Journale 9
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| Gloucester Country Times, Woodbury, N.J., Friday, September 28, 1990 By JOHN BARNA BREAKAWAY Copacabana! Manilow leaves piano to direct musical in AC ATLANTIC CITY - Barry Manilow wanted to chat about his first stage production - a 75 minute musical built around his song "Copacabana." And during a press conference at Caesars Hotel and Casino, the media wanted to question the singer-songwriter's decision to do something other than and cutting records. "I like being in the background," suggested Manilow. "Background?" one reporter shot back in a puzzled tune from her loungeseat. After 2 1/2 years on the road ballads and an occasional uptempo ditty to a middle-of-the-road audience, Manilow has "retired" to the role of directing a stage version of "Copacabana." "I did not want to stop working," he said, peering behind wire-rimmed glasses that he never wears on stage. Yet, Manilow acknowledged that the grind of picking up his piano and bitting a new city had gotten the best of him. At the same time, according to casino Senior Vice President Howard Bacharach, Caesars was looking for a winter stage act that differed from the standard, warmed-over, one-time Broadway musical fare served up at Atlantic City's dozen gaming halls. The resulting marriage is "Barry Manilow Presents Copacabana" - the first original musical of Atlantic City's casino era that has began its indelfinite run in Caesars' Circus Maximus Theater. Yes, it is centered around the life of Lola, the showgirl whose saga of romance with a dude named Tony sparked a hit record 12 years ago. Based on a dress rehesal of the opening production number show-cased earlier this week to an audience of about 29, the show of Manilow's concerts. The pace is frantic. The barren, black stage set becomes a vibrant hoe of the rainbow as nine "showgirls" adorned in yellow, pink, purple, radiant orange and gold arrive to entertain a handful of people seated at four tables for a stage show. In the background is a multi-visual presentation of scenes from Caribbean festivals. Expect plenty of percussion. Take note of the attention to detail, like the dazzling reflection of light on the pinky ring worn on Rico's - the other star in this lover's tale - right hand as he other showgirls. Manilow obviously has not merely lent his name to something and walked away, not caring how it is presented to the public. "As a musican, I am torn between the two (live and canned soundtracks)." Manilow acknow ledged. "But you cannot tell there is not an orchestra sitting in a pit." Bacharach said the decision to stick to a recorded soundtrack was a matter of dollars. The casino had just so much to spend - he was not saying how much - and Manilow's troupe understood the logistics. Besides, Bacharach contended it would take "40 musicans" to stage the production Manilow wanted. He said the casinos have had difficulty in the past staging shows with 20 musicans performing. There also was a basic decision that the "name characters" in this production are all in the backround. Manilow's two long-time collaborators - Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman - and choreographer Dorin Sanchez (she danced in the movie "Dirty Dancing" and choreographed "The Dirty Dancing Concert Tour" along with Cher's last stage tour) are among those involved in the project. At last they have had experience watching and directing instead of being at center stage with a spotlight shinging down on them. For Barry Manilow, this is a different experience. "Putting a show together is not a new thing for me," Manilow said. He said the difficulty was in adjusting to being a director and "developing a working relationship with actors." "I have a brand new respect for directors," he said with a laugh. Manilow said he and his collaborators at first worried that assembling Copacabana for the stage was going to be a more difficult task than it was. "We thought there would be more bumps in the road," he said. Three months ago, when the basic work was being done shape the production, "we thought it would take longer. There is a little tape in our heads that says we cannot do it. You have to turn the tape off." "On saturday, you were hearing the tape," Sussman told Manilow. Sussman said the production differs from other shows in the tight timing required to go from idea to rehersals to launching the production before an audience. "Normally you would have months and months (of rehesal) and go on the road," he explained. "the whole process has been condensed to a couple of weeks." Part of that condensation was reworking the basic theme of Copacabana, he said. "We started with the characters but the rest was a blank page," Sussman said. The one advantage of a stage setting, Feldman explained, was "the piece itself is larger than life and lends itself better to the stage." Manilow chuckled as he recalled auditions for the cast of 25 - five principals and 20 dancers. "It scared everybody to come into an audition and see me there," he said. "I don't know how they do it, to come in day after day and get rejected." The actual work of putting the production together started on Labor Day. Manilow has been at Caesars since. "I don't think I'll ever leave," he said. "I cannot imagine leaving." Just how long it will be before the production leaves Caesars is unknow. Obviously, the audience's acceptance will gauge that. But will the Clock of admirers that fills whatever arens Manilow is performing at come to a show that he directed and for which he assembled the store, but does not appear in? "We've tried to make it very clear. Manilow suggested that the show "is awfully powerful" - a factor that will draw the necessary crowds to sustain its run. Still, there were a dozen fans outside the theater hallway this week hoping for a glimpse of Manilow and not his theater company. Among them was a New York schoolteacher who was playing booky for the day. By the way, he said he has been to 73 Manilow Concerts. Seventy-three? So when will this gentleman be able to attend concert No.74? "I'll be out, on tour any old year," Manilow said, declining to commit himself to a concert tour. There is a new album out - "Because It's Christmas" - which arrived in stores this week. But no tour plans. "I just think I'll grow a beard," he mused. "We just want to get this thing on its feet." | |
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| Gloucester Country Times, Woodbury, N.J., Sunday, September 30, 1990 By JOHN BARNA Manilow still has the touch Atlantic City - The man who proclaimed he can "write the songs the whole world sings" has shown he can pen a casino stage production that his audiences will savor. "Barry Manilow Presents Copacabana" is a highly innovative and spunky show in a city generally relegated to bland musical revues during the winter off-season. The show currently on indefinite run at Caesars Circus Maximus Theater obviously has a predictable script - considering it is based on Manilow's 1978 song "Copacabana." There is Lola - she was a showgirl at the hottest club north of Havana, circa 1950. And Tony, a bartender with dreams of hitting it big in the music world, and Rico, owner of the hottest club south of New York's Copacabana. Lola and Toni trip over each other, fight each other off but eventually fall in love. Rico interrupts this blissful take by hauling Lola off to his Havana club. Tony, of course, has to play hero and rescue his queen. There is a happy ending, unlike the TV movie version of Copacabana where Tony gets sprayed with lead at the end. Differences aside, the plot still is a bit silly. Few Las Vegas style revues have much substance. The difference between this one and the scores of other shows that have landed in Atlantic City, only to have the impact of pulling, a slot machine and winning two quarters, is in the troupe's performences and the attention to detail Manilow and his principals have put into the show. Manilow may have risen from writing commercial jingles to touring before sold out crowds. However, be has not written or directed a stage musical before. Besides relying on his considerable talents, he surrounds himself with top shelf help. Along for the ride since Labor Day - when Manilow arrived to direct the cast - have been his collaborators, Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman. Buth have injected some soft humor into the plot, including a few pokes at Manilow. Tony breaks into a rendition of "I Write The Songs" while attempting to convince a music publisher to hire him. The publisher tells him the song will "be a hit when Man walks on the moon." Dorin Sanchez, whose resume includes staging Cher's last world tour and handling choreography for the Dirty Dancing stage tour, has whipped 20 dancers into a light, cobesive unit. Lola (played by Hillary Turk) and Tony (Sean Frank Sullivan) get the attention. Both actors deliver satisfying performances. The bonuses come in the spunky and spicy job turned in by Kay Freeman as Rico's long abused love interest, Conchita, and Lou DeMeis, who dons the black hat es Rico. DeMeis plays his dastardly role to the hilt, including a short, dramatic thrust of his right fist into the air at one point to dramatize his self-professed power. The troupe is effective through a series of dance paces, from the percussion-laden "Copacabana" to a Latin ballad and a sensual bolero. Their energy is heightened by the glitz and glamor of the costumes. Forget flesh and feathers. We have tropical colors and showgirls with fruit around their waists. Carmen Miranda would have been pround. The sets are effective, boosted by use of multi-image projection screens along the black wall. While he is not in the show, Manilow has lent his name to the production and certainly does not wish to be burdened with a flop. He does not disappoint. | |
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| Barry Manilow: Why I'll never wed my live-in love POP singer Barry Manilow has been playing house with the same gal for 15 years, but vows he'll never march her down the aisle. Instead, he'll fight tooth and nail to preserve his bachelor status - because he just won't risk a repeat of his failed marriage to high school sweetheart Susan. "The secret to a successful long-term relationship is DON'T get, married," says the MAN WHO WRITE THE SONGS. "I did it and I didn't like it!" While he once longed to hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet, refuse-to-marry Barry also says he'll never have kids with set decorator Linda Allen, his live-in lady love. "There was a time when I regretted not having children, but now I look at the world and I'm not so sure I want to bring a kid into it," he confides. "With my life the way it is. I might not be as dedicated a father as I should be." For now, says Barry, he's content to live with Linda in his posh Bel Air home while they both get on with their busy careers. The 48-year-old crooner's home life is a far cry from the glitz-and-glamour show he puts on for his millions of devoted fans. "My evenings are spent with loved ones," he says. "I go to the movies or out for dinner. I've never been into the Hollywood scene - it never turned me on. You won't find me at celebrity parties because I'm very uncomfortable with that." 'If anybody considers me a sex symbol, they should have their eyes examined' "I didn't start out to be a role model or inspiration - I'm uncomfortable with the attention. I always have been. Frankly, if anybody considers me a sex symbol, they should have their eyes examined!" | |
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| Los Angeles Times Saturday, July 31, 1993 Manilow Makes It Through the Rain - Pop music: The much-maligned singer is finally getting some respect. The clincher: his guest spot on "Murphy Brown". A funny thing, happened to Barry Manilow recently: The critics started taking him seriously. Not all of them, of course (there will always be a few hard cases in that crowd), but enough to constitute a major shift in the media's perception Suddenly, it's OK to like Barry Manilow to laugh at the accordion jokes in his act or voice admiration for the likes of "Weekend in New England." A few reviewers, in fact, have sounded almost like fans. How did all this come to pass? Some point to his triumphant appearance on Broadway, which earned him the grudging approval of the New York media; others argue that it was his retrospective set "The Complete Collection and Then Some..." that began to turn the tide. But the clincher, undoubtedly, was "Murphy Brown." After being the butt of a season-long running joke in which Murphy, a dyed-in-the-wool Manilow basher, has to deal with the fact that her infant son Avery loves the sound of "I Write The Songs," Manilow not only made a guest appearance for the season's finale, but also gave a performance that melted even Murphy's heart. Stupendous! crowed the critics. Marvelous! Magnificent! To which Manilow replies: "Well, this is what I've been doing for 20 years. Where have you been?" Barry Manilow: "When you have the kind of commercial success that I've had, it turns on you." He's not being snippy; indeed, there's only the barest hint, of an edge in his otherwise quiet voice. But clearly, he's peeved at the way he's been treated over the years. "When you have that kind of incredible commercial success, it just turns on you - and it turned on me with a vengeance. I never quite understood why, because if people hat looked beyond and beneath the "I Write The Songs" and "Copacabana," they would have found lots of depth and different kinds of styles, and a musican who was taking risks. I think that the audiences knew it. They still do. But the newspapers and the critics looked at that one thing and got tired of it. They said, 'Hey, he ain't so good,' and started that kind of reputation." Did it bother him? You bet it did. "I always felt it was unfair," he says, a bit of hurt creeping into his tone. But no matter how bad the reviews got, he knew he could always count on his fans. "For every lousy slam I got from some weasel, I would get 100 letters saying, 'Don't listen to them. We love it. We know what you're trying to do. Keep going.' And I would." As for how he wound up on "Murphy Brown," Manilow says simply, "I just felt that I had to lance this boil, and I thought that this was the best way to do it. They were very generous and they were very gentle," he adds. "The people who were writing it, they seemend to be very respectful. They were making fun, but they were making (just as much) fun of Murphy." It turns out that the gag derived from Murphy's pro - Motown snobbery. "I am totally the opposite of Motown music, so that was the running joke," Manilow says. "It didn't seem like they were putting me down as mean-spirtedly as so many others have; it seemend like they were trying to teach her a lesson. I was able to handle that, and that's why I was able to do it." It was, in some respects, the perfect revenge. Not only did the singer defuse the "Murphy Brown" jibes, but he seemend a real mensch for going on the show in the first place. He even wound up turning a small profit on the show, thanks to the renewed radio interest in "I Am Your Child," the song he sang to Murphy and Avery. That sort of revenge, though, doesn't much interest Manilow. "One interviewer once asked me, 'Is the best revenge all the money that you've made?' I said, 'No, it's never been about money. The best revenge for me is still loving what I do." by J.D.CONSIDINE The Baltimore Sun | |
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| Showbiz August 20, 1995 Barry Manilow Governor of Jazz by Joe Delaney POP MEGASTAR, AUTHOR, COMPOSER, MUSICAN, SINGER, performer and humanitarian, Barry Manilow is in residence Aug. 24-29 at the Mirage. Add Grammy, Tony and Emmy Award winner, many time Academy Award nominee, and holder of the all-time record for fastest sell-out and largest one-day box office gross in NYC's Broadway history to the list of Manilow descriptive terms. He is equally proud of his recent Humanitarian of the Year award from the Starlight Foundation for Children. Manilow is active UNICEF and has served as National Chairman for Youth and Volunteerism for United Way. He contributed his song, "One Voice," from the double platinum album of the same title, to be used as the national theme song for United Way of America. He also serves on the National Academy of Jazz Board of Governors along with Mel Torme, Quincy Jones, Dave Brubeck and Louie Bellson, among others. His spectacular career these past two decades has been well documented, but little is known of Manilow's private life. The following quote exlains why. "I am a musican. My passion for music has obliterated everything in its path for my entire life. Whenever there was a choice between music and anything else, music won, hands down, every time. No one person or material thing could ever come close to the feeling I get when the music is right. I am totally committed to my music and my fans." Brooklynborn, Manilow was into music from early childhood. There were accordion lesson at 7, practice sessions on a neighbor's piano, and listening, playing and developing his jazz tastes. He attended the New York College of Music and Julliard while working in the mailroom at CBS-TV to pay his living expenses. At age 18, still at CBS, he was asked to arrange some public domain melodies for an adaptation of the classic melodrama The Drunkard. Manilow decided to contribute an original score and the musical ran successfully off-Broadway for more than eight years. In 1967, Manilow became musical director for the network's NYC flagship station, WCBS-TV, conducting for the Emmy-Award winning series, "Callback." He also arranged and conducted a new theme for the station's "Late Night" show. His next upward move was writing, producing and singing some of the nation's most successful radio and television commercials. In the spring of 1972, Manilow met Bette Midler and the ensuing relationship changed the destiny of both artists. Their first jobs were working as a duo in public bathhouses. When things improved, he became Midler's musical director, arranger and piano accompanist. He co-produced and created arrangements for her first LP, the Grammy-Award winning, The Divine Miss M as well as her best-seller follow-up Bette Midler. Manilow signed with Bell Records, which was about to become Arista under the aegis of Clive Davis. He was set to record his first solo album when Midler persuaded him to remain as musical director for her first national tour. Manilow made his in-person mark, opening the second half of Midler's concert with three original songs. He was an instant hit. Manilow's own personal tour in 1974 help launch "Mandy" on Arista, which set up a consecutive string of 25 Top 40 hits. In 1978, he had five albums on the charts simultaneously, a feat equalled only by Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis. His record sales are heading for the 100-million mark, very much in a strong upward mode. To date there have been 29 albums, one a four CD boxed-set. Of these, three have gone multi-platinum, four are douple-platinum, eight are platinum and another eight have been certified god. Each of the 29 releases will eventually achieve gold status, a remarkable consistency over two decades. On tour, he owns multiple box-office records in this country. He is also a top draw in England and thoughout Europe, equally popular in Japan, Australia and the Far East. Barry Manilow's Copacabana - The Musical is a huge hit, currently in London. From Rolling Stone: "He is a giant. There is always a new album. There is always a world tour. He lives for production values, rich staging, catchy hooks and big finishes. Sinatra, it is once said, jabbed a finger at Manilow and portentously announced, 'He's next.'" Check it out for yourself. | |
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