The Long Road to Broadway: 'Harmony'

It is a commonplace among musical theater creators that the usual gestation period of a musical from conception to Broadway is about seven to eight years. Some, though, take much longer and pass through many way stations before arriving at a Broadway theater. Along the journey, artifacts of earlier productions sometimes make it into theater archives even before a Broadway production occurs. This is especially true of several musicals in the 2023-2024 Broadway season. This blog post is part of a series that examines several of those musicals.

Harmony opened on Broadway on October 18, 2023 after over a quarter-century of development. The musical is based on the real history of a comic singing group, the Comedian Harmonists, which performed in the United States and Europe until Nazi persecution led to the group’s dissolution. Unlike other “stories of the band” musicals like Jersey Boys, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, or MJ the Musical, the score was not taken from the catalog of the Comedian Harmonists but was newly composed by rock singer-songwriter Barry Manilow.

The musical was originally produced in 1997 by the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. After some revisions, the show was bound for Broadway in 2004, but on November 14, 2003 The New York Times reported the producers had not yet raised the necessary funds. In July 2005, Michael Riedel reported in the New York Post that there had been a legal battle between Manilow and producer Mark Schwartz, and that the rights to produce the show had returned to the authors. Over the following decades productions were mounted in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and in New York at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, before the Broadway production finally opened in 2023. 

Traces of the original production, though, have been preserved in the New York Public Library’s archives. Photographer Joan Marcus’s 2003 publicity photographs show the planned 2004 Broadway cast (including a young Brian d’Arcy James) with the composer and librettist at the piano. 

Scenic designer Derek McLane designed the 1997 La Jolla production, and had been selected to design the 2004 Broadway one as well. His papers include technical drawings and sketches for La Jolla.

McLane’s papers also include digital files created for the planned 2003 Broadway production, including digital photographs of his set models. 

After Manilow and librettist Bruce Sussman regained the rights to the show, the productions at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta (2013) and at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles (2014) were helmed by a new director, Tony Speciale, and designed by Tobin Ost (Newsies). The Broadway production used most of the same team from the Museum of Jewish Heritage production, including director Warren Carlyle and scenic designer Beowulf Boritt. A recording of this version is now available to view in the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.