finished it and that was take one. If they want to do it again, it is take two. It is six minutes of complicated singing. For me, they knock me out. I am curious as to your take on this. What do you make of modernday autotune . Sometimes it is necessary. We are all used to everybody singing in tune. It helps. Thank goodness, i dont need it very often. Whothere are great singers go out of tune a little bit. In our cast. We have six guys who sing in such we couldnt use autotune. On a stage inthat a broadway musical. That is for records. You cant do that five. Tavis once you have jumping ahead of a long process, you finally get to the process where you are ready to cast. How do you find these guys . This is a very tough show to cast. They have to be able to sing, dance, be funny, be serious and sing six part harmony. The last part is tricky. It is six part harmony. Some of those notes are real weird. And they are dancing at the same time. Rough show to cast. I have cast nine productions. This one is by far the most of the goal. Most difficult. We have a spectacular cast. You get to one person and he has everything but the high note. There is the issue of look and ethnicity. There is so many pieces of the puzzle that have to be just right. Sometimes you get five of the six and youre looking for that one piece. Our cast, great cast. They love it. I think, this is so complicated, they must hate it. They dont. Barry, you worked with some of the greats. They helped launch you into the stratosphere years ago. Guys i amthese not looking for names per se, but do you sense there are some guys in your cast wear this will be a launching pad for them . Are they that good . Yes. For is a great showcase actors, singers, dancers. When we did our show back in la jolla, Patrick Wilson we discovered him. There were a few more names that came out of the early versions of harmony. It is a cast of 20. Your six principal men, two cast of 12 ensemble players who play 40 characters. Tavis i am glad you mentioned the women in their lives. I am curious and anxious to see this myself. I am curious as to how much of and whether or not the story lends it to the telling of the stories of their own lives. How do we connect to their individual humanity . That was another crazy thing. There were so many characters in the real story. What he had to do was whittle it down, down, down so it could be tavis but dont whittle it down so much that i dont get a chance to know who they are. This is set in the world of the entertainment business. But it is dealing with much larger themes. When we say the quest for harmony, we mean in the broadest sense of the word. Wasfirst thing they found musical harmony. After that, it was about how do these six human beings create a unit in this very tumultuous world . How does a jewish member of the group who marries a nonjewish woman and a nonjewish member of the group who marries a jewish their how do they find harmony together . Some of them do, some of them dont. Tavis i get the sense that heir talentare t and work is disrupted by what happens in nazi in nazi germany, it is not about the holocaust. It is the approaching storm. Our piece ends in 1935, a year before the jesse owens olympics. Before the first event of the holocaust. Had it been a bona fide holocaust story, these two jews wouldnt have written it. It ends in the approaching storm. That is territory we know well. And so does the audience. That was one of the difficult things, knowing that they were already ahead of us. How do you keep them at the edge of their seat . Also not the is kind of thing you can ignore. It is the approaching storm. You can act like it isnt coming. Our show certainly deals with that. Tavis i am curious what happens to these guys. We know they stop performing as a group. Do any of them get caught up in the holocaust . That may give too much away. I can tell you that i met the lead, one of them. The story is told through the memory of one of the six. The eldest, the one who lived the longest. He happened to have been a rabbi before he joined the group. Tavis hold up. One of my best friends is a rabbi. Trying to imagine my friend, the rabbi, leaving to join a singing group. A it was a polish rabbi, angarian singing waiter, italian opera singer, a german doctor, a selftaught genius and a brothel pianist. [laughter] the story is unbelievable. Tavis beyond the music, is there Something Else with that group that becomes the commonality . It is about those diverse human beings who had nothing else in common becoming one. And it happens to our cast too. The six guys that didnt know each other, that were all coming from different cities, they are now a group. They are friends. They are beginning to become in love with each other. That is what is so beautiful to watch. I did meet a rabbi. His nickname is rabbi because he was a rabbi. He really was a can for. When we did the play in la jolla , i got a call on the a cappella association asking if i would give him an award. I said, sure. Fled, het, when he would have gone to israel or new york. I live in ponce brings. He fled to palm springs. Writing this futile. For his character to sing and he lived four blocks away from my house. You can practically see his house from barrys. Tavis and you didnt know this the whole time. His young self doing this song to his young wife. They called and i said, really . Where does he live . Four blocks away. On the day of, i walked. I had been walking the dogs in front of his house. There was a whole bunch of cameramen there. The door opened. There he was. He was in a wheelchair, he was 94. Sitting next to him was his wife, mary. There, these people that we had invented in our minds. Is,s the obvious question when you met them, did what you had written match with what you were seeing . Even more so. He turned into george burns. He was a hammock. A ham. [laughter] he turned into a vaudevillian. She was so in love with him. They were exactly what i was hoping they would be. Tavis that has to be kind of a good eerie. Surreal is the word i want. I spoke to him on the phone after this. Every service at Temple Isaiah in palm springs. Until a few weeks before he died. Cantorthe oldest active in the United States of america. I spoke to him on the phone. As the conversation was winding down, i guess the cantorial training in him came forth. He blessed me and said, i am a very old man. I hope you live as long a healthy and life as i do. I said, thank you. He went, wait a minute. I am not done. When you reach my age, i hope that you will still be collecting royalties. [laughter] got to worryt about that. We cant even sing copacabana around here. [laughter] i got 30 seconds apiece. I will start with you, bruce. What do you hope the takeaway will be from those who will see harmony . That people remember that this happened and that people know that these remarkable men were there and had this experience and they deserve to be remembered. And to introduce these people who are the architects of the kind of music we all love. To introduce these men and to tell the story. Vis it is called harmony i am rushing down to see it myself. If you can get a ticket, get in. Based on this conversation, it is something you will want to see. I think the rules are that i can sing six bars without having to pay them. Six . Eight . Her name was lola she was a showgirl stop. [laughter] tavis we love having you on. Always good to see you. That is our show for tonight. Thanks for watching and as always, keep the faith. For more information on todays show, visit tavis smiley at pbs. Org. Tavis hi, im tavis smiley. Join me next time for a conversation with Elizabeth Kolbert and the notes comedian greg edwards. That is next time. We will see you then. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Thank you. U. S. Interviewing people who are living life by doing what they love. female 1 im here on this trip to talk to people whave taken unconventional routes in life. male 1 i have a lot of interests and i want to see how they can come together to make me successful on my own terms. female 2 im looking for different perspectives on what other people h gone through and how they got where they are to. grant i was like you, i didnt know what i wanted to do, but i wanted to see whats out there. female announcer state farm has made it possible for this documentary series to be shared on Public Television stations across the country. Roadtrip nation would like to sincerely thank our friends at state farm for helping a nation of young people define their own roads in life. Like a good neighbor, state farm is there. male announcer roadtrip nation would also like to thank the College Board for supporting this series. The College Board connect to college success