By Tom Nondorf
04 Nov 2009

KAYE 2

	Brian Childers

Like Kimball and Memphis, Brian Childers and Danny and Sylvia are a star-and-show tandem that have been intertwined for a good while. The show debuted in Washington, DC. It has been running at St. Luke's Theatre on 46th Street in Manhattan since May. The South Carolina-born Childers won a Helen Hayes Award for his portrayal of comedian Danny Kaye in the story of how Kaye relates to his wife Sylvia Fine, who wrote a lot of Kaye's material. The show, written by Kaye's last publicist, Robert McElwaine, is a throwback to the style of '30s and '40s comedy and features Childers doing some of the seemingly impossible tongue-twisting tunes that Kaye made seem so simple.

Question: Has this show been a wild ride for you?
Brian Childers: It has been. It's been a long journey! I've been with the project from the very beginning, since 2001 in Washington, DC. I was asked to play Danny. It was just a reading; we didn't know what we had. We opened, then it was a big hit, and we took it to a festival in New York in 2002, and then nothing happened. Years later, two producers wanted to revive it, and we finally opened in May Off-Broadway at St. Luke's. That's the Reader's Digest version of it.

Q: Were you familiar with Danny Kaye before your involvement in the show?
Childers: No, actually. I was doing a different show in DC, and the director, Jack Marshall, who is the artistic director of the American Century Theatre, saw me in this other show, and he had the script of Danny and Sylvia, and he felt he couldn't do it without finding someone to really capture Danny. When he saw me in this other show, something triggered a light bulb. He came backstage at intermission and said, "You're going to play Danny Kaye." I was like, "Great!" But I had no concept of the scope of Danny's work. When I started to do the research, it was like, "Oh dear God, what have I gotten myself into?" I have subsequently become a Danny Kaye fan, and I'm still studying him now. I'm engrossed in his life and work.

	Brian Childers in Danny and Sylvia
	photo by Carol Rosegg

Q: Some of the songs seem impossible. How hard was it to learn those high-speed songs Kaye did and all the patter?
Childers: "Tchaikovsky" alone was tough! I was okay with the patter. I had done some Gilbert and Sullivan, but this is much more focused than that. I had to get that into my body so I could do it if I was sleeping. The stuff that was really tricky was his gibberish. We like to say that Sylvia knew how his tongue worked [laughs], so she wrote gibberish for him. I would take a tape recorder and record the song and slow it down and write it all out and then put it all together very fast. That was a great challenge.

Q: Have you had any people who knew Kaye come see the show?
Childers: Carl Reiner came out, and he did the movie "Skokie" with Danny, and he was very complimentary to me. He was like, "You're a phenomenon! That's amazing!" He didn't believe anybody could do what Danny did. Shirley Jones came and saw the show. John Cullum, Fred Willard…Rue McClanahan was there opening night. The thing about the show that people seem to love is it is a throwback to a better time.

[Danny and Sylvia plays the St. Luke's Theatre, 308 W. 46th St. Performances are Wed. Sat. and Sun. at 2 PM, and Sat. at 8 PM. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.dannyandsylvia.com for more info.]

LEGENDARY VISIT

The Lamb's Club, established in 1874 in NYC, bills itself as America's First Professional Theatre club. I highly recommend a visit, should you ever get a chance to attend as a guest at one of the functions at their 51st Street location. There is an incredible amount of theatrical history on display. Irving Berlin was a member, Fred Astaire as well. Today, you might run into Joyce Randolph of "Honeymooners" fame, or as I did recently, 89-year-old Abe Vigoda, still sharp as can be. We all know Abe as Fish from "Barney Miller" or as Tessio from "The Godfather" films, or his many cameos on "Conan" before Conan went Hollywood. But, of course, I wanted to talk to Abe about his theatrical origins.

Q: You've had a distinguished career. What is your very first memory of performing?
Abe Vigoda: It was when I was six years old, in the first grade. A teacher came into the class and was casting for a play entitled Candle-Light by Siegfried Geyer. Everything was cast except one role, a character named Baron Von Rischenheim, something like that. "Who would like to audition?" she asked. Thirty boys raised their hands. I did, too. She looked around the room, she stopped at my face and said, "I think you'll do. You look old." That's when it started.

Q: Where did it go from there?
Vigoda: Then I was auditioning for Butler Davenport on East 27th Street. He had a theatre of his own. A man who resembled an old English-type Scrooge type of person. He was a serious classical actor and director and producer. He was on Broadway for many years and spoke with a classical tongue and produced classical plays. I was a young teenager at the time. It is now called the Gramercy Arts Theatre, but it was formerly called the Butler Davenport Theatre. Later on I joined Actor's Equity Association and did a pageant in Madison Square Garden, Salute to the Nations, a play about the Spanish Inquisition. They had me play King Ferdinand. It was a musical, and in the cast were people like Mimi Benzell and Richard Tucker from the Metropolitan Opera.

	Abe Vigoda
	photo by Aubrey Reuben

Q: What were some of your big breaks?
Vigoda: In 1960, I played the lead role Off-Broadway at the St. Mark's playhouse in a Strindberg play, The Dance of Death. I did a lot of Off-Broadway. The following year, Joseph Papp auditioned me to do Richard II, and I found myself working regularly. I did Mr. Praed in Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession, and that was rather successful for me. It seemed I had a bent for the classical theatre. I was not born in London, I was born with a classical tongue. I don't know where it came from. I think it's innate. I visited London years later with my wife, Beatrice, and, though I had never been there, it looked very familiar to me. What do they call that, déjà vu?

Q: Did you ever do other musicals?
Vigoda: Not till after "Barney Miller" began. I loved dance. I always wanted to be a tap dancer. I wanted to be a singer. Perhaps that's the reason I joined the Lamb's Club. I wanted to hear the old songs. Every Friday they sing, and I hear the old songs my mother used to sing in the kitchen. After I was known from "Barney Miller," Guys and Dolls came along with Bing Crosby's wife [Kathryn Crosby] and Hugh O'Brian. I played Nathan Detroit. It was a marvelous tour, and I enjoyed it terrifically.

Q: What do you love about theatrical acting?
Vigoda: The stage is like building a house. Without a foundation it will crumble. There are many actors in television and film who never did stage and they get a break. But they don't always last long because they don't have the foundation of what it takes to create a role. That's why Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart became movie stars. They had stage experience. Even Cary Grant came from the stage.

Q: Would you return to the stage yourself?
Vigoda: As I speak to you, I'm a little enthused, talking about my life in the theatre. I've been thinking of doing An Evening With Abe Vigoda. I would open up with a song. [Sings] "S'Wonderful…S'Marvelous…that you should care for me…" Right now, I feel fine. But you have to do eight performances a week. I don't know if I could do that. I could do six!

[Abe Vigoda once played Abe Lincoln in Tough To Get Help, alongside John Amos. The show was directed by Carl Reiner and opened on May 4, 1972, at the Royale Theatre…and closed the same day. Learn more about the Lamb's Club at www.the-lambs.org.]

HITHER AND YON
New Brent Barrett Christmas album, "Christmas Mornings," is out, as you may have read (available at www.kritzerland.com). Orchestrations by the great Larry Moore, who is a friend I'm happy to congratulate as he also contributed additional orchestrations to just-opened Finian's Rainbow. Broadway, baby! As for Barrett, he will be at Birdland on Dec. 13 and 14 (birdlandjazz.com)…Starting Nov. 27 at The Downstairs Theatre at Sofia's (227 West 46th Street), the Late Night Catechism folks preview Sister's Christmas Catechism. Opening night is Dec. 3. Go to www.entertainmentevents.com for ticket info…Al Martino, a wonderful song stylist, and, like Mr. Vigoda, part of "The Godfather" films (as Sinatra-esque Johnny Fontane) passed away in mid-October. "Spanish Eyes" was his big track. Great stuff…Fans of the mellow side of '70s pop, say your prayers and seal your crofts, as The Band That Saved Your Life, featuring vocals by yours truly, will be playing at Bar 9 on Nov. 17 at 7 PM. Readers of this column get in free, as will anyone else, for that matter! Bar 9 is at 807 9th Avenue, between 53rd and 54th Streets. Stop by and say hello. Next column: December. Can you believe it?

Tom Nondorf can be reached at tnondorf@playbill.com.