This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Kevin David Thomas: Dear friends, we are so sorry about the ads. They are a nightmare in every way, but with your donations, we can get rid of ads someday.

[0:09] Robert W. Schneider: Beautiful, Kevin. Thanks, Rob.

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[1:26] Robert W. Schneider: Thank you.

[1:27] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, I'm Rob Schneider.

[1:28] Kevin David Thomas: And I'm Kevin David Thomas.

[1:29] Robert W. Schneider: And this is Behind the Curtain, Broadway's Living Legends.

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[1:44] Robert W. Schneider: Over 90 is a term that can be ascribed to our guest in two ways. One, it's the answer to how many musicals our guest has served on as a music coordinator. And two, it's the answer to how many years young he is.

[1:56] Kevin David Thomas: But you'd have no idea by spending more than a minute with him.

[1:58] Robert W. Schneider: It's so true. Our guest today is one of Broadway's most respected music coordinators. With his first Broadway credit in 1973, An Evening with Josephine Baker, soon it seemed like every major musical on Broadway followed, including Nine, Dreamgirls, Mystery of Edwin Drew, The Revivals of Anything Goes, and Guys and Dolls.

[2:15] Kevin David Thomas: And most recently, An American in Paris, my favorite musical, Violet, and Bright Star. If you've got, you know, a whole day, you can read his IBDP page.

[2:23] Robert W. Schneider: Seriously. You're just going to go through it. To define the role of a music coordinator and to tell us what it was like to work with such legends as Julie Stein, Stephen Sondheim, Benny Goodman, Michael Bennett, Tommy Dorsey, and countless others, here is the Tony Award winning music coordinator, the legendary Seymour Red Press.

[2:38] Seymour Red Press: Wow.

[2:40] Kevin David Thomas: Wow is right.

[2:42] Robert W. Schneider: Wow is right.

[2:43] Seymour Red Press: Oh my gosh. A couple of corrections.

[2:46] Kevin David Thomas: We love corrections.

[2:47] Seymour Red Press: Couple of corrections. My first musical was in 1957, not in 77.

[2:56] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah.

[2:58] Seymour Red Press: I was not a contractor. I was a player in an orchestra. Oddly enough, that's the same year I got married. And that same year, at the end of the year, I did my first show. It was called Body Beautiful.

[3:13] Kevin David Thomas: Body Beautiful, right.

[3:15] Seymour Red Press: Do you've heard of that show? Buck and Harnick.

[3:16] Kevin David Thomas: It was one of their first shows.

[3:18] Seymour Red Press: You're pretty, you know.

[3:23] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, it was their first musical.

[3:27] Seymour Red Press: Body Beautiful, wow. Sheldon and I, that summer before the show, were both working in a summer resort that did shows.

[3:46] Kevin David Thomas: Was this in the Catskills?

[3:54] Seymour Red Press: Not in the Catskills, in the Lake George area. And that's where I met my wife. And they did, it was sort of like a, oh God, not a book musical.

[4:13] Kevin David Thomas: Right, like a review or something?

[4:14] Seymour Red Press: Review, right. And we had a star back as well. But what happened was, and I don't believe I ever met Sheldon. Although we were both there. He was the lyricist and names, here we go with names.

[4:38] Kevin David Thomas: Annie.

[4:41] Seymour Red Press: Martin Charnin?

[4:42] Kevin David Thomas: Charles Strauss?

[4:42] Seymour Red Press: Charles Strauss wrote the music. And they were there that season. I believe neither one had done a Broadway show. They probably had written for reviews and stuff. But at the end of that year, we did Body Beautiful. The Body Beautiful was a prizefighter, not a sex object.

[5:04] Kevin David Thomas: Right, right, it was about a boxer.

[5:06] Seymour Red Press: And it was my first show. I'm Jewish, I had married a WASP who had a son. And I spent my first Christmas in Philadelphia with my wife and new son. We bought a tree and I was inducted into a different world. The show, of course, was not a big hit.

[5:39] Kevin David Thomas: It was not a big hit.

[5:40] Seymour Red Press: It was not a big hit. And we knew nothing. We heard an audience laugh and figured, well, I was... Up to that point, I was a big band musician and freelance doing record dates here in New York.

[5:59] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[6:01] Seymour Red Press: Except for when I was on the road for over a year traveling with road bands, I had never worked for a full year straight in New York City. And that's why I moved into the theater, hoping to get, now that I was married and now that I had a child, to get a steady job.

[6:27] Kevin David Thomas: Right. So we had hoped that it would be a steady job, but it wasn't. But that was the beginning and I became very busy as a side man on Broadway.

[6:37] Kevin David Thomas: So at this time, did theaters have their own house band still?

[6:41] Seymour Red Press: No.

[6:44] Seymour Red Press: Every theater had what was called four house men. Usually they were strings and they would play with every show that came in. And if the theater was closed, they were out of work.

[7:01] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[7:01] Seymour Red Press: But any show that came into the theater had to use those four. Consequently, they were mostly string players because that's the easiest to hide. And they had to hide, a lot of them. Because, of course, politics and everything.

[7:18] Kevin David Thomas: That's right, I've read that.

[7:19] Seymour Red Press: And the union. Before the disappearance of house men, I became a house man by accident. I did a show called...

[7:40] Seymour Red Press: All right, it was again, Charles Strauss. With Lauren Bacall.

[7:46] Kevin David Thomas: Applause.

[7:47] Seymour Red Press: Applause. This is a fun game. You're going to help me a lot.

[7:51] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, I love this game, this is great.

[7:54] Seymour Red Press: You'll like that, good. I took it on the road because then most of the time shows did travel. I've jumped in about 1970 now.

[8:06] Kevin David Thomas: That's right, exactly right, 1970.

[8:09] Seymour Red Press: And I did the show on the road and we went to two separate cities. I think Baltimore and Detroit, I think was the second one.

[8:18] Kevin David Thomas: That's right.

[8:19] Seymour Red Press: And when we came back to New York, we went into the Palace Theater. Well, as long as I'm on this, I'm going to give you some history, real history, my history. One of the house four, there were four housemen. Three were strings and one was a saxophone player. The saxophone player was the contractor in that theater and happened to be a very close friend of mine and we had played together as side men in different shows. We lived in Queens. We used to get together, play flute duets. We met families, got together, his family, my family. And now he had gotten that job.

[9:11] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[9:12] Seymour Red Press: So whenever he took off, he appointed me as his sub.

[9:18] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[9:20] Seymour Red Press: And ultimately, he quit there because he had gotten a job out at Westbury Theater, which was year-round, and felt that it was more secure there. And so I became a house contractor.

[9:39] Kevin David Thomas: At the Palace.

[9:40] Seymour Red Press: Yeah, at the Palace. Normally, that job pays more money, and it's nice, but you're not the contractor who hires the orchestras.

[9:54] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[9:54] Seymour Red Press: You do the payrolls, but the orchestras were hired by, let's call them, producers, contractors. So it's a job that doesn't go very far, but you do earn more money at it, and it's good. But the Palace was different. The Palace, when we didn't have a show, Axe came in.

[10:20] Kevin David Thomas: Right, because it's the Palace.

[10:22] Seymour Red Press: It's the Palace. If you remember, there's a whole big deal. It's about, I worked at the Palace.

[10:27] Kevin David Thomas: That's right, yeah.

[10:28] Seymour Red Press: So when bands, orchestras, when an act came in, the producers at the Palace, or general managers, actually, have to hire an orchestra. And they came to me, and I had never hired an orchestra for them, said, can I do that? And I had never hired an orchestra for them, said, can I do that? I don't want to go, I did, I did get a Tony, by the way, and I made this speech at the Tony. I hate to duplicate myself, but the woman who ran it said to me, if you don't bring in a good orchestra, I'm going to kick you the fuck out of here.

[11:23] Kevin David Thomas: Okay, wow.

[11:24] Seymour Red Press: All right. So I did bring in a good orchestra, and they liked me, and I hired orchestras for them for the couple of years that I was there. And then she, whose name was Nell Nugent.

[11:37] Kevin David Thomas: Oh yes, producer, yeah.

[11:39] Seymour Red Press: And what, and the other woman.

[11:42] Kevin David Thomas: Not Liz McCann.

[11:43] Seymour Red Press: Liz McCann and Nell Nugent left their jobs. They were running the theaters for the Nederland Organization. They left, became independent producers, and started to bring stuff on Broadway.

[11:57] Kevin David Thomas: That's right.

[11:57] Seymour Red Press: And took me with them. So now I was a Broadway contractor. Now, if there was any other theater that I had been in, I don't know whether my career would ever have gotten. Because you met them, and they took you.

[12:13] Kevin David Thomas: They met them.

[12:14] Seymour Red Press: Wow. It's the Palace, not all the other theaters. It's Nell Nugent leaving the Palace, which was their, my good luck for their good luck. Because they were very, very successful. And I've had a relationship with Liz McCann over the years, because we did stuff together. Nell sort of moved out of that. I think she did movies and stuff. Occasionally, I've seen her. But that's how I became a contractor. So if you wanted that history, you got it.

[12:55] Seymour Red Press: Thank you. That's fantastic. And what a strong directive, get me the fucking band. I know. That's great. That lights a fire under you. So now we're going to jump back in time. Okay. Growing up in the Bronx. Yes. What was the first instrument you ever held? Saxophone. Why the saxophone? Why did you want to play alto sax? My father was a salesman, but he was a frustrated musician. Taught himself to play the piano. He played it pretty well. Had a drum set, little drum set next to the radio. And when the bands would come on, he would play drums with the band. Wow. And he had a cousin who was a successful saxophone player. And I believe that is why one day he came to me and said, how would you like to play the saxophone?

Oh, wow. And I said, this was in the era of Benny Goodman. Yeah. You know, because I'm talking 1938, right? In that area. 1939. Yeah. He took me to the piano and he said, he was checking my ear right before I played a saxophone, right? And he played a low note and then he played a high note. He said, which is higher? And that was his check, right? It's complicated. That's great. All right. So at the beginning, we weren't rich. My father, as I said, was a salesman. We lived with my grandparents. So they didn't, couldn't even afford to have their own apartment. My grandfather, this is on my mother's side, came from Russia. No. Came from actually what was Poland. But then it became Austro-Hungarian and it changed a lot.

He came here poor. Got a job as a waiter. Owned his own restaurant, ultimately. Owned two apartment houses in the Bronx, aside from a home, a beautiful home for the Bronx. And the, lost it all, except for the home is where he lived, lost it all in the Depression. Wow. Okay. So my father not being rich, we lived on the second floor of their home. They lived on the main floor and the kitchen was on the main floor. Did not immediately buy me, my father did not immediately buy me a saxophone. He wanted to see how I did. There was a school, 50 cents a lesson, that had their own saxophone. I used to go in, I think I bought a mouthpiece. You'd go in and practice if you wanted to at the store. And every day I would come home from school, I would go to the store and I would practice because I loved it.

And particularly during that era when saxophones, with all the big bands and the saxophones. Yeah, you'd turn on the radio and you would hear that sound. Yeah, right. And when he saw that I was so attached, then he bought me a saxophone, right. And also started to get private teachers rather than my going to the 50 cent school. Soon after I started the saxophone, I would say two years maybe, we organized a band, a little band, three saxophones, one trumpet, bass, drums and piano. Right. And in those days, there was music printed with copies of all the big band's arrangements. Oh, like the charts. You could buy and they were maybe a dollar and a half. You could get music, all the latest tunes, the hot tunes and everything.

And the way they were orchestrated, you could play it with four people, you could play with six people, you could play it with 10, 12, you know. You didn't need the three trumpets and the two trombones and the five saxophones. And so there were many, many young kid bands, right. Music stands, cardboard music stands you would buy. We bought these little vests, little red vests and bow tie. And we started to make money. Not a lot. I think we got three dollars a job, but you got to understand money in those days. My father, I think, was making thirty dollars a week, you know. So if we did two, three jobs a week and we had nine dollars, yeah. And my parents let me keep the money, never took anything from me, which other people didn't have.

So we had this little band and I studied with who was supposedly the best teacher in the Bronx, with Stan Getz, you know that? Oh yeah. Yeah, he was one of the other students with me. Was he a great trumpet player? No, he's a saxophone player, jazz saxophone player. And the war started in 41. I was 16, I think, at that point. And I knew I was going to get drafted. And sure enough, when I became 18, I knew I was going to get drafted. And I went into my saxophone teacher's studio and there was a sign on the board, do you want to play in an army band? Well, come on. I mean, first of all, it could save your life. But second of all, it's something I would really love to do, right? And so I signed my name and got a call.

We rehearsed. It was about, we had about 35 pieces and we played all the marches. We learned the marches. Should I go into this? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating. Okay. The fellow that was putting this band together was another 18-year-old. It so happened that his father was a podiatrist. And he was a podiatrist for the Rangers hockey team. Before each game and after, he would examine their legs, examine their hands. And the Rangers were at the Madison Square Garden, of course. And the president of the Madison Square Garden, who has been a colonel in World War I, was made a general in World War II. And he was leaving Madison Square Garden to a camp in Virginia, where he was going to be in charge of actually two camps.

And they needed a band. And the podiatrist said to the general, I have a son who'll get you a good band, right? This 18-year-old, right? Who was like me in a different band 18 years ago, right? Only he was a terrible musician. He fronted the band. But the general said, well, put a band together and I'll listen to it. And he did. And we went to the Madison Square Garden and we were in the Rangers dressing room, which was big, all concrete. And picture a band, a 30, 40-piece band playing marches with six trumpets and, you know, and we sounded glorious. Good acoustics. And they said, write your name and social security number on the back of your music, hand it in. And about three weeks later, I was in the Army.

Just like that. In a band. In a band. Wow. Wow. Incredible. We went to Newport News, Virginia, which was a, they build ships there. And also the troops going to Europe would take a train into the station and get on the boat. And so our band used to go out and play for them as they went on the boat. The general loved us, kept us there for three years, despite whatever Washington said. Right. Kept us there for three years. And when war was over, we went home. I went in an amateur saxophone player and came out a professional because I was with professionals. Right. And two months later, I was in Hollywood, California with a band and going to the hotels, pools that we had read about in the newspaper, eating at the Brown Derby.

I don't know if you know that name. You know, having an affair with a local hat check girl. And my life was changed. And so I went through the minor bands first and then ended up, as you said at the beginning, with Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. As I was coming here, I passed the theater on the corner where Colbert, Stephen Colbert. Oh, yeah. I spent a year with Tommy Dorsey there. Every Saturday night we had a show, like an Ed Sullivan type show. Yeah, like a review type show. And every Saturday night we had a show there. Then we would get into a bus and go to the Pennsylvania Hotel Cafe Rouge and play for dance music that night. And in the morning we had a show on NBC radio. It was the highlight of my life.

Were you playing in, it sounds like, a bunch of different groups or was it the same group of people that were all playing together? Well, when I was with the Dorsey Orchestra or Benny Goodman, no, we were an orchestra, yeah. I have to ask, what's it like being in a room with Tommy Dorsey? Frightening. No, he was tough, but he was such a marvelous trombonist. He was so marvelous that you had to respect him. He had gone through a period of drunk drinking that when I was with him, he didn't drink anymore. And he demanded the best, but he was a little too much with his criticisms and little things would get him off. I remember one night we were in a hotel and we finished at one o'clock in the morning, you know, that was the job at that point. And he didn't let us leave. He said he was going to go to the hotel and he said he was going to

[25:49] Seymour Red Press: He had to have a rehearsal. The rehearsal was because he was mad at somebody in the orchestra. But he wanted everyone else to stay. And we all had to sit there, and he sat in the middle of the ballroom on a chair, and he would call out a number, and he would, one, two, three, and tap it off. And then we would play the number, and he would sit there and nod, his eyes almost closing. And we'd finish that number, and he'd hear the silence, and he'd call out another number. And he had us there for about an hour. And at the end of the hour, he purposely picked the thing that was very tough on the brass. And then we finished that, and he said, all right, good night, shitheels. And that was it. So he was a little bit strange, a little bit too Trumpian. But he was a marvelous musician, and it was a great orchestra. Great orchestra. Was Benny Goodman the same way?

[26:55] Unknown speaker: No. Benny Goodman just lost in himself. He would, he just, you know, pick his nose on the stand. But, again, great, great. My idol. He was my idol.

[27:12] Seymour Red Press: Were you starstruck the first time you met him? By that time, it was too many years. I felt, when I was in high school and I had to write a letter to somebody, I don't remember the exact name, I wrote a letter to Benny Goodman trying to get a job. It was my life's ambition to work with Benny Goodman. And it was at this period, 1957, that I finally got to work with him. And it was disappointing, not after Tommy Dorsey. Because Tommy Dorsey had new music coming in all the time, new orchestrations, keeping up with where we were. The sound was, yeah. With Benny, we just, we sat in a hotel and played the 1930s orchestrations, the same thing every night. Whereas with Tommy, it was different every night. It was a whole different thing. Am I glad I did it? Thrilled. I got my ambition, I lived out my ambition, but it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

[28:23] Unknown speaker: That happens sometimes, doesn't it? When did you move back to New York from living in Los Angeles for so long?

[28:29] Seymour Red Press: I never lived in Los Angeles.

[28:31] Unknown speaker: Oh, but you were playing there a lot.

[28:32] Seymour Red Press: We just came in with a band and played and then left. It was quite different being in bands people may not understand now, especially the big bands. They were like rock stars. The band leaders married the big Hollywood actresses. You know what I mean? The first band, when I got out of the Army, the first band I was with was, you wouldn't know that name, it was Bobby Sherwood. The first job we went to was in Memphis, Tennessee. The band came in. We were staying in the same hotel that we were playing in. I went down to breakfast in the morning and the waitress showed me a picture of herself nude. I was a musician with a big band. I used to have to give autographs.

[29:40] Unknown speaker: That's amazing. Because there was more venues for live music as well.

[29:47] Seymour Red Press: Look at that. When you turned on the radio, what you heard was big bands. That was the popular music. You turn on now, you know what you hear.

[29:53] Unknown speaker: Yes.

[29:54] Seymour Red Press: Right? Yeah, you're right. Wild. I mean, you didn't hear Elvis Presley.

[29:59] Unknown speaker: Right.

[30:00] Seymour Red Press: But then that changed to where the singers became more important than the bands.

[30:07] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[30:08] Seymour Red Press: Right? Then, of course, the music changed, the style of music. Music style that I thought would last my lifetime was gone. It was gone.

[30:25] Unknown speaker: Yeah. And did you realize that while it was happening that it was fading away, that musical style?

[30:31] Seymour Red Press: Oh, yeah. You could see it as it was happening. Sure. You realized that.

[30:35] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[30:36] Seymour Red Press: While I was doing every Saturday night with Tommy at the TV show that we did.

[30:44] Unknown speaker: Right.

[30:46] Seymour Red Press: Our guest was Elvis Presley.

[30:48] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[30:49] Seymour Red Press: Oh. It was the first time he was on television.

[30:52] Unknown speaker: Oh.

[30:53] Seymour Red Press: And I didn't know anything about him, but I was told, this guy is filling baseball parks. He's filling football stadiums throughout the United States. And it was our doom.

[31:10] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[31:11] Seymour Red Press: Yeah. He was very nice.

[31:14] Unknown speaker: He was?

[31:15] Seymour Red Press: He was.

[31:16] Unknown speaker: Yeah. How do you get into a room with Julie Stein and Stephen Sondheim? How do you get into Gypsy?

[31:22] Seymour Red Press: When I did Gypsy, the original Gypsy, right, that you're talking about, I was still a player. I didn't get to have intimate relationships with the composers. They were frightening to me. They were above. I mean, when you think of who was in that room, you know, not only Julie Stein, but Chicago.

[31:54] Unknown speaker: John Kander?

[31:55] Seymour Red Press: John Kander was the dance arranger.

[31:57] Unknown speaker: Oh, right, because he was doing the dance arranger.

[31:58] Seymour Red Press: Yeah, yeah. John Kander, Julie Stein. Jerome Robbins was in the room. Jerome Robbins. Think of them all. It's frightening. But I was a player. You know, I was just. Later, I met Julie Stein because I had done, well, actually, except, well, I have a story for you.

[32:21] Unknown speaker: Good.

[32:24] Seymour Red Press: I did two or three shows with Julie. One, he was the director, started a director, then they let him go. I forget the name of that. I did Subways of the Sleeping.

[32:43] Unknown speaker: Oh.

[32:44] Seymour Red Press: Right? Which was not a very good show. What I remember about that and Julie, because he became friendly with the musicians and I was friendly, so it was on a different level. We spoke to each other, right? He said he had the secret of how to do a hit show in his back pocket. And, of course, the show was a bomb.

[33:09] Unknown speaker: No.

[33:10] Seymour Red Press: Right. That's the show that David Merrick found different people with the same names.

[33:20] Unknown speaker: Yes, yes.

[33:21] Seymour Red Press: That stunt, that marketing stunt of the critics. That was Subways of the Sleeping that he did that.

[33:28] Unknown speaker: Right.

[33:29] Seymour Red Press: Same names as the critics and then he had these simple people say what they thought of the show.

[33:35] Unknown speaker: That's right.

[33:36] Seymour Red Press: Great, great. Walter Kerr loved it.

[33:39] Unknown speaker: Yeah, exactly. That's pretty brilliant when you think about it. David Merrick, only he could do that.

[33:46] Unknown speaker: I'm going to ask you, you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but who are some of your favorite composers in the musical theater world? Whose music do you enjoy listening to the most?

[33:52] Seymour Red Press: George Gershwin.

[33:58] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[33:59] Seymour Red Press: The best. And I'm doing, am I doing one now? No. Well, American in Paris.

[34:05] Unknown speaker: Oh, right. That's right. That must have been great.

[34:08] Seymour Red Press: Yeah. And that's not the last show I did. No. I'm involved right now, you know.

[34:13] Unknown speaker: You're doing Carousel now, right?

[34:15] Seymour Red Press: Carousel, Hello Dolly, Chicago.

[34:17] Unknown speaker: Yeah.

[34:19] Seymour Red Press: And on the road, I have American in Paris and Bright Star.

[34:23] Unknown speaker: Great. I love Bright Star.

[34:25] Seymour Red Press: Yeah. I love Bright Star. That was really great. Wow. So I should probably ask you now, what does a music contractor do? What is the role of a music contractor for our listeners?

[34:36] Seymour Red Press: Okay. Well, I guess most importantly, he hires the orchestra. But he also has to deal with all finances that deal with the orchestra and the music department. Has to deal with renting, buying instruments, renting instruments. Has to deal with the rehearsal schedule. Most important, there are always issues that come up. Contractual issues between management and the union. And you have to be completely aware of every little item in the contract and how to deal with problems, right? We, I don't want to talk about our union problems because the union president is a friend of mine.

[35:46] Unknown speaker: Oh, sure.

[35:47] Seymour Red Press: So, but we just had a difference of opinion between what the show wanted to do and what the union wanted to charge. And it's part of my job to figure out how to protect management if I can. And in this last, we have had this problem going on and I solved it. And that's what they hire me for, to solve it. So, the guy who waves his arm is the music. Everything else that has to do with the orchestra is me.

[36:32] Unknown speaker: What, do you enjoy the process of problem solving? Do you enjoy the process of negotiation?

[36:36] Seymour Red Press: Very much.

[36:39] Unknown speaker: Yeah?

[36:40] Seymour Red Press: Very much. Coordinating all of these instruments is obviously a challenge. What is the most challenging assignment you've ever had? What is the craziest, you want a what in the band?

[36:51] Unknown speaker: I need to find a what.

[36:54] Seymour Red Press: Okay. I may be sort of answering sideways.

[37:02] Unknown speaker: I love that.

[37:05] Seymour Red Press: One of the first things I contracted for Nel Nugent was a play. And the play, the director wanted what he calls a tea house trio. Tea house trio were very popular, particularly in Europe. It was in a restaurant, there would be a violin, a cello, and a piano.

[37:37] Unknown speaker: Right.

[37:39] Seymour Red Press: And still, we just made a trip to Russia last year. And one of the places that the boat took us to was some ballet dances and they still have it there in Europe, the tea house trio. But the director wanted one of the, and they're all women, three women. He wanted one to be very tall and thin. He wanted one to be very overweight and one to be very short.

[38:22] Unknown speaker: Okay.

[38:25] Seymour Red Press: All right. That was a problem. Right. And then I had another one with, we did a, for them, play, Sherlock Holmes.

[38:44] Seymour Red Press: A violinist that looked like, what was his name, the actor, was very tall and thin, and he had sort of a, not Jewish, but a hook, a little, and I went crazy with that. And I went to Juilliard, I put things up on the board, and I would get small Japanese guys answering, and I didn't, and I finally found a couple, and I brought them in for him to see, and he said, why do you always have these Jewish noses? So ultimately, we hired a tall, thin violinist, and they put a prop on his nose.

[39:35] Seymour Red Press: But you like the challenges.

[39:37] Seymour Red Press: Oh, yeah, yeah, I like that. And, you know, I must admit it, I get paid.

[39:44] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, well, yes.

[39:47] Seymour Red Press: You have two different jobs, right? You have your job when you're playing as a musician, and then you have this contracting business as a side.

[39:55] Seymour Red Press: I've quit playing. When I was 90, I quit playing, because I was with Chicago.

[40:02] Kevin David Thomas: Right, you were playing the original.

[40:05] Seymour Red Press: And the original.

[40:06] Seymour Red Press: And the original. I never, in a million years, would have projected that Chicago would run as long as it ran.

[40:17] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[40:18] Seymour Red Press: Never.

[40:19] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[40:20] Seymour Red Press: So I kept saying to myself, year after year, when are you going to quit? And I kept saying, but I was always afraid of being bored. What am I going to do? I'll be bored. Well, I quit when I was 90. I haven't had a minute of boredom for the last four years.

[40:42] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[40:42] Seymour Red Press: So besides saxophone, what else do you play?

[40:45] Seymour Red Press: Clarinet, flute, piccolo, you know, all the flute instruments, all the different clarinets, the different saxophones.

[40:53] Kevin David Thomas: Is sax still your favorite, though?

[40:54] Seymour Red Press: Yes.

[40:55] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[40:56] Seymour Red Press: Yes.

[40:57] Kevin David Thomas: And so do you still play at home?

[40:59] Seymour Red Press: No.

[40:59] Kevin David Thomas: Really? You just put it all away?

[41:01] Seymour Red Press: I can't.

[41:02] Kevin David Thomas: Oh.

[41:03] Seymour Red Press: I can't. It's too much. Because when you play the saxophone, you've got to find a reed. You have to. It's too much.

[41:12] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[41:13] Kevin David Thomas: Let me ask you, you said you didn't think Chicago was going to run as long as it did. Was there ever a score that came across your desk that you thought to yourself, oh my gosh, this is going to be a huge hit?

[41:21] Seymour Red Press: Oh, I have a story.

[41:25] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, great.

[41:25] Seymour Red Press: I have a story. Okay. I was hired to contract a show for Charles Strauss called Annie 2.

[41:36] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, yes. Miss Hannigan's Revenge.

[41:39] Seymour Red Press: Yes, yes. Miss Hannigan's Revenge. And I went. The first time I heard anything of the show was a Bacchus audition. A Bacchus audition, they get all these people with money, people that have contacts for groups, large groups, put them together and give them an idea of the show. And so it was Charles Strauss at the piano and the director, whose name you mentioned before.

[42:15] Kevin David Thomas: It's Martin Charnin.

[42:16] Seymour Red Press: Martin Charnin. Yeah. I think Martin told the story and he may have some, I'm not sure. Charles did. And they went through it. I left that and I called my wife. I said, it's going to be a giant hit. Giant. I said, because it's not only for kids. Grownups are going to love this. We went to Washington, D.C. to break in. I went to all the rehearsals. Throughout all the rehearsals, I'm saying to myself, this is a great show. The first night that audiences came in, I was sitting in the back of the theater. And I said, I'm going to do a show. And I said, I'm going to do a show. I was sitting in the back of the theater. And I watched them walk out.

[43:15] Seymour Red Press: Oh, wow. In throngs, not just four people, not just five people. Intermission, a lot of people. The show was like a satire. And audiences don't necessarily understand satire. And to them, this woman wants to kill Annie. And they didn't see any humor. To me, I know she's not going to kill her. And I know that this is a show. And I know it's going to happen. And I see it for the humor that it is. And that's why I thought grownups would understand it. Nobody understood it. We opened in Washington and closed in Washington, never came back to New York. Then they rewrote it. And I did that, too. And we were in a small theater in Second Avenue.

[44:11] Kevin David Thomas: That's right.

[44:12] Seymour Red Press: And they recorded it and everything.

[44:14] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[44:16] Seymour Red Press: Then we recorded it, as well. I don't think we asked you earlier. Do you remember the first Broadway musical you ever saw?

[44:21] Seymour Red Press: You know, when I was young, my mother used to take me to theater.

[44:24] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yeah.

[44:25] Seymour Red Press: But never musicals.

[44:26] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, what'd you see?

[44:26] Seymour Red Press: She only did plays.

[44:27] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, wow. Do you remember any of the shows you saw with your mom?

[44:31] Seymour Red Press: I think one I saw, I don't remember the name of it, but I think Paul Muni was in it.

[44:37] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, my God.

[44:40] Seymour Red Press: A great actor. And he was a lawyer.

[44:43] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, my God.

[44:45] Seymour Red Press: He was a lawyer.

[44:51] Seymour Red Press: I don't know. I think the first musical I ever saw was Guys and Dolls.

[44:59] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, wow.

[45:01] Seymour Red Press: And then later I did Guys and Dolls.

[45:03] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[45:04] Seymour Red Press: Yeah. Is that, are those those pinch me moments when you come full circle, when you do Guys and Dolls again, or to go from Gypsy, the original, to then being the music coordinator for Gypsy in the revival?

[45:15] Kevin David Thomas: Right. Was that a pinch me moment for you?

[45:18] Seymour Red Press: Well, Gypsy is odd that you say that because it's my favorite show.

[45:22] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yeah.

[45:23] Seymour Red Press: Is it really?

[45:25] Seymour Red Press: Yeah. Did you know even when you, that original, when you sat down for the first time to play those orchestrations, that you had something special, that this was a special show?

[45:35] Seymour Red Press: You could tell right away. I mean, even that, the overture alone is just like.

[45:38] Kevin David Thomas: Absolutely.

[45:39] Seymour Red Press: Oh, my gosh.

[45:40] Kevin David Thomas: Absolutely.

[45:41] Seymour Red Press: Yeah. I remember Julie Stein telling the trumpet player in the overture, stand up when you play that, stand up.

[45:46] Kevin David Thomas: Well, that solo is insane in that.

[45:48] Seymour Red Press: Yeah.

[45:49] Seymour Red Press: Yeah. Although, the revival I did had a sensational cast. And we didn't run that long.

[46:03] Kevin David Thomas: No, you didn't.

[46:06] Seymour Red Press: Sensational. Every one of them. Top.

[46:09] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[46:10] Seymour Red Press: Top.

[46:11] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[46:12] Seymour Red Press: Yeah. How have pits changed from when you first started out to now?

[46:18] Seymour Red Press: Very much. Very much. When I started theater, there was a union regulation, and most of the large theaters were 25 musicians. They had to hire a 25-piece orchestra. 25. 25. 25-piece orchestra. They had to hire. And that's why those scores are so beautiful. Through negotiations, and once synthesizers were being able to use. And now it's beyond that, that they have these, where you can put the whole orchestration in electronically, and you can change the tempo on it. Just a couple of clicks. You can just, you know. We've become, the musicians have become weak, and you can't, it's difficulty negotiating. Because we can be replaced. It happened at Radio City.

[47:30] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[47:30] Seymour Red Press: Oh, yeah. When they got rid of live, and it was all a click track, right?

[47:34] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[47:35] Seymour Red Press: And after that, the contract changed, right?

[47:38] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[47:40] Seymour Red Press: So, from the 25, I think now, maybe the most, is 15.

[47:55] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, right.

[47:56] Seymour Red Press: Yeah, right. But more than that, that gave them the ability to move the pit down.

[48:13] Kevin David Thomas: All right. Did you ever see a movie of, the old movies of a Broadway show?

[48:19] Seymour Red Press: Oh, I love that. They would show you the, you'd see the stage, and you would see the bass sticking up.

[48:26] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, yes, yes.

[48:28] Seymour Red Press: Because to hear the orchestra, we didn't use mics. There were no mics when I first started, right? And we were, then, when I sat in the pit as a player, I could look up and see the stage.

[48:42] Kevin David Thomas: Right, you were almost in front of the stage.

[48:44] Seymour Red Press: Yeah, you were in front of the stage, and you looked up, and you could see the stage. And you learned how to play softly, you know.

[48:52] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[48:52] Seymour Red Press: And orchestrations were written so that you could hear the actors sing. And then you hired Ethel Marmon kind of voices, because you needed that big voice, right?

[49:04] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

[49:05] Seymour Red Press: Well, now, they moved the pit down, pushed it, well, even if they didn't push it back, moved it down, made it smaller. It's under the stage, basically, now. Under, right, and put more seats in the theater. And so the seats took the place of the band. That's where we are, right? And aren't there even some shows where, like, the drummer is in a different room?

[49:39] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yes.

[49:39] Seymour Red Press: Oh, they've done that. Oh, yeah. Up to the whole orchestra being in a different room.

[49:44] Kevin David Thomas: Really?

[49:45] Seymour Red Press: Yes. Definitely.

[49:46] Kevin David Thomas: That's got to be a mixing nightmare, I'm assuming.

[49:48] Seymour Red Press: Right. But they've learned to do it. Sound has learned to do it. But yes, many shows, they're divided. Strings are put in a separate room. I think in American in Paris, we had the percussionist in a different room.

[50:05] Kevin David Thomas: Right, right.

[50:07] Seymour Red Press: Luckily, for Carousel, we're in the Imperial, and that pit is still large.

[50:15] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[50:16] Seymour Red Press: And so I have 25 people in the pit.

[50:19] Kevin David Thomas: You do?

[50:20] Seymour Red Press: Yeah.

[50:21] Kevin David Thomas: How long does a band rehearse before the first Sitzprobe?

[50:27] Seymour Red Press: A week.

[50:27] Kevin David Thomas: A week.

[50:30] Seymour Red Press: Well, wait a minute. No, the Sitzprobe is not a week. The band usually rehearses two days before the Sitzprobe.

[50:38] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, interesting.

[50:38] Seymour Red Press: We do six hours each day, 12. And then Sitzprobe is in the afternoon. We hold three more in the morning, 15 hours, and then the Sitzprobe. It's a week, about a week or eight days before the first performance.

[50:57] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, interesting. I didn't know that.

[51:00] Seymour Red Press: Yeah.

[51:04] Kevin David Thomas: Interesting.

[51:05] Seymour Red Press: Shows, Broadway shows, rehearse six weeks with the cast. And most of the time, well, there's always the pianist, but sometimes there's a drum, certain art shows. Dreamgirls, there was a whole rhythm section.

[51:21] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yeah.

[51:24] Seymour Red Press: But that's it, six weeks. I've been doing encores at City Center for 25 years. One week the cast rehearses, and then they come on that stage. They know.

[51:39] Seymour Red Press: It's simple. Subs are constantly coming into shows.

[52:09] Q. Do you have to approve the sub?

[52:13] Seymour Red Press: Usually, if I'm asked, I do. Usually the conductor approves, because he's in close contact. I'm in far stills.

[52:29] Q. What do you look for out of a music director? What's the ideal collaboration between the music director and you as the music coordinator?

[52:38] Seymour Red Press: Since I grew up as a sideman, I'm very tolerant and I understand the problems of the sideman. I understand that these players who are depending on Broadway for a living, never know how long a show's going to run, need their outside connections, need to take off so that they keep their connections, and so I'm very tolerant. I expect that from a conductor. If I don't have it, I have to deal with it in some way. I trust that the conductor knows how to do this, how to wave his arms. I trust that he's a musician and knows what a good musician is and what a bad one is. If they have suggestions to who they want, which they all do, I trust that if I know them, that I agree. If I don't, I'll bring it up, but the conductor's the boss in that case, right? But tolerance and understanding is what I expect and want and enjoy working with.

[54:50] Q. How do you keep morale up amongst an orchestra, a band that's been doing it for so many, doing the same thing night after night after night?

[54:58] Seymour Red Press: It's difficult. Not only that, you don't want arguments within the group or whatever every night. Principally, I do think about personalities. I'm very careful about in hiring of personalities, of not having people. It's very rarely, in fact, I can only think of one time that I turned a conductor down who wanted somebody, who I knew was trouble. Otherwise, I'm pretty good. I was going to tell you a story about after working for Julie Stein as a sideman for many years, he, late in life, he got a call to do Red Shoes. And the general manager wanted me to be the contractor and mentioned my name to Julie. Julie said, I knew him when he was a kid, which is ridiculous. But at any rate, he said, but I don't know him as a contractor.

I have to interview him. So, because the general manager came to me, they arranged the date. And the general manager and myself went to Julie's apartment, beautiful apartment on Fifth Avenue. And I was welcomed at the door. We went into his study, which had a nine-foot grand. And he said hello to me. Now, I had prepared, I had seen the movie Red Shoes. I knew it was symphonic, classical. So, I said to myself, Julie doesn't know me that I know classical people. So, I went to my, and I don't have a resume. I think I'm the only person in the music business that doesn't have a resume. I went through my past. I worked with the ballet, New York City Ballet. I worked with the record date with Jules Levine and the Opera Orchestra.

I've worked with the American Symphony. So, that I know these players, to show them that I know these players. And also, I did movies. I contracted movies with 70-piece orchestras. Not just Broadway. He knows I know Broadway. That's what I'm thinking. So, I have this all prepared and I actually wrote up some stuff. And so, he welcomes us. We go into his study and, you know, pleasantries. And then he sits down at the piano and starts playing the songs from Red Shoes, right? And we listen. Well, of course, I'm listening to the songs. They sound like Julie's fine. They don't sound, but at any rate, I'm listening. He finishes playing. He gets up and he walks over to me and he says, okay, you're hired.

Wow. He just wanted to show off his songs. Just that easy. And unfortunately, that show didn't go the way I wanted. Oh, God. It was terrible. It was terrible. And we, the music department, the music department, we're sitting there at rehearsals and we're listening to what's going on. And we're saying, this is unbelievable. Unbelievable. And then the general manager, who hired me, is sitting in the theater on the other side. And I go to him. He says, this is going to be a giant hit. You know, there's a joke. I told it just yesterday to somebody, but it's an old joke. And it says, there are two secrets to how to have a hit Broadway show. And nobody knows them.

[59:38] Q. So how does it feel to get a phone call and say, congratulations, you're getting a Tony award?

[59:55] Seymour Red Press: That floored me. That floored me. I never expected that. I didn't feel that they were aware of me on that level. I dealt with general managers. I dealt with composers. But I didn't know that the League had me on their list because there never was a coordinator that was given an award. And since there hasn't been either, I don't think. It did floor me. And so, we came to the affair. And there were four awards and they saved me for the last. Is that the best? Well, they saved Patty for the last. Let's be honest about this. The other three also had something to do with the show that they were involved with then. And the singers would come on and sing to the audience and sing a song to the audience.

Patty come on. First of all, she said, I don't want the mic. Right. And then she didn't sing to the audience. She sang to me. Oh, wow. And at last, they paused. Oh, and they did new lyrics to the bridge. Oh, right. They used the lyrics of Mr. Goldstone in the bridge where they different kind of stones. Yeah. They were different kind of reds. Right. And then the last day, boss, she came off the stage, came over to the table where I was sitting on and we both finished the song. Oh, that's so sweet. I mean, it was you talk about memories. As if getting the award is enough. Then you have that. Personal. Personal.

[1:02:14] Q. Well, it's a testament to shows the impact you had, you know, on her, too.

[1:02:22] Seymour Red Press: Well, despite the fact that I don't remember names, we're close. You're doing great, by the way. We don't even remember our own names.

[1:02:28] Q. So I would be remiss not to ask you, where did the nickname red flaming red here?

[1:02:46] Kevin David Thomas: Good day, Mr. Schneider.

[1:02:52] Robert W. Schneider: Well, it has happened. We finally hit over 100 iTunes reviews and would like to thank each and every person who took the time to do so. Huzzah. Now we want to climb those charts even faster. And that is where you lovely folks who have not yet rated us come in. The process is very simple on your podcast app. Tap the search tab. Enter our name behind the curtain. Broadway's living legends. Tap the search key. Tap our beautiful logo. Tap the reviews. Tap. Write a review. Then tap your way into our hearts. Tap your troubles away.

[1:03:23] Kevin David Thomas: It's nice, Rob. Once you were there, you can rate us from one star to five stars. Think of one star as Hervé Villachez.

[1:03:28] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, dear. I walked right into that one.

[1:03:35] Kevin David Thomas: Think of one star as Hervé Villachez and Ima Sumac in Sideshow and five stars as front row seats to the opening night of Gypsy.

[1:03:42] Robert W. Schneider: But they kicked me.

[1:03:47] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, they kicked me for the third time. I thought that was pretty good. We want to get good reviews, Rob. We want to get good reviews.

[1:03:52] Robert W. Schneider: Excuse me, Arthur Lawrence. Excuse me for trying to liven up our commercial ads a little bit.

[1:03:59] Kevin David Thomas: Eight-minute long commercial. It's an infomercial at this point. I'm going to be like that lady that sells you the copper pots. Look at this. You can put 400 pounds of manure in it and it slides right out. Then you can make an omelet.

[1:04:11] Robert W. Schneider: You got another line, Kevin.

[1:04:17] Kevin David Thomas: I'm waiting for you to say, plus, you can leave your comment. Plus, you can leave a comment to let us know what you are liking, what you're not liking at this point, or what guests you'd like to hear next. So head on over to iTunes and let us know what you think of our little show.

[1:04:27] Robert W. Schneider: Speaking of little, I'll tell you a story about Charles Lawton later. Thanks, guys.