Harmony: A New Musical on Broadway Tickets

By: Bruce Sussman
Songs by: Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman
Director: Warren Carlyle
Choreography: Warren Carlyle Cast list: Chip Zien (as Rabbi), Julie Benko (as Ruth), Sierra Boggess (as Mary), Sean Bell (as Bobby), Danny Kornfeld (as Young Rabbi), Zal Owen (as Harry), Eric Peters (as Erich), Blake Roman (as Chopin), Steven Telsey (as Lesh)
Design: Beowulf Boritt
Costumes: Linda Cho and Ricky Lurie
Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer
Sound: Dan Moses Schreier
Other info: Media design by batwin + robin productions, wig and hair design by Tom Watson, music direction by John O’Neill, music coordination by Michael Aarons, orchestrations by Doug Walter

The Harmony musical is based on a true story. The Comedian Harmonists were a six-piece German musical group that reached its peak in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The members were Harry Frommermann, Asparuh "Lesh" Leschnikoff, Erich Collin, Roman “Chopin” Cycowski, Robert “Bobby” Biberti, and Erwin “Rabbi” Bootz. They were known for raucous onstage antics, blending their voices seamlessly together in complex arrangements, and singing in a wide range of genres, from old folk music to popular music of the time.

Soon after their heyday, however, the Harmonists became the subject of a different kind of national attention in Germany. The group's inclusion of Jewish members brought them scrutiny as the Nazis rose to power.

Harmony composer Manilow has a music career spanning 70 years, and he is one of the bestselling musical artists of all time with a Tony, Grammy, and two Emmy Awards to his name. He and Bruce Sussman, who won a Drama Desk Award for his Harmony book, have collaborated extensively, writing music for many singers, movies, TV shows, and musicals.

Harmony premiered at San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse in 1997 and went on to a 2003 pre-Broadway run at Philadelphia's Forrest Theatre. A planned Broadway transfer never happened, but the musical resurfaced in 2013 at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre. Nearly 10 years later, in 2022, the premiere of Harmony in New York took place at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.

What to watch for

• The Harmony musical is based in part on a collection of historical materials about the central band, called The Comedian Harmonist Archive. It was curated by the late Dr. Peter Czada.
• The Comedian Harmonists' signature skill was being able to blend their voices together while singing so well that you couldn't tell one voice from another — unless they wanted you to during a solo, of course.
• Harmony isn't the only story based on the Harmonists. A German movie called Comedian Harmonists premiered in 1997, which directly gave way to a German musical play, Veronika, der Lenz ist da - Die Comedian Harmonists, that same year. Then, a Broadway musical, Band in Berlin, premiered in 1999.
• Back in the 1930s, the Harmonists themselves appeared in two German films: as sailors in Bombs on Monte Carlo and as chefs in Princess, At Your Orders!
• Harmony director/choreographer Warren Carlyle is known for choreographing The Music Man, starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, and the Bette Midler-led Hello, Dolly! revival.