A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart.
The Producers is a 1967 American satirical black comedy film. It was written and directed by Mel Brooks, and stars Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, and Kenneth Mars. The film is about a con artist theater producer and his accountant who scheme to get rich by fraudulently overselling interests in a stage musical purposely designed to fail. Searching for the worst script imaginable, they find a script celebrating Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and bring it to the stage. Because of this theme, The Producers was controversial from the start, and received mixed reviews. It became a cult film, and found a more positive critical reception later.
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia in or around 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters and other tales by Sholem Aleichem. The story centers on Tevye, a milkman in the village of Anatevka, who attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon his family's lives. He must cope with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters who wish to marry for love; their choices of husbands are successively less palatable for Tevye. An edict of the tsar eventually evicts the Jews from their village.
Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor. He has received various accolades including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Phil Silvers was an American entertainer and comedic actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah". His career as a professional entertainer spanned nearly 60 years. He achieved major popularity when he starred in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S. Army post in which he played Master Sergeant Ernest (Ernie) Bilko. He also starred in the films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). He was a winner of two Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on The Phil Silvers Show and two Tony Awards for his performances in Top Banana and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He also wrote the original lyrics to the jazz standard "Nancy ".
Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel was an American actor, comedian, and singer. He is best known for his portrayal of comic characters including Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus on stage and on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Max Bialystock in the original film version of Mel Brooks' The Producers (1967). Mostel was a student of Don Richardson and he used an acting technique based on muscle memory. He was blacklisted during the 1950s; his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee was well publicized. Mostel later starred in the Hollywood Blacklist drama film The Front (1976) alongside Woody Allen, for which Mostel was nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Arvid Laurence Bryggman is an American actor. He is known for playing the role of Dr. John Dixon on the CBS Daytime soap opera As the World Turns. He won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his work on As the World Turns in 1984 and 1987. He received six other Daytime Emmy Award nominations. He has had roles in many theatrical productions, including Ulysses in Nighttown (1974), The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1977), Prelude to a Kiss (1990), Picnic (1994), Proof (2000), Romance (2005), Festen (2006), and Harvey (2012). He has received two Tony Award nominations and won two Obie Awards. He has also appeared in the films ...And Justice for All (1979), Hanky Panky (1982), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) and Spy Game (2001).
Bernard Whalen "Bert" Convy was an American actor, singer, game-show panelist, and host known for Tattletales, Super Password, and Win, Lose or Draw.
Philip Loeb, was an American stage, film, and television actor, director and author, perhaps best remembered for playing Jake Goldberg in The Goldbergs. He was blacklisted under McCarthyism and committed suicide in response.
Fionnghuala Manon "Fionnula" Flanagan is an Irish stage, television, and film actress. Flanagan is known for her roles in the films James Joyce's Women (1985), Some Mother's Son (1996), Waking Ned (1998), The Others (2001), Four Brothers (2005), Yes Man (2008), The Guard (2011) and Song of the Sea (2014). She is also known for her recurring role as Eloise Hawking in the series Lost (2007–2010). Notable stage productions she has performed in include Ulysses in Nighttown and The Ferryman, both of which earned her Tony Award nominations for Best Featured Actress in a Play.
Ralph Meeker was an American film, stage, and television actor. He first rose to prominence for his roles in the Broadway productions of Mister Roberts (1948–1951) and Picnic (1953), the former of which earned him a Theatre World Award for his performance. In film, Meeker is known for his portrayal of Mike Hammer in Robert Aldrich's 1955 Kiss Me Deadly and as condemned infantryman Cpl. Philippe Paris in Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory.
The Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical is an honor presented at the Tony Awards, a ceremony established in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, to actors for quality leading roles in a musical play, whether a new production or a revival. The awards are named after Antoinette Perry, an American actress who died in 1946.
Joshua Mostel is an American actor with numerous film and Broadway credits. The son of Zero Mostel, he is best known for his supporting roles in films such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Harry and Tonto (1974), Sophie's Choice (1982), City Slickers (1991), Billy Madison (1995), and Big Daddy (1999).
Paul Sand is an American actor and comedian.
Beggar's Holiday is a musical with a book and lyrics by John La Touche and music by Duke Ellington.
Jim Brochu is an American actor, writer, director, and playwright. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. Brochu studied at Carnegie-Mellon University and received his B.A. from St. Francis College. His stage debut was in a production of William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. As a friend of Lucille Ball, he is the author of the unauthorized biography of Lucille Ball, titled Lucy in the Afternoon, and in this capacity, appeared on an episode of MythBusters.
Zero Hour is a 2006 one-person play written and performed by playwright and actor Jim Brochu and directed by actress Piper Laurie. In a biographical reflection on Zero Mostel, Brochu portrays the Jewish actor and comedian giving a fictional interview with an unseen New York Times reporter shortly before Mostel's death in 1977. Brochu's Mostel recounts his life and career; he describes the impact of the Hollywood blacklist on himself and his friends, including his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, as well as his success with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Fiddler on the Roof and the original movie version of The Producers.
Peter Link is an American composer, lyricist, music producer, stage director, and presently CEO/Creative Director of Watchfire Music, an on-line Inspirational record company and music store.
