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A Musical Play by Chip Deffaa With Songs by Irving Berlin Music Arranged by Chip Deffaa PRODUCTION SCRIPT www.stagerights.com IRVING BERLIN’S AMERICA Copyright © 2012. 2013 by Chip Deffaa All Rights Reserved All performances and public readings of IRVING BERLIN’S AMERICA are subject to royalties. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union, of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights are strictly reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronics, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. Publication of this play does not necessarily imply that it is available for performance by amateurs or professionals. It is strongly recommended all interested parties apply to Steele Spring Stage Rights for performance rights before starting rehearsals or advertising. No changes shall be made in the play for the purpose of your production without prior written consent. All billing stipulations in your license agreement must be strictly adhered to. No person, firm or entity may receive credit larger or more prominent than that accorded the Author. For all stage performance inquiries, please contact: Steele Spring Stage Rights 3845 Cazador Street Los Angeles, CA 90065 (323) 739-0413 www.stagerights.com PRODUCTION HISTORY Michael Townsend Wright, Ben Orlando, and Bailey Cummings did private readings of this script in 2012, with playwright/director Chip Deffaa. The first staged reading was performed by Michael Townsend Wright and Jack Saleeby, with music director Richard Danley and director Chip Deffaa, at Roy Arias Stage II / The Payan Theater, 300 W. 43rd St., New York City, on January 23, 2013. Bill Tari and Cedric Taylor starred in a production, directed by Amie Brockway Henson, with music direction by Kent Brown, at the Open Eye Theater in Margaretville, NY, in May/June 2013. Michael Townsend Wright and Matt Nardozzi performed the show, with music director Richard Danley, at the Rosen Theater in Wayne, New Jersey in August 2013 (videographers, Brian Gari, Max Galassi). The premiere recording, produced by Chip Deffaa, was recorded by Michael Townsend Wright and Jack Saleeby, with music director Richard Danley, bassist Vince Giordano and violinist Andy Stein, plus dancer/choreographer Tyler DuBoys, at Be-Sharp Studios in Astoria, New York (Slau Halatyn, recording engineer), January-June 2013, and was released in the United States by Original Cast Records in 2014. “Irving Berlin’s America” had its New York premiere at the 13th Street Repertory Theater (Edith O’Hara, founder/artistic director; Sandra Nordgren, producing artistic director), 50 W. 13th Street, New York City, opening June 15, 2014. Michael Townsend Wright played “Irving Berlin”; Giuseppe Bausilio played “Jack.” Chip Deffaa was the writer/director/arranger. Richard Danley was the music director. Tyler DuBoys and Scott Thompson were the choreographers. Peter Charney was assistant director, Keith Anderson and Caitlin Morrison were the stage managers. Kate Bove and Ami Park were technicians. Daniel Coelho, Rayna Hirt, Maite Uzal, Jason Hillard, Jeseee D. Riehl, and Michael Kasper were production assistants. Matt Nardozzi was technical advisor. Donald Brown prepared the music, with editing and revisions by Richard Danley. Our thanks, too, to aides-de-camp Ben Youngstone, Samantha McCoy, Matt Buckwald. Max Galassi and Jonathan M. Smith were our production photographers. ABOUT THE PLAY “Irving Berlin’s America” is a two-character musical play, in two acts. This musical play is a copyrighted work; no changes to this play may be made without written permission from the author or his representatives. (For more information, please contact the publisher.) BILLING NOTE The printed program for this play should include the following note: “The time: the night of September 22nd, 1989; The place: the home of Irving Berlin, 17 Beekman Place, New York City.” (It is essential to include the date and location of the action in a program note. This musical play takes place on the final night of Irving Berlin’s life.) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Our gratitude, always, for their encouragement and wisdom, to the one-and-only Carol Channing; to the late George Burns and Todd Fisher, for the tales they so generously shared from their early days in vaudeville, which influence this work; to the late John Wallowitch, who shared my love of Irving Berlin’s music and taught me some of these songs; to the late Jack Gottlieb, a lifelong mentor and the lover of the best in music, who encouraged me in this project; to the late music expert and author James T. Maher for his recollections of Berlin; to my friend (and erstwhile New York Post colleague) Robert Kimball, who compiled and co-edited (with Linda Emmet) the invaluable book The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin (Knopf); to ASCAPs unfailingly helpful musical-theatre expert, Michael Kerker; to the good folk at Lincoln Center’s Library for the Performing Arts, at the Museum of the City of New York, and at the Princeton University Library Theater Collection; thanks, too, for help in various ways, to Jack Sprance, Emily Bordonaro, Nicholas Gray, Betty Buckley, Brandon Pollinger, Jon Peterson; and finally— for many reasons— Tommy Tune. * * * For Giuseppe Bausilio, Matt Nardozzi, Jack Saleeby, Bailey Cummings, Ben Orlando, Tyler DuBoys, Peter Charney, Max Galassi, Michael Townsend Wright, Richard Danley… the ten wonderful artists who’ve helped me develop this show in NYC THE SETTING For our original New York production, the stage was set as follows. At stage right, we had Berlin’s easel, with a canvas on it, and a paintbrush. By the easel were a couple of simple wooden chairs. Next to them was a small table (so that Berlin would have a convenient place to set down the coffee that Jack brings him). Next to the table, we had an old-fashioned steamer trunk, with a feather boa and some old sheet music lying casually on top. Next to that was a large chair, with an ottoman in front of it. A coat rack with a fedora on it stood behind the chair. And we also had had a prop piano and a piano bench. Atop the piano, we had a few old pieces of Irving Berlin sheet music. (Vintage Berlin sheet music can be purchased via Ebay.com; it is plentiful and inexpensive.) We dressed the stage a bit by having behind the piano a four-panel wooden folding screen, covered with images of Berlin and his cohorts, and sheet music and such. You need not set your stage identical to the way we originally set the stage in New York, but you should definitely have an easel for Berlin, a piano (or prop piano), and some chairs. Our set was simple but flexible. JACK could sit, at various times in the play, on a chair or on the ottoman, or on the piano bench, or on the steamer trunk. We had the feather boa preset atop the trunk so Jack could use it (to evoke Mae West) when singing “Grizzly Bear.” We had the old gray fedora— like one Bing Crosby would often wear— on the coat rack so that Jack, upon finishing singing “I’ve Got My Captain Working for Me Now,” could sit in the big chair, prop up his feet on the ottoman, grab the fedora and cock it down over his head–visually evoking, for a moment, Bing Crosby. We had the sheet music handy so that Berlin could pick some sheet music up and hand it to Jack when singing “I Want to Go Back to Michigan (Down on the Farm).” Incidentally, for those who wish to know more about Berlin’s actual house (17 Beekman Place, NYC), there is a book, available on Amazon, about that very house: The Luxembourg House on Beekman Place: Three Portraits in Time (by Debra Pickrel, Pamela Hanlon, and Marianne Matthews; New York, The Consulate General of Luxembourg in New York, 2010). A SUGGESTION RE STAGING Each director will have his own ideas as to how to direct a production— where characters will sit or stand, when and where they will move, and so on. And that is as it should be. But here is one general suggestion. The two characters in this play gradually grow closer, emotionally. And the staging, in some ways, can reflect that. When JACK first enters the home of IRVING BERLIN, he might stand, or walk about, at some distance from Berlin. Over the course of the play, the two characters might come to more often sit or stand closer to one another. As the play progresses, it might become easier and more natural for Jack to make some kind of physical contact with Berlin— perhaps an arm on a shoulder, or a pat on the back. By the time they sing their last duets in the show, they should be able to put them over like a seasoned vaudeville team; they’ve connected emotionally, and they should appear to be in-synch, even in putting across musical numbers. CAST OF CHARACTERS Cast Total: 2M IRVING BERLIN is, in this play, 101 years old. He wears black horn-rimmed eyeglasses. His hair is mostly black with some gray in it. He has a cane. At the opening of the play, he is seated at his easel, painting, wearing a bathrobe over dark trousers, a dress shirt, and a conservative necktie. His suit jacket is preset somewhere (perhaps on the back of a chair).

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