In the
mid 1970's, I wrote fifteen short stories inspired by my parent's life in
"Century Village," a community in West Palm Beach Florida that, in
those days, catered to retired civil servants, teachers, former shopkeepers
and salesman who had lived through the depression and bore its scars. Viking
Press published nine of these stories in a volume titled, The Sunset Gang.
Tom
Ginzburg, then the publisher of Viking, had given the manuscript to his mother
to read. She loved it and urged her son to publish it, which he did. A few
years later, actress Linda Lavin, an acclaimed star of TV and Broadway,
acquired the rights to three of the stories and produced an adaptation for
Public Television's American Playhouse series. The trilogy, based on my
stories "Yiddish," "The Detective" and "The
Home," were adapted by playwright Ronald Ribman, and starred several
highly esteemed actors, including Uta Hagen, Harold Gould, Ron Rifkin, Doris
Roberts, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Each story of the trilogy was an hour's
length, received excellent reviews, and was replayed many times on PBS.
Author Meets Composer
Not long
after that, I had consented to be a guest speaker at the Donna Reed Film
Festival in Denison, Iowa, the actress's hometown. Her husband had created the
festival after her death. At the event, where I was teaching short fiction
writing, I happened to meet the composer L. Russell Brown. Larry (as he is
known) has written the music for numerous hit songs, including the immortal,
"Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree," which has become the
second most recorded song in history, second only to "Yesterday" by
The Beatles. Larry was also one of the speakers at the event and after we
would do our respective gigs, we would retire to our motel to escape the
sweltering midsummer heat.
We would
discuss our work long into the night, and when I mentioned The Sunset Gang, Larry sensed that
this might be excellent material for a musical. The idea also struck me as a
possibility and I went home and began working on the book and lyrics. Using
the technique of Gilbert and Sullivan—lyrics first—Larry would compose
music to my song lyrics and in this way we created our first draft.
That was
more than 10 years ago. We proceeded to workshop and test the material before
audiences through the intervening years, but we always felt that we had never
quite gotten it right. After a long hiatus, we tried our hand at it once
again. Several new songs were written, changes were made to the book and
lyrics, the story was altered and focused, and now we feel that we have
finally hit the gong. First and foremost, we have created a love story
between two older people.
The Story Connects
"The
Sunset Gang" musical is the story of a new love affair that blossoms
between two unhappily married people at Sunset Village, a retirement community
in Florida. Based loosely on my short story "Yiddish" which, in the
television version, starred Harold Gould and Doris Roberts, the two older
lovers meet at the Yiddish Club, fall in love and after much angst leave their
spouses to spend their remaining years together. Bittersweet and full of
humor, the play's content is deeply emotional and deals with issues rarely
explored in the theater.
We have
since tested the story and songs before live audiences and discovered that not
only does the play stir strong emotions, but also that it is right on target
for today's theater-goers, many of whom are of the age of the characters in
our story. Moreover, Americans today, because we are living longer, are
continually faced with new challenges and emotional dilemmas, not unlike those
that happen to the characters in our play. The subject matter and timing
should also resonate strongly for the baby boomer generation, which is just
now entering that period that used to be called "old age." Not so
anymore. As many of us grow older, we are discovering that the aging clock has
advanced considerably since the days of our parents and there is a lot more
exciting living and loving ahead than previously realized.
Production Plans are Underway
The
result of all this testing and revising is that we have attracted numerous
investors who believe this project will be a unique theater experience that,
in the parlance of show business, can have "legs," meaning a long
and profitable theatrical life. Working with Judson Ball, our principal
producer, we expect to put the production together for an opening sometime in
the spring of 2003, perhaps on Broadway, depending on the budget and the
marquee quality of the stars we attract. Both Larry and I believe that the
time has come for this material and we are pursuing this production with
super-human zeal, energy and enormous optimism. We will keep readers of this
E-Sheet informed of our progress. The original book The Sunset Gang is available in
hardcover, trade paperback and all formats of eBooks through all major book
selling stores and sites on the Internet. A complete collection of the stories
titled Never Too Late for Love,
containing all 15 of the original stories, is also available through the same
sources.
- Warren Adler
