Joseph Stein

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Joseph Stein (born May 30, 1912 New York City) is an American playwright best known for his books for musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof, Zorba, Take Me Along, and The Baker's Wife. He won the Tony Award and the Drama Critics Circle Award for "Fiddler on the Roof", Laurence Olivier Award (London) for "The Baker's Wife", the Drama Critics Circle Award and Tony nomination for "Zorba", and a Tony nomination for "Rags." His other musicals include "Juno"; "Irene" (starring Debbie Reynolds); "The King of Hearts"; and "So Long, 174th Street". He also co-authored, with Alan Jay Lerner the musical "Carmelina" and, with Will Glickman, the musicals "Mr. Wonderful" (starring Sammy Davis, Jr.) and "Plain and Fancy". His plays are "Enter Laughing", "Before the Dawn", and (with Will Glickman) "Mrs. Gibbons' Boys". He wrote the screenplays for the film versions of "Enter Laughing" and "Fiddler on the Roof", for which he won the Screen Writers Guild Award.

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, writing for the Henry Morgan Show, the Hildegard show, and for personalities including Mr. Mostel, Tallulah Bankhead, Phil Silvers, and Jackie Gleason. He later started working in television, for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, where he joined the legendary writing team that included Mel Brooks,Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Mel Tolkin, and Aaron Ruben and would later include Woody Allen.

His first Broadway book musical came about when Richard Kollmar, husband of columnist and What's My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen, asked Stein to write a musical about Pennsylvania that would promote the state as Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! had its namesake. Stein, with 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. Its central character, Jacob Yoder, the paternalistic head of the Yoder clan faced with changes forced upon him, grows from the traditions of the past to acceptance of the future. This early study of a man of the earth struggling with his conscience and love for his family would be brought to fruition fourteen years later in Tevye, the milkman, in Stein's classic Fiddler on the Roof.

Plain and Fancy has been playing at The Round Barn Theatre at Amish Acres in Nappanee, Indiana since 1986. The theatre's stage was dedicated to Stein in 1996. The show now runs in repertory with five additional musicals each season. The 20th anniversary season of Plain and Fancy featured a Joseph Stein Festival, with its third production of Fiddler on the Roof, a costumed reading of Rags, and a Second Stage production of Enter Laughing.

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, set to premiere 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.

1 Works
2 External links

[edit] Works

[edit] Musicals

Sketch Writer - Lend an Ear, with Will Glickman (1948)
Sketch Writer - Alive and Kicking, with Will Glickman (1950)
Librettist - Plain and Fancy, with Will Glickman (1955) (music by Albert Hague, lyrics by Arnold Horwitt), produced by Richard Kollmar and James W. Gardiner (in association with Yvette Schumer), directed by Morton Da Costa, starring Shirl Conway, Richard Derr, Gloria Marlowe, and debuting Barbara Cook, opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, New York City, January 28, 1955. 461 performances.
Librettist - Mr. Wonderful, with Will Glickman, March 21,1956, Broadway Theatre. 383 performances.
Librettist - (uncredited) Jamaica (1957)
Librettist - The Body Beautiful with Will Glickman, January 23, 1958, Broadway Theatre. 60 performances.
Librettist - Take Me Along (1959)
Librettist - Juno (1959)
Librettist - Fiddler on the Roof (1964), Tony and Drama Critics Circle Awards, (music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick) Based on the Sholom Aleichem's stories by special permission of Arnold Perl.
Librettist - Zorba (1968), Tony nomination and Drama Critics Circle Award
Librettist - Irene (1973)
Librettist - Raisin (1973)
Librettist - The Baker's Wife (1976), London: Olivier Award
Librettist - The King of Hearts (1978)
Librettist - Carmelina (with Alan Jay Lerner) (1979)
Librettist - Rags (1986), Tony nomination
Librettist - Miracles (1999-2000)
Librettist - All About Us (1999), based on the 1943 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder, now under continued development with John Kander.

[edit] Plays

Mrs. Gibbons' Boys, comedy by Will Glickman and Joseph Stein, May 4, 1949. 5 performances.
Enter Laughing, adapted from the novel by Carl Reiner, under the direction of Gene Saks, was presented by Morton Gottlieb at Henry Miller's Theatre, New York City in 1963-64.
Before the Dawn