Joseph Stein

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Joseph Stein (born May 30, 1912) is a Tony Award-winning American playwright best known for writing the books for such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof and Zorba.

Born in New York City, Stein began his career as a social worker, writing comedy on the side. A chance encounter with Zero Mostel led him to start writing for radio personalities, including Henry Morgan, Hildegarde, Tallulah Bankhead, Phil Silvers, and Jackie Gleason. He later started working in television for Sid Caesar when he joined the legendary writing team of Your Show of Shows that included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Mel Tolkin, Aaron Ruben, and Woody Allen.

Stein made his Broadway debut contributing sketches to the 1948 revue Lend an Ear. His first book musical came about when Richard Kollmar, husband of columnist and What's My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen, asked him to write a musical about Pennsylvania that would promote the state as Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! had its namesake. Stein and his writing partner Will Glickman were drawn to the Amish community of Lancaster County. They purchased a 50-cent tourist book filled with Pennsylvania Dutch slang and returned to New York to write Plain and Fancy (1955). The musical has been playing at The Round Barn Theatre at Amish Acres in Nappanee, Indiana since 1986, surpassing 3,500 performances in 2007. Richard Pletcher, founder and producer, dedicated The Round Barn Theatre stage to Stein in 1996 during its production of The Baker's Wife. The theatre has produced eight of Stein's musicals since then.

Stein's additional Broadway credits include Alive and Kicking, Mr. Wonderful, The Body Beautiful, Juno, Take Me Along, Irene, Carmelina, The Baker's Wife, Rags, and So Long, 174th Street, the musical adaptation of his play Enter Laughing. He also wrote the plays Mrs. Gibbons' Boys and Before the Dawn and the screenplays for Enter Laughing and Fiddler on the Roof.

The York Theatre, under the direction of James Morgan, featured Stein's Take Me Along, Carmelina, and Plain and Fancy as its 2006 Musicals in Mufti series. Mr. Stein revised Carmelina reducing it to a cast of seven from its original Broadway version for the York reading. Its 2007 series featured four additional Stein musicals, Zorba, Enter Laughing: The Musical (renamed from So Long, 174th Street), The Body Beautiful, and The Baker's Wife. The readings are presented in concert format in mufti (muff’tee), in street clothes without the usual trappings.

On November 12, 2007 The York Theatre presented its Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre to Joseph Stein. The award was created in 1988 by Janet Hayes Walker, founding artistic director of the York Theatre, with the endorsement of the Hammerstein family and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization. Past recipients include Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince, Cy Coleman, Charles Strouse, Arthur Laurents, Jerry Herman, Stephen Schwartz, John Kander & Fred Ebb, Cameron Mackintosh, and Carol Channing.

Joseph Stein will be inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame January 28, 2008 at the Gershwin Theatre hosted by Tommy Tune. He will be joined by actors John Cullum, Harvey Fierstein, Dana Ivey and Lois Smith; director Jack O’Brien; and playwright Peter Shaffer. The late theatre critic Mel Gussow will be inducted posthumously.

Eligible nominees for the Theater Hall of Fame must have a minimum of five major credits and 25 years in the Broadway theatre. The inductees are voted on by the American Theater Critics Association and the members of the Theater Hall of Fame.

Victoria Clark will star in Marc Blitzstein and Joseph Stein’s Juno, the second Encores! production of New York City Center’s 2008 season. Directed by Tony Award winner Garry Hynes, with guest music direction by Eric Stern and musical staging by Warren Carlyle, Juno will play for five performances, from March 27 – 30, 2008 at New York City Center. This will be the first production since the original Broadway staging in 1959 to use the original orchestration by Blitzstein, Hershey Kay and Robert Russell Bennett.

Juno, with music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein and book by Joseph Stein is based on the 1924 play Juno and Paycock by Sean O’Casey. It originally opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theater on March 9, 1959, starring Shirley Booth and Melvyn Douglas and played a total of 16 performances. Songs include “I Wish It So,” “We’re Alive,” and “One Kind World.”

Stein's most recent project is the book for the musical All About Us, with a score by Kander and Ebb, based on The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder. It premiered at the Westport Country Playhouse in April 2007.

Stein is married to Elisa Stein, a psychotherapist, and lives in Manhattan. He has been a member of the Dramatists Guild Council since 1975.

[edit] Awards and nominations

  • Tony Award for Best Musical (Take Me Along, nominee)
  • Tony Award for Best Musical (Fiddler on the Roof, winner)
  • Tony Award for Best Author of a Musical (Fiddler on the Roof, winner)
  • New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical (Fiddler on the Roof, winner)
  • Tony Award for Best Musical (Zorba, nominee)
  • New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical (Zorba, nominee)
  • Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical (Rags, nominee)
  • Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium (Fiddler on the Roof, nominee)

[edit] External links

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Musicals and plays by Joseph Stein
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