(Michael Paulson’s article appeared in The New York Times, 5/28; via Pam Green.)
Sheldon Harnick still remembers that night more than a half-century ago.
He was in Detroit. “Fiddler on the Roof,” starring Zero Mostel, was having its out-of-town tryout. The show was long — ending just before midnight — and had issues.
“During the intermission, I went to the men’s room, and there were two very well-dressed men standing peeing,” Mr. Harnick, the show’s lyricist, recalled in a recent interview. “I heard one say, ‘If I’d known this was about Jews, I wouldn’t have come.’ On the other hand, Joe Stein told us he heard a woman on the phone calling her husband, saying: ‘Harry, I told you you should have come. There’s a pogrom and everything!’ ”