Tom Viertel
Producer of Hairspray and Gypsy.
Prolific producer Tom Viertel, who with his partners Richard Frankel, Steve Baruch and Marc Routh have been responsible for such shows as The Producers, Hairspray, and the John Doyle-directed Company and Sweeney Todd, talks abut producing on Broadway and the pending closing of the long-running Hairspray. He relates his own theatrical heritage — his grandfather was a contractor who built the Mark Hellinger Theatre, among many others, and his father was a playwright — and how he began his own theatrical career as a hobby while working at the family real estate concern. Among the shows he discusses are his first theatrical foray with two magicians he first saw in a 50 seat theatre in Los Angeles — Penn and Teller; the extraordinary auditions of two now well-known actresses, Donna Murphy and Laura Benanti, for Song of Singapore and The Sound of Music respectively; the counterintuitive decisions that led him to produce Theatre de Complicite’s Mnemonic as a commercial production and to revive Gypsy with Patti LuPone on Broadway only five years after the prior production; the travails of producing Smokey Joe’s Cafe; and why in his spare time he’s so committed to his volunteer role as chairman of Connecticut’s Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.
Original airdate – October 31, 2008.
Running time – 58:59.
For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to Downstage Center’s Tom Viertel program page.
You can also download directly the Tom Viertel program (mp3).
Posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
by
American Theatre Wing
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