Al Hirschfeld Theatre

I'm obsessed.

And I performed at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.

Yes, you did.

In Moulin Rouge.

It was directed and choreographed by Agnes DeMille, and it was a forerunner to the concept musical Allegro.

In 1961, Jerry Herman's first Broadway musical, Milk and Honey, premiered at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway.

It was set in Israel and it ran for 543 performances.

It starred Robert Weed and Molly Picon.

And in 1899, he was discovered by vaudeville impresario Martin Beck, and his career in magic really took off.

Wait, so this is like the Martin Beck Theater.

I mean, today it's the Al Hirschfeld on 45th Street, but it used to be called- We still call it the

Martin Beck, yeah.

I'm a little sceptical about this one.

And by that time, the marmalade sandwiches will almost be ready and Paddington the Musical will be about to begin performances at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on Broadway.

It starts previews in late March.

It opens in April, along with a whole bunch of other shows, presumably.

And then I, I, you know, I just finished up, um, a run on a Broadway show.

I did Moulin Rouge at the, uh, Al Hirschfeld Theatre, and then this winter I'll be on the West End, uh, playing King Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar.

See-

All this while running Perthshire Studios, which is my production company.

But as a trio, Bye Bye Birdie was the first time any of them had ever written a full musical.

Strouse and Adams explain why it took almost six years to finally bring the first Birdie to the Martin Beck Theatre in 1960.

When we first started writing, uh, Birdie, there was no rock 'n' roll singer, and it was a very curious thing.

There were five writers that were brought in over the course of the thing that nobody liked the book at all.

Uh, but suddenly the appetite, the '80s appetite for, you know, bigger, better, was seeping into the musical theater.

So this, this set was threatening to devour us, and indeed, it kinda got the best of us.

As the cast moved into the Martin Beck Theatre in mid-January 1981, director Joe Layton was pulling double duty across two different Strauss productions, not just heading up the Birdie production, but as executive producer of the Annie movie adaptation as well.

They had just announced the casting of their 11-year-old leading lady, Aileen Quinn, and that filming would begin in a couple of months.

We have a new announcement.

We had Now You See Me that's coming in to the Al Hirschfeld Theater.

And now we have the Blue Man Group is going to be coming in to the Len Fontaine Theater for the holiday season from November 12th through January 3rd.

So they're coming in before Warriors takes over the theater.

In fact, it's very frequent now to see shows trying out at college campuses.

The plan was to open there in Florida on May 17th, 1972, then a tour to Sarasota, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, then up to Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania, and then to the Martin Beck for opening.

Now, had it gone to Broadway, it would have been playing alongside the musicals A Little Night Music, Pippin, Sugar, Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope, plus a revival of Irene with Debbie Reynolds.

That's some pretty stiff competition to be coming into that season.

Rehearsals began at the Martin Beck, and it was soon clear that there would be trouble on 45th Street.

Mayer would rewrite all of Michaels' dialogue before even having the cast read it out loud to see if it worked.

Lee was able to write some strong melodies, but Michaels' lyric writing was weak.

But there were some praises buried under the damnation.