Lyricist Fred Ebb Honored at Ambassador Theatre Memorial Nov. 15

By Robert Simonson
November 12, 2004

Freb Ebb, the lyricist half of the Broadway songwriting team of Kander and Ebb, who produced such classic musicals as Cabaret and Chicago, will be honored at a 12:30 PM Nov. 15 memorial at the Ambassador Theatre. Ebb died Sept. 11.

John Kander and Freb Ebb's collaboration was one of the longest in Broadway musical history. Their first Broadway show was 1965's Flora the Red Menace. But it was their next effort, Cabaret in 1966, that established them as innovative theatre songwriters. The dark-hued show, drawn from Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Stories," was set in and around a lurid club during pre-war Nazi Germany. Despite the weighty material, the team's memorable score and Harold Prince's skillful production helped the show become a hit which ran for 1,165 performances and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Kander and Ebb also won a Tony for their score.

The show was later made into an Oscar-winning film directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minelli and original stage star Joel Grey. For the movie, the songwriters wrote some additional tunes, which became so identified with the musical that they were often used in later stage versions.

Ebb's next few efforts with Kander were less successful. Neither The Happy Time nor Zorba ran a full year. And 1971's 70 Girls 70 lived for only a month. 1975, however, brought them their second biggest hit and the show for which they are now arguably best known, the zestily cynical, gallows-humor Jazz Age tale, Chicago.

Bob Fosse directed Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera in the tuneful, vaudeville-framed tale of murder, adultery and chicanery in lawless Chicago. The show's sensibility—in which characters give the crowd a sexy, showbiz wink just after glancing into the black abyss of human nature—could be called the prototypical Kander-Ebb aesthetic template.

The musical was a success, running two years, but was overshadowed at the time by the runaway success of A Chorus Line. It was the 1996 Broadway revival (which is still running) and the 2002 Oscar-winning film which truly established the title as a classic.

The team had another hit with the 1981 Lauren Bacall vehicle Woman of the Year, adapted from the film of the same name. Minnelli—whose career was largely built on Kander and Ebb songs—starred in The Act and The Rink, which both lasted under a year. Their final Broadway hit was Kiss of the Spider Woman, which starred their old favorite Chita Rivera.

"Kiss of the Spider Woman was Fred's idea," Kander told Playbill On Line in a 2003 interview. "He said the title to me, and I said yes. And then we said the title to Hal Prince and he said yes. And everybody after that thought it was the dumbest idea you ever heard. All three of us reacted immediately to the subject."

John Kander and Fred Ebb were known for creating good roles for the female stars of the American musical stage. The careers of Minnelli, Rivera and Bacall greatly benefitted from the efforts of the composing team. A 1991 revue of their work, And the World Goes Round, helped make a name for Karen Ziemba, who would later star in Chicago and Steel Pier, the team's final original Broadway musical.

In all, Ebb was nominated for 11 Tony Awards. He won for Cabaret, Woman of the Year and Kiss of the Spider Woman. In 2003, both men were named "Living Landmarks" by The Landmark Conservancy.

In recent years, despite the triumph of Broadway revivals of Cabaret and Chicago, Kander and Ebb experienced increasing difficulties in getting their shows staged in New York. The musical The Visit was staged in Chicago at the Goodman Theatre, but a planned Off-Broadway mounting at the Public Theater was scrapped. Another project, Over and Over, based on Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, experienced a troubled premiere at Virginia's Signature Theatre and then stalled. More recently, director Gabriel Barre had been working with duo on the show, now titled Skin of Our Teeth.

Time and time again, the team seemed to gravitate toward dark themes. Asked about their work on The Visit, a story in which a lady millionaire offers to save her hometown from economic ruin, but only if the residents kill her former lover, Kander said, "Well, we've been there before. I don't think we think in those terms. It's a serious piece, but as always, I think, for Freddy and me, we focus on character, and the individual piece that we're working on."