Categories
Broadway's Best

Broadway’s Best Directors Who Started As Actors

By Katie Devin Orenstein

Which Broadway directors gave onstage performances before leaping to the other side of the table? Find out below!

George Abbott

The larger-than-life Abbott, who lived until he was 107, directed over 50 Broadway shows, including the original productions of Pal Joey, On the Town, The Pajama Game, Once Upon a Mattress, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He made his Broadway debut as an actor in The Misleading Lady all the way back in 1913. 

Michael Arden

This year’s Tony winner for Best Direction of a Musical for Parade, Arden made his Broadway debut as an actor in the 2003 revival of Big River, and also performed in Twyla Tharp’s The Times They Are A-Changin’. 

Vinnette Justine Carroll

Vinnette Carroll became the first Black woman to be nominated for a directing Tony in 1973, for Micki Grant’s Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope. She was nominated for both directing and writing the book of Your Arms Too Short to Box With God in 1976. Her numerous acting credits include the 1961 revival of The Octoroon. 

Gower Champion

Champion was the original director and choreographer of hits like Bye Bye Birdie, Hello, Dolly!, and 42nd Street. He got his start as a dancer in 1940s revues like The Streets of Paris. 

David Cromer

In between directing The House of Blue Leaves and The Band’s Visit on Broadway, Cromer found time to play racist Homeowner’s Association member Karl Lindner in Kenny Leon’s revival of A Raisin in the Sun, as well as appear opposite Jeff Daniels in the pilot of HBO’s The Newsroom. He is also currently starring in an off-Broadway production of Uncle Vanya.

Graciela Daniele

Graciela Daniele started her career as a dancer for legends like Bob Fosse and Michael Bennett – she was in the original company of Follies, and was the original Hunyak, a.k.a. Uh-Uh in “Cell Block Tango,” in Chicago. She’s since choreographed 9 Broadway shows, and directed and choreographed another 6, including Once on this Island. She is the only Latina nominee in history for Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical at the Tonys, and she won a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2020. 

Graciela Daniele’s Tony-nominated choreography:

Bob Fosse

Before he was the legendary director-choreographer of Pippin, Chicago, The Pajama Game, Sweet Charity, and the director of movies like Cabaret and All That Jazz, he made his Broadway debut as a dancer in the forgotten 1950 revue Dance Me a Song. He understudied the role of Joey in the 1953 Pal Joey revival that turned it into a hit, and played the role at City Center in between choreography jobs in 1963. 

Maria Friedman

Friedman will direct this fall’s upcoming revival of Merrily We Roll Along. She is a celebrated Sondheim interpreter, and earned Olivier awards for her performances as Fosca in Sondheim’s Passion, as well as Mother in Ahrens and Flaherty’s Ragtime. 

Tony Goldwyn

Tony Goldwyn is co-directing the upcoming Pal Joey rework at City Center, but he’s best known to television audiences as Scandal’s President Fitz, and he’s also going to appear this summer in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer

Kenny Leon

While Kenny Leon was the artistic director of Atlanta’s Alliance theater in the 1990s, he also found time to act in a number of TV shows– including The Rosa Parks Story, starring Angela Bassett. He won his Tony for directing A Raisin in the Sun in 2014, and is next represented on Broadway with Purlie Victorious, opening this fall. 

Patrick Marber

Marber actually began his career in British sketch comedy. He then began writing for the English stage, and wrote and directed Closer, which transferred to Broadway in 1999 and was turned into a film directed by Mike Nichols in 2004. He is now known best for his work directing Tom Stoppard plays, including 2017’s Travesties and this season’s Leopoldstadt, for which he won his first Tony award. 

Jerry Mitchell

Jerry Mitchell started dancing on Broadway as a replacement in A Chorus Line. He worked his way up to being Jerome Robbins’ assistant on Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, and choreographed You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1999. His first time directing on Broadway was the beloved Legally Blonde.  

Jerry Mitchell backstage at The Will Rogers Follies,

Casey Nicholaw

Nicholaw, who won a Tony this year for choreographing Some Like It Hot, was an ensemble member in 8 Broadway shows, including dancing Susan Stroman’s choreography in Crazy For You, and understudying Horton the Elephant in the original Seussical. Those performance chops came in handy this March, when Nicholaw went on as an emergency understudy in Some Like It Hot. 

Nicholaw in the ensemble of Seussical (far right).

Jerome Robbins

Robbins, the legend at the helm of West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, and Gypsy, was born Jerome Rabinowitz, and began his career as a dancer in the 1920s in Yiddish modern dance companies. He was also a soloist with American Ballet Theatre in the early 1940s, and danced in George Balanchine’s Broadway revues. He choreographed Fancy Free for ABT, which he and Leonard Bernstein then transformed into his first Broadway choreography credit, On The Town. 

Ruben Santiago-Hudson

Santiago-Hudson was Tony nominated for his direction of August Wilson’s Jitney, and has acted in three other Wilson plays on Broadway. He also wrote, directed, and starred in his one man show Lackawanna Blues. 

Jessica Stone

Stone made her Broadway directing debut this year with Kimberly Akimbo, but her many credits as a performer include Frenchy in the 1994 Grease revival and replacing Sarah Jessica Parker as Rosemary in the 1996 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Her next project is directing the Broadway-bound Water for Elephants, which just premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. 

Jessica Stone in Grease, with Billy Porter as the Teen Angel.

Susan Stroman

Five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman, represented on Broadway this year with New York, New York, made her debut as a dancer in the country Western musical Whoopee! in 1979. 

Schele Williams

Schele Williams, who will direct the upcoming revivals of The Wiz and Aida, was an ensemble member in the original production of Aida in 2001. 

Williams understudied the title role in Aida – here she is singing “Easy as Life” from that show:

Jerry Zaks

Jerry Zaks is a four-time Tony winning director, including for his Broadway directing debut, The House of Blue Leaves. He’s also known for lavish revivals like Hello, Dolly! and The Music Man. His Broadway resumé goes back quite far – he originated the role of Kenickie in Grease. 

Categories
Creative

A Tribute to Sheldon Harnick

Sheldon Harnick, lyricist of such Broadway classics as Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me, Fiorello!, and more, passed away on June 23, 2023, at the age of 99. Broadway’s Best Shows asked some of the artists who have staged his iconic material on and off Broadway to reflect on his body of work and his artistry.

Sheldon Harnick

Danny Burstein

Danny Burstein as Tevye in the 2015 Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof.

The great lyricist, Sheldon Harnick has passed and the world is a sadder place for it. His genius and influence will most assuredly live on forever. 

Sheldon wrote lyrics that were honest, intelligent, witty, profound, heartbreaking, ridiculously funny and always specific for characters. He and Jerry Bock wrote some of the world’s most glorious songs. Here is one of them:

“Will He Like Me” – From the musical, She Loves Me

Will he like me when we meet?
Will the shy and quiet girl he’s going to see
Be the girl that he’s imagined me to be?
Will he like me?

Will he like the girl he sees?
If he doesn’t, will he know enough to know
That there’s more to me than I may always show?
Will he like me?

Will he know that there’s a world of love
Waiting to warm him?
How I’m hoping that his eyes and ears
Won’t misinform him.

Will he like me? Who can say?
How I wish that we could meet another day.
It’s absurd for me to carry on this way.
I’ll try not to.

Will he like me?
He’s just got to.

When I am in my room alone I write
Thoughts come easily, words come fluently then.
That’s how it is when I’m alone, but tonight
There’s no hiding behind my paper and pen.

Will he know that there’s a world of love
Waiting to warm him?
How I’m hoping that his eyes and ears
Won’t misinform him.

Will he like me? I don’t know.
All I know is that I’m tempted not to go.
It’s insanity for me to worry so.
I’ll try not to.

Will he like me?
He’s just got to.
Will he like me?
Will he like me?

When I think of this lyric, I weep. How perfectly it sits in the music. How perfectly it encapsulates the character’s feelings. How perfectly it tells the story. My heart breaks to think that both of the men who created this brilliant song are no longer with us.

Sheldon was a dear friend to both myself and my late wife Rebecca. Whether it was professionally or personally, we treasured his counsel and his company. Sheldon was a shining example of a life well-lived.

Julie Benko

Julie Benko as Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof.

When I was 14 years old, I was cast as Hodel in the local JCC community theater production of Fiddler. The show was a family affair: my sister played Bielke, my dad was cast as Reb Mordcha, and my mom was a villager selling bagels. That production changed everything for me. I fell head over heels in love with the theater and began to pursue a life in show business. So, it was an enormous honor to get cast in the 2015 Broadway revival of “Fiddler,” where I understudied eight roles (one for each night of Chanukah!) and had the chance to meet Sheldon. I hope I was able to express to him just how much his words have shaped me. I have carried them with me through every major moment of my life and expect them to resonate through many more. “Sunrise, sunset,” indeed. Rest In Peace, Sheldon.

Jerry Zaks

Jerry Zaks plays the title role in the 1994 Encores production of Fiorello.

If ever anyone personified Emerson’s definition of success, it was Sheldon. 

A true great: talented, kind, and funny. 

What Is Success
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and
the affection of children;
To earn the approbation of honest critics and endure
the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To give of one’s self;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and
sung with exultation;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you
have lived –
This is to have succeeded.

Scott Ellis

Footage from the 1993 Broadway revival of She Loves Me, directed by Scott Ellis.

My first Broadway show I ever directed was She Loves Me… how lucky was I? It was a glorious experience, and Sheldon Harnick was one of the main reasons why. He approached that production as if it had never been done before. Sheldon was so encouraging, supportive, and beyond respectful to a very young director doing this for the first time. He was joyous, loving, and so, so incredibly smart. I could not have asked for a better teacher and collaborator. We remained friends in the years following, and eventually, I had the privilege of revisiting She Loves Me twenty years later. Nothing had changed; Sheldon still approached the process as if it was the first production and brought all of his love and support back into the room. I am so fortunate to be able to look back and see where my life and career shifted. She Loves Me was that moment, and Sheldon was the center of it all. How lucky for everyone that his legacy will live on with future generations through his beautiful work.