Let It Amuse You: Billy Crystal Returns To Broadway


By then, he had become more familiar with the whiplash swings of show business, which were mostly speculative while filming. “I’ve had ups and downs, sides and mids, and mids can be harder than downs,” he said. “The one in the middle, which is weird, because you’re looking up and down at the same time.”

Crystal, Ganz and Mandel have written a new book for the musical that charts Buddy’s path from Catskills dining room setup to TV star and wash, and songs by Jason Robert Brown on the show (“Parade,” “The Bridges of Madison County”) and lyrics by Amanda Green (“Hands on a Hard Body”).

Its director, John Rando (“Urinetown,” “The Wedding Singer”), said that where the film uses younger performers to return to Buddy’s old days, the actors in the musical will play their characters at any age. During their first conversation with Crystal, Rando said, “I said I wanted to see Billy Crystal play the 20-year-old version, the 40-year-old version, and the 70-year-old version. This is theater and we should take advantage of that.”

At the musical’s workshop, Rando said that the overall size of the cast dropped from about 20 people to a more intimate group of eight. “This allowed us to explore the true heart and pulse of the show, Buddy’s family, and how each of them relates to him,” she said. (The major Broadway cast also includes Randy Graff as Buddy’s wife, Elaine, and Shoshana Bean as his estranged daughter, Susan.)

But just as “Mr. Saturday Night” was almost ready to debut in front of audiences, the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 halted work on the show. Crystal reunited with her family in Los Angeles and realized that her quarantine had at least given me time to focus on other writing projects. It gave a discipline.”

For Crystal, who hasn’t performed in a feature musical since 1981 Kenley Players “Cabaret” production in Ohio), this was also a time he spent working with a vocal coach and practicing his songs.

When “Mr. Saturday Night” was able to get an out-of-town trial at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts last October, concerns were mounting. After hearing the audience applaud and cheer for the show’s first performance, Crystal said she found Rando backstage and collapsed into her arms crying in relief.



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