We're thinking a lot about the recently-deceased Hal Prince, the great Broadway producer-director who was involved in all those shows I mentioned in this post. I was going to describe him as "legendary" but I've pretty much given that word up as hopeless. People apply it so casually to folks who have very little history or importance that it's become just about meaningless…and it will probably be joined soon in that uselessness by "iconic."
Anyway, here's almost a half-hour of Mr. Prince being interviewed by producer Kurt Peterson and by my good buddy Jim Brochu. This is from when Jim was starring in a play he wrote, Zero Hour, in which he portrayed the amazing Zero Mostel — a wonderful, wonderful play and re-creation. I'd say I hope Jim does it again someday but he'd have to add about sixty pounds to his current svelte self to do it right and I wouldn't want to see him do that.
After one performance of Zero Hour, they got Hal Prince to come in and talk about working with Zero on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Fiddler on the Roof, both of which Prince produced. His remarks are, of course, fascinating.
At one point, Prince gets a bit confusing, talking about Forum when it sounds like he's talking about Fiddler. The history, as recounted by others who were involved in Forum, is that the show was originally to star Phil Silvers and then when he opted instead to do Do-Re-Mi, they got Milton Berle in his place. Then when Berle demanded too much control of the show, they got rid of him and Zero opened it on Broadway. That's how the show's co-author Larry Gelbart told it to me. That's how Phil Silvers told it to me one afternoon at Nate 'n Al's deli in Beverly Hills with Milton Berle at the table. That's how various books tell it. But as you'll see, it's not exactly how Hal Prince tells it in this video.
Make of that what you will. It's still a great conversation with one of the most important people in Broadway history. I wish I could call him legendary but that would just put him at the level of every single guest on James Corden's show…