Danny Kaye was world famous as a star of Vaudeville, theatre, film, and television; Sylvia Fine was his primary songwriter, his mentor, his motivator, and his wife. These two – each strong and fascinating personalities in their own right – are the subjects of Danny Kaye and Sylvia: A Musical Love Story, which will open at the Willow Theater in Boca Raton’s Sugar Sand Park on January 13th, and run through January 29th. The show has played to sold out houses in London, New York, and Washington, D.C..
The young, undisciplined comic Danny Kaminsky met aspiring songwriter Sylvia Fine at an audition for The Straw Hat Review in 1939. (Fine had written the music and lyrics for the show). After a whirlwind courtship they were married in Ft. Lauderdale in January 1940; under Sylvia’s guidance, Danny Kaye rose from an impoverished improvisational comic to become an international star.
“If Danny Kaye had not been born,” a Hollywood writer once observed, “no one could possibly have invented him, it would have been stretching credibility far past the breaking point.” Kaye was a virtuoso entertainer – an actor, a singer, a dancer, a comedian and a clown. He won two honorary Oscars, an Emmy, a Peabody Award, a Golden Globe, the French Legion of Honor, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Kaye was a licensed pilot (in 1979 he made the Guinness Book of Records by piloting a private jet to 65 cities in the U.S. and Canada in 5 days), a gourmet chef, and a symphony conductor – although he could not read a note of music. And he was the first Good Will Ambassador to UNICEF.
Sylvia Fine was a gifted writer, producer, pianist, lyricist, and Oscar-nominated composer in her own right. She wrote many of Kaye’s best known songs and sketches and contributed numerous pieces to Kaye’s various movies, radio, and television programs.
Larry Buzzeo and Katie Angell Thomas will reunite to play Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine – their performances in The Jazz Singer, were lauded by audiences and critics alike. This will be the second show mounted by Black Box Booking and Hy Juter. Their January 2016 production of the aforementioned production, The Jazz Singer, sold out every performance at the Willow Theatre.
Danny Kaye and Sylvia: A Musical Love Story, written by Robert McElwaine, includes a number of Kaye’s most famous songs – many of them written by Fine – including ‘Tchaikovsky’, ‘Balling the Jack’, and ‘Anatole of Paris’. McElwaine and Kaye met when McElwaine worked as director of advertising and publicity at the Goldwyn Studios in the 1950s; he subsequently became the star’s publicist and confidant for 20 years. Danny Kaye and Sylvia explores the romance, the talent, and conflict that made them such a successful – and volatile couple.
Danny Kaye and Sylvia will run from January 13 through January 29 at the Willow Theatre in Sugar Sand Park. Tickets are $35; group rates (6 or more tickets purchased in one transaction) are $30. Tickets can be purchased on line at http://www.willowtheatre.org/danny-and-sylvia or by phone at 561-347-3948.
For more information about Danny Kaye and Sylvia and/or Black Box Booking please visit www.blackboxbooking.com or contact Carol Kassie (carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244).
