The Rothchilds Europe's most famous rags-to-riches story is the subject of this extraordinary musical epic. Shrewd, charismatic, resourceful and ambitious, Mayer Rothschild and his five sons struggle to overcome the prejudice of late eighteenth century European society as they build a family banking business which takes them from the Jewish ghetto to the courts of the rich and powerful. On the way, they come to dominate European finance, help fund Napoleon's defeat, and secure a Declaration of Rights for their people from the Crowned Heads of State. Read more about The Rothchilds Oh Calcutta Late in 1968, Broadway producer Hilly Elkins - for whom I had been working on a musical of The Rothschilds - informed me that he was planning an erotic revue and that he would like me to submit a sketch…if I could write short and dirty. Writing short and dirty was no challenge for a New York City boy; pithy smut was our haiku. Read more about Oh Calcutta Adventure ADVENTURE is a new musical based upon Robert Louis Stevenson's “Treasure Island.” It is the coming of age story of Jim Hawkins, a fatherless boy who sets sail with a wily old pirate, Long John Silver, on a sailing ship in search of buried treasure, where Jim learns about life, courage, cruelty, honor, and loyalty, but most of all experiences the thrill of being reckless and young. It all takes place on the coast of England; inside the Hawkins' inn; the Squire's residence; an English seaport; the Hispaniola - a ship on the Spanish Main, and Treasure Island, but most of all, inside a boy's rich imagination. Read more about Adventure This Fair World THIS FAIR WORLD is a new musical comedy with a cast of dreamers and schemers, all taking place during one spring night in New York City, and the following day at the New York World's Fair of 1940. For all its frivolity and romance, this musical takes a sharp, satiric view of class and power in America right before WWII, and by inference, today. Read more about This Fair World Broadway man AL JOLSON struts across this sassy musical with new songs and Jolson standards. It tells the story of his Prohibition era romance with tap dancer Ruby Keeler, and the rise, fall, and rise again of a legendary entertainer. Read more about Broadway man Lucky In the Rain The Paris of Hemingway, Picasso, Josephine Baker and F. Scott Fitzgerald comes to life in this romantic comedy about two headstrong, career-minded American journalists who fall in love in 1920s France, where hopes were high, living was cheap, and youthful ideals were everything. Henderson Booth and Jane Wiley are the two reporters in question, matching wits, locking lips and hobnobbing with the likes of Josephine Baker and Isadora Duncan. Read more about Lucky In the Rain Rex REX was my sole collaboration with the legendary composer Richard Rodgers. His lyricist for this show was Sheldon Harnick, whom I had worked with on The Rothschilds. Rodgers had admired my work as creator of The Adams Chronicles and invited me to contribute a new libretto to this difficult project. The challenge was to create a show where the audience felt something for a man who killed several of his wives. Read more about Rex Strangers In the late seventies I wrote a play, Strangers, based upon the turbulent marriage of the Nobel Prize winning novelist Sinclair Lewis and journalist Dorothy Thompson. It starred the film actor Bruce Dern who gave a compelling performance as Lewis. When I looked at it recently, I found a better play than I remembered. It played at the Colonial Theatre in Boston and the Golden Theatre on Broadway. It was published by Samuel French and may still be available. Read more about Strangers The Adams Chronicals In the bi-centennial year I was approached by Virginia Kassel, a producer at PBS, to create a pilot for The Adams Chronicles, an ambitious series for public television. Aided by the letters of John and Abigail Adams, a founding father and mother, and the research of Harvard College scholars, I wrote the first several episodes, trying to invest them with a humor and a humanity that usually eludes historical drama, and was certainly there in the lives of this remarkable couple. Read more about The Adams Chronicals Budapest BUDAPEST is a dark comedy-drama, a modern version of Camille, only instead of tuberculosis, its heroine, the worldly Minna, is destroyed by the weight of 20th Century history. Its theme is the exploitation of the Holocaust as entertainment in a world where every experience is fair game for commercialization. It is inspired by people I knew in my youth. Read more about Budapest The Rothchilds Oh Calcutta Adventure This Fair World Broadway man Lucky In the Rain Rex Strangers The Adams Chronicals Budapest ©2005 Sherman Yellen. All rights reserved.