Joseph Stein & Lin-Manuel Miranda

[Applause] [Music] today we're gonna go interview the legendary superlative Joseph Stein he was on the writing staff of your show of show starring Sid Caesar whose alumni include a call liner Mel Brooks it's basically a who's who of some of the funniest minds of our era I was one of the few people who has actually made a living writing books to musicals it's it's a it's such a lost part and he's written some of the best ones Zorba Fiddler on the Roof and - laughing I've grown up with Joe's work I was a son in my sixth-grade production of Fiddler on the Roof I still know the choreography I hear they picked a bride for me I hope shrug shrug she's pretty turn Fiddler's DNA is all over and the heights almost every creative discussion about the structure of the show we come back to fiddler fiddler was our blueprint I'm thrilled to get to talk to him today I want to talk to him about his writing process I'm going to talk to him about his history and I just want to see what we can glean from the great man himself [Music] hey are you good we enter laughing so this is our this is my little abode this is where I work it is gorgeous yes well it's not so gorgeous you got thirty trouble cuz why the her spell collection here yeah yeah they're sort of oh yeah well that's the her spell for schwarber here's the 27 Yankees because it's a sick guy since he's okay there's a big vicious live I was working of a show huh there's no bro health drugs call Roy that and then who's over here these are all very close friends of people I've always had worked with well this John can that's David Schwartz she'll demonic and most of my life well that's good I like them all that's all you can ask for in this theater this is what I'm really proud of the dramatists Guild of America a Lifetime Achievement Award yeah I think I was I think I was there when you got that award last year I had a little it's very recently yeah that's a lifetime of cheap I think n when I was a kid they asked I haven't seen a war I'm rather pleased with that was the one that the York theater gave me wonderful is the the stars of Judo surely both melting burglars wow this is said this was given to me by the theater his brother Clayton fancy for this 30 years it's been running constantly for 30 years I had no idea it was happening to but when they called me and he said we'd like you to go to a 10th anniversary of playing the fancy I don't know what the hell we they were talking they call it the justice time for the event so yeah the theater named after you in Indiana yeah yeah that's wonderful well it's a little theater well it's not that but but it's in Indiana so who's you know so these are the shows that I've done oh man and these are scripts I'm working on right now I see you have a little typewriter over there I miss the sound I used to write on type by my love I love for it get a typewriter edited more in my head when I would write for typewriter because I knew it could you're absolutely right I do a lot more editing first mhm and it before I put on paper yeah that's a feather in Japan oh this is the fiddler in Japan that is one of my favorite stories of yours by the way of the intermission at fiddler in Japan oh yeah well well the producer said do they understand this show in America I said what u.s. he says because it's so Japanese and I I would be Wilda that thrilled that sums up everything yeah of course there was such a they said didn't quite understand like they had the rabbi walking and crossing himself I said but but they did a brilliant production this is the living room there's not very much to show you that's a very great consequence oh here's my Tony and of consequence and and this is multiplied of the wife she's peaceful on the cover welcome to lovely actress hadn't she made the cover of Life magazine little Derek that Sheldon avec broke every staircase that goes nowhere is that yeah it's out there would be one long staircase just going up in one even longer going down and one more going nowhere just for sure and this is the sad case it goes nowhere just to show Anna Skye certain the North Shore somewhere they said my god this is really a staircase it goes nowhere just the show I was and they were this I mean well I told you this as soon as you came to see the show that we stole everything that's good in our opening number we stole from fiddler well well you're welcome I recognized some of the similarities I think that's it use it very extremely well well you know I mean but but you know that that that fiddler really was our blueprint on hi and every fight that Tommy Caitlin I got into was about well in the opening of Fiddler they did this and then we would dissect the opening of fiddler and and we really really use that as a blueprint in terms of the the way that menteur a successful musical book and we I mean we owe that show in particular a great deal of time well I'll take em enormously complimented enormous Lee and I'll have my lawyer sue you wasn't worthy to that subpoena now really I feel that even though every III I feel I'm very moved by that and i'm d'lai that i saw your play as you know i saw it more than once I saw it often and I think it's a hell of a show wonderful show and I'm delighted I made some contribution to yeah absolutely absolutely I don't know if you know this also but I was a son in the sixth grade production over up the street at ninety fourth which is the reason were sitting live I have to kill myself that I didn't see that I want to talk a bit about before we start on your impressive biography and all of your accolades and your stairways going nowhere just for show when you started writing or when you started thinking of yourself as a writer well those are two separate questions okay because when they start it's writing is like maybe I was three years old yeah you know it sounds like a kid yeah I had a pencil or crayon in my hand I saw this writing I really love to write but I I did not think of myself as a writing as a career until quite late because basically this was during the Depression that we just have to make a living so and actually I stumbled it through being a professional writer by pure accident how was that and what they a friend invited me to lunch with some other friends of his were one of us was a fella named zero myself who at the time was doing a radio show that week he ran out of stuff and that week we were sitting at lunch he says I don't or to talk about so we chatted about something and I suggested but ever and they said hey that sounds pretty funny you want to write it out and I did and he paid me $15 a week and I did it every week for the rest of his run the original writer of the show of the total show asked me if I wanted to do another show that he was working on and I became a professional writer right and did your parents right they encouraged this were they my parents Satan didn't write nor do they encourage it they had nothing to do with it yeah I you know I was up pretty much on my own they I mean they so if you're making a living fine and then you know you went on to write I mean you're on the legendary all-star team the comedy equivalent of the 27 Yankees you know your show of shows after that beginning I kept driving various radio shows the Henry Morgan show and other shows of increasingly I became very quite well known in the New York writing community and then I saw the writing television and then they asked me to go on the show and show so that's like graduating magna laude you know it was it was like a graduate school it's comedy writing it it was I think for all of us I think in any one of any one of the guys who were there would say that we had learned an enormous amount of comedy and basically because Sid's attitude towards common he was I had total truth in it Sid was not a a joke right right at you or a joke teller he would would stumble over a joke he couldn't tell it but he was great on character on relationships on on conflict on things that were honestly true and human and we all learn from that he was by instinct a hell of a teacher what was your writing process during that first of all we had to to fill I though remember was a virally effort to our poker emims live every week you're not allowed to have writer's block I mean you had to yes yeah yeah Heather come up with something I mean there was a deadline so so we didn't even though the concept of right is read it's like didn't occur to any of us we just had to have to come up with material and once you have that kind of trading you know that it's possible always to break through the writer's block do you have a routine do you have like a time you set aside during the date when you like to write in particular or well no do you catch it as it comes this I write what I feel like what I have to I really enjoy writing against the deadline even if some even some mental deadlines it's it when I own the head I'm in the same way I need to say you got to do it by Friday because yeah at any time but the best ways to make the road deadline absolutely but as I say when you're when you start and radio or a particular television particular of the that kind of pressure we get comfortable with deadlines this becomes positive part of the way you were how do you get from there to plain and fancy the maras office was approached by a potential producer he never produced before but he was eager to produce he was a he was a radio husband a wife team and one of their their clients was a very rich expensive department store in Pennsylvania Philadelphia I think and they said I think they were jealous of Oklahoma yeah they want to have play about Pennsylvania exclamation point at the yeah anything anything about Pennsylvania and you know when you're thinking about Pennsylvania is it gets kind of boring you know being except for the Pennsylvania Dutch and I was intriguing and the idea of contrasting the culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch with a contemporary New York couple and what was that process like this was my very first Broadway experience I we had the producers I say who had ever produced before he hired a director who had never directed on Broadway before after it doesn't suck stuff he had a composer and lyricist who had never written for the Broadway for the permuting of theater we were all novices and my anticipation was that nothing would come of it and to my amazement and my delight the damn thing worked though it was a success this exists it was a enormous success out of town because we opened the Philadelphia I mean it was it was it was enormous sellout so in general from then on a statement of theater and by the way that's the only place that I write that can be really in charge you know although I loved working it's on the cessation show I was insurance it was yeah you know once let's talk a bit about Fiddler how did this start there's some short stories about a character named Tevye that my father used to read to me in the others when I was growing up and I didn't remember the stories of the world but I just remember filling in love with him I found something called tavius or those containing those stories that I had remembered when I was a child and that was the genesis of Fiddler I read them and I thought that I fell in love with the community with the atmosphere with the central character and I felt I could weave a story out of that you go how did you go about doing that because it's such I mean that's one of the most amazingly sort of structured musicals even that opening number when you have sort of the fiddler and the concentric circles as he introduces the community how did you mean the tradition how did you take these short stories and well weave this well it's very hard to describe because it was that obvious it was not it was not technical its or so emotional in a simple civ there were three stories the treat me the most those are three of the three daughters those three two others he had six or seven daughters but those three intrigue me and I felt that if I felt they all had something in common not within the stories themselves but if you if your objective and you looked at the moment from a distance they all were about the breaking of a tradition they didn't say so he says so it's just they're self-contained they're also written as monologues after those stories are all monologues written play you know it's tabut telling the story to show them away and how did you decide what would be musicalized by um by bakit Harnick and what well we decided among the three of us we talked about as you know they came up with notions for swords I think the first song that after I did a roughed out part of the script a very rough outline I included the dream as one aspect of the story and that's the first thing they wrote really because it appeal to them they they got excited about that idea they wrote as I said I have no idea whether it can be in or not a little but with I didn't know what would be it at that point except I knew that I was gonna follow that story and it's the structure that I was big getting to build despite the fact that we were all moderately successful we could not get any producer interested in that project it was the hardest thing in the world the of all of all of the shows I've done that was the most difficult together producer for was fiddler I remember what preserve cynicism you know I read it and I really liked it I liked it very much but what am i I couldn't do for an audience once I've run out of Hadassah benefits so that was and I I thought they were probably right but I didn't know that this would ever have an audience none of us did it was a very unique kind of thing for Broadway it was not the song and dance gonna show and how much did it change between cuz I know you guys had an out of town try out yes we do it we try it in Detroit and then Washington and how much did it change in those out-of-town tryouts before it got to New York what we're sort of the well but we got into rehearsal the structure of the book was never changed but we've made enormous changes in in within the within that structure we changed the law that's a lot of the score we changed a lot of the lot of the book the original number the opening number tradition was written after Jerry joined the project because Jerry kept taught we would get had lots of meetings in preparation for it and Jerry kept asking the very simple what is this story about yeah and we say well it's about the man he loved this man who has these three marriage will door dozens having difficulty with each way he says I know that I know the story but what's about why we're writing it and we add the word tradition kept coming up he says well this door that's breaking it's a tradition by marrying without a matchmaker and you know is it's a it's a tradition for them to have a matchmaker listen free and of course it's a terrible traditional sheet marriage abathur faith issues of whether we say that it's about that at some point somebody said I he we should go and let's write a tradition and that's wrote EOP number and and we all became comfortable about what we were saying because we were we were telling the audience what they are about to see yeah [Music] [Applause] it's amazing to think that that came last I came last it was all there but the butter came West and taught me at an enormous lessons tell that's telling tell the audience what you're doing so they could be comfortable to relax yeah what are other things that you think it's important for the a good book for a musical to have well I think there are certain elements of a good book to be whether the face well of course you have to have something to say yeah that was important to you essentially most of the stuff I write has something in common and that's but am I thinking about I'm looking back there they're all about every one of us my shows substantially about simple people ordinary people I don't write about very sophisticated people yeah I don't write no coward kind of people I'm not that's I have anything against so I just don't know them that well again but I but in play the fancy and write about the Pennsylvania Dutch in the Baker's way for I write about the simple French peasants and Juno's said it's the Irish you know the poor Irish at Dublin you've hit almost every immigrant group yeah I saw and it's always about the conflict of cultures which I I didn't realize while I'm writing them but almost every one of them has that strain of the company come to the cultures it's surely true playing and fancy my very first it's true of Juno it's true of the Baker's wife it's true of all of them so so she had got something to say even if you don't know you're saying it I mean you have to be very basically you just have to be very clear about what you're saying secondly I think it's very important I have a story that you can say you know that that there has a larger-than-life quality and a lot to the life central character somebody whose Bloods in life in one way or another you want to spend two hours of them somebody spent two hours with and somebody who could dominate a stage but I don't think there's any rules that can't be broken yeah you know but those are those are the things I find the tools that come mostly that I'm most comfortable to my hands yeah well fiddler breaks a ton of rules there's no showgirls in that show you know it's not your typical musical theater lexical the rules I broke very early my career yeah was a simple thing called mr. wonderful it had it was a I think it was the first integrated chorus really nobody ever had because we have Sammy Davis was a black star and and his girlfriend was black but everybody else was originally it was all white and I remember having a big fight with the director and the chorus is the community in which this the central character lives and you can't ask a me to be living in the all-white community it does just doesn't make sense he says but those are the best dances the things I said you said are you saying that there's no good black sega's advances he says well the reason we auditioned them or I said maybe we should called Sammy tell them that they're all that you have an all-white course and the producer a very well known composer named Julie Stein and he was saying geo for Christ what are you on about he says they would think we have failed this is a gothic red course he saw I'll call Sammy and he am i I'll never forget this conversation I'm Vasily mins and Z and Julie says listen Sammy we we just went over the thing we got them we got a great cast that coming together very well the the book is in good shape and I love the score and the incidentally you know the or the chorus happens to be all white but otherwise everything well it's just that how many four how about and that deters the director who's also correct he says what the the matter with you he says of course we have to have a big red order I will never forget that it's if my life is so funny at joy and Julia who was an adorable man I loved them you toyed around like he became a different person don't even think that way as Sammy Davis was the first time he wrote a musical with someone in mind correct well it was the first and only time that I wrote a musical where will committed we really brought a musical for Sammy Davis we weren't writing a musical about anything that we wanted in other ways it was it was basically a commercial enterprise right I know I had fun into again I loved chamois but it was not the most attractive thing to me what does that entail what does that mean to write a song for Sammy Davis as opposed to just writing well it was like he wanted to he wanted a part of his real act within the show huh so it was like written to order yeah so obviously it required by building a story about a young kid who's tried to break into show business and in other words the story almost dictated itself and we had a lot of fun with it and it was it was a joy to work with Sam because his talent was just endless yeah and by the way that was the first time I met Jerry Park because Jerry did was the cook was the composer really yeah as a matter of fact I recommend that Jerry to work with Sheldon that's quite a match you've made yeah yeah so so at any rate I mean I have as Helles values but not my my favorite kind of writing to write for a character that evidently gets ever but but it was fun yeah it was not like you know writing Zorba okay well let's talk about Zorba I mean that side we first met at the mufti stages when they were remounted that that prety orc yeah jojoba came about because Herschel Parvati was playing Tevye and her Sherpa that he was in love with a novel it's all by the Greek and he thought would make a great musical and I read the novel I saw the movie and I thought it's a again it was a very the kind of thing that appeals to me very much those people though those tough Greek peasants who are trying to struggle for a living you know they touch me and that central character God knows once it wins it's larger than life he has great you were and he has a great he has a point of view was was I absolutely agree our producer was had was how prints and how was very close to camera there whom I didn't know but I admire their work and he said how about that myself god I'd love to work with gentlemen Fred and I think solvers whether the absolutely best scores so that they wrote or as read this is glorious score one of my favorite moments in that score is a happy birthday to me why you guys I think that very credible moment it's a brilliant school but brilliant song yeah I and I also think the they had love so like the leo is one of the most beautiful sources you know love the give me love only love that's all yeah I mean it's so simple it's got the simplicity if I don't know every Berlin had that simplicity right and and its enormous Lee moving and effective and I told them so yeah I also had it's maybe two series to be to be popular I don't know because I'd never know anything about what's gonna be popular while this life and lately I learned from fitted don't know if they'll try though out guess the audience right but but at any rate working with javathread was actually I I don't think of any I've ever had a really difficult experience with any of I cook my collaborators what do you attribute that's a what do you think well I think that you hear horse I slow I worked with very talented people I mean these were my novices you know because there was no real professionals and seasoned unsure of themselves were very easy to criticize to talk to to collaborate really every one of the people I've mentioned but also we never started the project without our total agreements on what this show is about yeah always and if you don't have that you can have a lot of trouble but but these guys in every case we saw eye to eye for the very beginning I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about rags which don't really miss are you sure says well I mean it is when I talk about Broadway musicals with any of my friends that who have been around they say well you had to have seen rags it was I mean it has really talked about well I agree with your Fred it's greatly admire I really love that show I'm very sad about that show because it had a great score not just a good score a really great school of the Charles and Steven wrote and and I think if I say so myself it's a it's a very solid book and it's about some and as a and it's a very worthwhile story to tell the reason I rose actor is because I was constantly being urged to write a fiddler to check you know so I'm the legend of Tonya's gold yeah yet its son of fiddler you know the follow up and fit but what happened to this family they came to America and so uh and I said I've told the story of this family but the idea of telling the story of the American immigrant the new immigrants in New York was again something that was cut that I couldn't get out of my mind and so I decided to write for X I didn't know whether I would write it for this green or for the stage I prefer to ready for this everything I was thinking somebody from from the coast suggested I rather for the screen this green actually I am uncomfortable ready for the screen because as you know the authority on films is nothing right there yeah he's a fairly low man on the totem pole and if he's lucky he's the middleman of the thought totem pole but you know thank God there was the guild in the theater we have control so the only things I've written for films are to film based on my own work where I had complete control of the script I was I did the Fiddler's script and I did script for the film event laughing but otherwise I've been asked to write movies from time to time and I've always said no for that reason I just like ready for the what feeling look look that is my baby you know I've got enough for in-laws without the movies so where are we now well we're in rags and housing because it's really it's a beloved yeah well it's it's if I thought it was a wonderful show I loved it unfortunately although we got mixed reviews of fairly good reviews we got one really bad reviews and there was the times and our producers had no backup they had mean it didn't have enough funds to go on and we didn't have a much of an advance so they abruptly closed it it was a kind of a sensational closing because I don't know you know this would but but where they put up the closing though there's the cast at the end of the at the end of the that show that last show March down for play was sighs saying keep rags open really yeah as a matter fact I only found out about it a little a survivor out of town and I was watching television that night myths of estrangement Hotel and I see the the cast of my shows walking up a long way they were so in love with that show they as much as we were we the writers they had the and of course the producer called me that that night and said did you see that we're gonna keep it open that was sudden day night and Monday morning they said we haven't got the money Wow Wow how do you shake it off I mean you spend several years of your life writing a show one bad review sinks you well is just yourself off and wellness you've heard the word depression yeah yeah that's what happens you go into i'm being going through was this person that made list very briefly maybe only five years but really actually if you have any self control and interest in the work after wealth wears off you know you feel you feel that you've had an unhappy experience but you have a lovely show that's some they will be done and we feel some day it will be done I mean look at what happened with two laughing yeah well that brings us perfectly to enter laughing which is enjoying this amazing new life well add to laughing but I'll tell you how it happened Carl writer wrote this book which is kind of remotely autobiographical boasts about his entrance into show business and I said you know my experience was not identical but there were similarities to my getting involved in show business I was very taken with that book and was that it's not a great piece of literature was very onerous and I said I I'd like to make a play out of it he says CB more guests basically and to write the live it was a very successful to play some years later I thought of doing it musical izing it and it's a big failure and the reason why it was a failure is because the producer insists of upon a star to play this eighteen year old kid Mira there are no 18 year old stores so he had Barbie Moss who was then in his forties playing the kids were the only way only way I could do it could be done I did it's a flashback in other words we have this grown man opening up and telling a biographer a newspaper man about his early days trying to break into the theater so he had two hours of a 45 year old man making love to an 18 year old girl and you know who's gonna believe that and I don't blame the audience for saying come it had some wonderful moments had a lot of funny stuff much bushes was on this a slaver but there was not the original musical we wrote we didn't write her for the year old man anyway so it didn't last and it was gathering dust in the room next door when the York Theatre decided to do a seven or eight of my place what of which they wanted to enter laughing I said I don't know where I haven't seen it for a long time anyway I said what the hell you know it's let's try it and like there's a lot of rewrite and and we have a little show yeah and it was enormous ly successful and the thing about that by the way it's it proves something I've always felt about the theater it's a it's a living thing it's a living arts nothing's really dead if it's like the joy it's just breathing it's waiting to be will be awakened and you can fool around with you can play with it later and you can't do that for the movie you can't do that for the novel it could only do it with a play it's a matter of fact Fiddler's last time as it's been running for like 40 or 35 years or something when it was recently result revived I changed a couple of lines well then where else can you do that right but Ethel Africa I changed much more than a couple of lines has changed quite a bit and we have we had while the mounts to although it was a small nonprofit theater we mount we had a runaway hit that's life in the theater I just I saw that had like six missed calls so something's happened who was opposed to fry a finalist I'm pretty sure I didn't win it but I think I'm a finalist fry them hi so wait I hope we repeal it's our finalists Wow I am at Joe Stein's house Wow [Music] Ella never won the Pulitzer and Fiddler's won the hearts of millions [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Dramatists Guild Foundation

Views: 2,919

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: lin-manuel miranda, lmm, joseph stein, fidler, fidler on the roof, miranda, lin, lin-manuel, composers, learn composing, musicals, musical theater, writing musical theater, interview, lin-manual interview, lin manuel interview, lin manuel miranda, lin manuel, in the heights, hamilton, zorba, musical theater advice, playwright advice, composer advice, lyricist advice

Id: BWknUMMbNrk

Length: 38min 14sec (2294 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 31 2019