Read Online Broadway Tails by Bill Berloni - Free Book Online Page B

was there again. This time he was more apologetic but said another complainthad been filed, so he had to come back. He was a little more talkative and wanted to know more about the show. I introduced him to the cast, and he got a big kick out of it. The third night he came to the stage door and asked me to say he had been there the whole night. There was another complaint and he wanted to get home. We shook hands and he assured me that after three observations, they could now close the case. Our creators loved the fact that the audience was so in tune with the play.
    This was the first time that I really understood the power of animals onstage. I had always been amazed at the positive reaction to Sandy and my other dogs—but here we were showing an animal being mistreated. Instead of understanding it was just a play, the audience was concerned about the welfare of the animal. It was a great lesson for me in two ways: It reinforced that I needed to be able to prove we always did things humanely. It also showed me that the audience’s reaction to animals onstage is much stronger than what they would feel watching a movie or a television show.
    Audiences that were coming to see the show in previews loved it, and the word of mouth was great. The show scared the pants off you. Because of the audience reaction, we were sure it was going to be a hit. One of the producers was the famed restaurateur, Joe Kipness, who planned a lavish opening party. We even had our wardrobe department make two little black tuxedos for the Westies. They looked so cute.
    Opening night was a black-tie affair, just like old Broadway. The audience loved the show, and we had to take eleven standing ovations. It was incredible—the audience would not stop clapping. We went to the party on cloud nine. Everyone waited anxiously for the reviews. As the papers started coming in around midnight, the mood changed. The first review was bad. The second was worse. And the
New York Times
was worst of all. The major complaint was that the creative team had taken this piece of classic literature and turned it into a horror show. They took a highbrow stance on how the story was changed for a few cheap thrills. The critics obviously didn’t look around at what the audience was doing during the curtain calls.
    While it looked bad, the cast was hopeful. Our other producer, Terry Allen Kramer, made it clear she planned to make it work. We’d do an advertising campaign and ignore the critics. But the next day when I went to the theater, there was a crew ripping out our beautiful scenery and putting it in the trash. It seems the Nederlanders wanted their rental money up front because of the poor reviews. Terry tried to persuade them to give her a break, but they wanted it that day or else. She couldn’t meet the deadline. It was a cold-blooded thing to do, and we couldn’t understand it. We finally figured out the reason soon after that. It seems that at the same time we were opening, a new musical was getting rave reviews on the road. The show was waiting for a New York theater to become available, and the star was very interested in playing the Palace. The theater owners saw our bad reviews as an excuse to bring in a musical that would make them a lot more money than a play, and they took it. A week after they threw our set out on the street,
Woman of the Year
moved in, with Lauren Bacall making her first Broadway appearance in nearly twenty years. And they were right—
Woman of the Year
was a big hit, ran for a long time, and made a lot of money.
    Fritz and Snowy were out of a job before they knew it. The sad thing was, they had really enjoyed the experience of being loved by all those people—especially Snowy. The writer, Vic Gianella, took a particular interest in Snowy because he was the underdog, and Fritz got all the attention. After it was over, I saw Vic, and in passing he said he wished he could have Snowy. I said, “You want him?” He said, “Could I?”