Author Stephen Cole talks about his fictional, time-traveling novel, MARY & ETHEL…and Mikey Who?, which has taken the real-life friendship with Ethel Merman and Mary Martin, tossed them into a blender and come up with a fantasy about a nerdy super-fan.
BONUS AUDIO CLIP:
“Peeing at the Pierre” from Mary and Ethel
FROM AMAZON.COM
“Author and musical theatre librettist Stephen Cole has taken his real-life friendships with Ethel Merman and Mary Martin, the two undisputed queens of Broadway, tossed them into a blender and come up with a fantasy about a nerdy super-fan in the early 1980s who, while visiting his dying idol Ethel Merman, stumbles into a time portal in her closet and exits on the other side in Sophie Tucker’s star dressing room at the Imperial Theatre in 1939. Mikey Marvin Minkus gets to know his idols in their prime as he time travels through the decades with them, influencing their lives and careers, while helping to foster their legendary rivalry. Only visiting times when Merman and Martin’s fates crossed, Mikey becomes a vital part of their lives, all the while interacting with such celebrated theatrical figures as Cole Porter, Jerome Robbins, Josh Logan, Dorothy Fields, Larry Hagman, Irving Berlin, Sophie Tucker, Leland Hayward, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and a newcomer named Jane Fonda.”
ABOUT STEPHEN COLE (from Amazon.com)
Stephen Cole is an award-winning musical theatre writer whose shows have been recorded, published, and produced from New York City to London to the Middle East and Australia and Edinburgh, Scotland.
His off-Broadway musical AFTER THE FAIR (music by Matthew Ward; winner of 5 Dallas Theatre Awards for it’s world premiere including Best New Play or Musical) was nominated for the Outer Critic’s Circle Award for Best Musical and was subsequently produced in London to great acclaim. The original cast CD featuring Tony winner Michele Pawk won several awards.
The NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (music by Claibe Richardson) won the presigious Edward Kleban Award and was produced in San Francisco where it was nominated for several Bay Area Theatre Awards. The musical has subsequently been produced in NYC as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2006 (where Cole won a Best Lyricist nod) and in October 2010 at Lyric Stage in Dallas featuring Davis Gaines, Julie Johnson and a 24 piece orchestra. Hunter was given a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the CD has received rave reviews from the press including Billboard Magazine, who called it “one of the best CDs ever to serve to introduce a new musical. It is blessed with an accomplished score.” The CD also won the prize as best new musical on CD from the German music critics.
SATURDAY NIGHT AT GROSSINGER’S (music by Claibe Richardson) has had successful runs in Dallas (Starring Gavin MacLeod and Ruta Lee), LA and Florida (starring Barbara Minkus and Barry Pearl). Broadway legend Chita Rivera toured in his show CASPER (music by Matthew Ward…this also played Australia and will soon have its Children’s Theatre World Premiere in fall of 2019) and Hal Linden and Dee Hoty starred in the world premiere of his musical adaptation of DODSWORTH (music by Jeffrey Saver). DODSWORTH has subsequently been workshopped with John Cullum and Christine Ebersole. Stephen has been represented off Broadway with the hilarious PIANO BAR at the Triad.
In 2005 Stephen and composer David Krane were commissioned to write the first American musical to premiere in the Middle East and the result was ASPIRE, which was produced in Qatar. Their amazing and hilarious cross-cultural experiences resulted in yet another musical about the creation of the show entitled THE ROAD TO QATAR! which was produced to rave reviews at the Lyric Stage winning Best New Play or Musical from the Dallas-Ft. Worth Drama Critics Forum. THE ROAD TO QATAR! had a successful Off-Broadway run at the York Theatre Company and was recorded by Jay Records. In 2012, Qatar! was presented as part of London’s Landor Theatre Page to Stage Festival and in August of 2013 played at the Edinburgh Internation Festival garnering 5 and 4 star reviews and nominations as Best Music, Lyrics, Book and Best Musical of the Festival. The show is published and licensed by Josef Weinberger Ltd. in London. Krane and Cole also wrote a short movie musical entitled THE WHEEL GOES ROUND that was accepted and shown at five International Film Festivals including The Big Apple Film Festival in NYC.
Saver and Cole’s musical TIME AFTER TIME had its world premiere in Feb. 2010 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse under the direction of Gabriel Barre and was subsequently produced in Connecticut under the direction of the late Kevin Gray. Other produced shows include two family musicals commissioned by Walden Media: MERLIN’S APPRENTICE (Music by Matthew Ward) and ROCK ODYSSEY (Music and Lyrics by Billy Straus). ROCK ODYSSEY has had 5 successful productions at the Adrienne Arscht Center Miami and will be produced annually then for the next ten years. Stephen is also a published author with four books to his credit including THAT BOOK ABOUT THAT GIRL and I COULD HAVE SUNG ALL NIGHT, the Marni Nixon story, NOEL COWARD and Charles Strouse’s memoir PUT ON A HAPPY FACE. Stephen’s short stories have won prizes and been published at www.hickorystump.org. He has just completed his first novel, FREAK SHOW.
Stephen has written continuity, narration, and special material for twenty different Drama League Shows including all star tributes to Kander and Ebb, Liza Minnelli, Chita Rivera, Terrance McNally, Liz Smith, Peter Stone and most recently Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone, Kristin Chenoweth and Audra McDonald. Some of the stars Stephen has written material for include Marlo Thomas, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, Christine Baranski, Hal Linden, Chita Rivera, Gavin MacLeod, Dee Hoty, Christine Ebersole, Keith Carradine, JoAnne Worley, Lauren Bacall, Matthew Broderick, Michael Rupert, Joel Grey and many others. Stephen is the recipient of a Gilman-Gonzales Falla Commendation for musical theatre. He was also named one of Variety’s 50 Creatives to Watch- 2000. Liz Smith in her syndicated column has called Stephen’s lyrics “brilliant and gifted.”
As a producer, Stephen presented Liza Minnelli, Barbara Cook, David Hyde Pierce, and many others in an 80th Birthday Tribute to John Kander. Stephen has also released a series of CD’s entitled MERMANIA on Harbinger Records. These include never before released selections sung by his favorite star and friend, Ethel Merman. Besides writing the CD booklets for these and his original cast CDs, Stephen has written the DVD booklets for the box set of THAT GIRL: SEASON ONE and ANYTHING GOES.
Stephen recently conceived, wrote and directed Lynne Halliday in MY HEART BELONGS TO MARY, a celebration of the career of Mary Martin. An Off Broadway expansion of this became INVENTING MARY MARTIN and played to rapturous audiences at the York Theater Company in the Spring of 2014 starring Emily Skinner, Jason Graae, Lynne Halliday and Cameron Adams.
Stephen’s musical with composer David Evans, MERMAN’S APPRENTICE has had readings and workshops in NYC, as part of the New Musicals Festival at Village Theatre in Issaquah, WA, as part of London’s Page to Stage Festival at the Landor Theatre (starring Kim Criswell) and most recently played a sold out concert performance at NYC’s fabled Birdland Jazz Club. An original cast recording starring Klea Blackhurst, Elizabeth Teeter, Bill Nolte, Anita Gillette, PJ Benjamin and Eddie Korbich was recorded and released on January 18, 2016 in conjunction with the return engagement at Birdland featuring most of the original cast plus Adam Heller & Fred Applegate. Soon to be seen in Sonoma.
Cole and Saver were represented with their song “Lament for Three Jersey Girls” in the Tommy Tune musical, 54 FOREVER. Christin Dolen of the Miami Herald wrote: “The show’s one original song, Lament for Three Jersey Girls (by composer Jeffrey Saver and lyricist Stephen Cole), is terrific, theatrical and funny. More like that, please.” On-line critic Geoff Green called the song “funny, theatrical, and highly effective. Why not an entire score like this?”
Works in progress include THE BLACK AND WHITE BALL (with Todd Ellison), which has been chosen by Chicago’s FWD Theatre Project to be their first in a series of developmental musicals. and GOING HOLLYWOOD! (with David Krane).
Recently Stephen conceived and wrote and hosted an evening of his songs entitled COLE MINING: THE SONGS OF STEPHEN COLE at off Broadway’s Urban Stages. This evening featured numbers from many of his show sung by Marni Nixon, Klea Blackhurst, George Dvorsky, Sara Zahn and many others.
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