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THE BERKSHIRES PLAYS AN IMPORTANT PART IN MR. SATURDAY NIGHT

By Anastasia Stanmeyer

IN DOWNTOWN PITTSFIELD, prolific actor/comedian Billy Crystal stands before a full house in a proscenium stage theater and begins to do what he loves most—perform in front of a live audience. Director John Rando and others on the team watch closely and take notes. Later, they share those notes with one another; the next day, they make changes to the script and to the score. Each night, the show is slightly different—adding, removing, shifting, improving. Each of the nine workshop performances was an opportunity to learn, to discover, and to fine-tune this musical comedy, Mr. Saturday Night.

“Even though we weren’t on Broadway, I was able to look and decide what seemed to be working, what transitions between one scene and another needed to be changed, what furniture pieces were needed—details like that, as well as significant cuts that could be made,” says Rando, who won an Tony® for his direction of Urinetown, the Musical. “Billy would improvise or surprise us with a new joke or something. This workshop was a playground environment, and we had the freedom to explore.”

Crystal has received six Emmys®, a Tony®, and will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 27th annual Critics Choice Awards on March 13. He returns to Broadway in his first musical comedy, with previews beginning March 29 for Mr. Saturday Night at the Nederlander Theater. The opening is April 27. You will find Barrington Stage listed on the show’s title page, and that’s because audiences in the Berkshires were key to the final development of the show. This rural setting was a retreat to the mountains for Rando, Crystal, and 25 or so others who came here to workshop in the Boyd-Quinson Stage in downtown Pittsfield. After rehearsals, they would go to The Marketplace Cafe for a sandwich. They would bump into audience members at Methuselah after an evening performance. Crystal stayed an apartment above Dottie’s Coffee Lounge on North Street and would walk around Pittsfield with his mask and glasses on, incognito.

“It was such a gift,” says Rando.

“Everyone was very welcoming there. Pittsfield is a very comfortable little town, and we needed a retreat. The designers even visited and watched. We had costume meetings and design talks. It was less pressure because it was out of town. It also injected an incredible amount of adrenaline into Billy, to bring this character on stage. It has such an incredible history, and he is at the right age. Barrington Stage and the Berkshires are kind of a nest for musical theater—a nest to incubate a show in many different ways.”

The Berkshires is also a home away from home for Rando, who first visited in 1994. At the time, Julianne Boyd was at Berkshire Theatre Festival (BTF). She needed someone to run the Unicorn Theatre that summer, so he did. She left the theater company and founded Barrington Stage, and Rando stayed at BTF for two more seasons. Over the years, he has worked with BTF (The Guardsman), Williamstown Theatre Festival (Flea in Her Ear), and Barrington Stage. A good friend of Boyd’s, Rando has directed two of the most popular musicals in Barrington Stage’s history, The Pirates of Penzance and On the Town, which transferred to Broadway and received four Tony® nominations, including Best Director. John also directed The Royal Family of Broadway and Guys and Dolls.

Mr. Saturday Night is a 1992 comedy about the rise and fall of a stand-up comedian named Buddy Young Jr. Crystal, who starred, directed, produced and co-authored the film, was 43 playing 73; now he is 73 playing 73. Crystal wrote the musical’s book with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who also collaborated with him on the film’s screenplay. “It’s a story about a comic’s life, and it’s a love letter to comics,” says Rando. “Having Amanda Green and Jason Robert Brown’s collaboration of music is a very special part of what our show is. It’s embracing what’s smart and special on film and how music theater can elaborate where film can’t.”

Rando started working on Mr. Saturday Night in 2016, collaborating with Crystal, Brown (a Tony® winner for The Bridges of Madison County and Parade), and Green (Hands on a Hardbody). The choreographer is Ellenore Scott, who is also choreographing the spring revival of Funny Girl on Broadway. They worked through 2018 to shape Mr. Saturday Night into a smart and impactful show. It started out as a large musical, with a cast of 20. The cast now numbers eight, including David Paymer, who will once again play Billy’s brother Stan. Randy Graff (a Tony® winner for City of Angels) will play Young’s wife, and Chasten Harmon (The Good Fight) will play his agent.

Private readings were held at Green’s apartment, andin 2019 the public was invited to a reading at NYU’s Jack Crystal Theater (named after the jazz impresario, also Billy’s dad). “The reading was really successful, and we thought we figured out the show,” says Rando.

They wanted to do an out-of-town test, though, which isn’t financially feasible for most directors these days. Still, Rando sent Boyd the script, and within 24 hours she called to tell him that they would do whatever he wanted. “Many regional theaters also ask for a piece of the pie. They expect two-tenths of a percent of the weekly gross on Broadway. That’s expensive. Julianne said, ‘No, come develop the work and all we need is to break even. This is your gymnasium.’ It’s a great relationship where we can do our work and not give our left arm to do it.” The close proximity to New York and the Berkshire environment also were attractive.

“We wanted to go try out in front of a paying audience and not do full costume, full rehearsal, and full rehearsal set,” adds Rando. “It was a perfect place to construct a production, to get it ready in model form, seen in front of an audience, and we could respond to the work.”

The wheels were in motion to test Mr. Saturday Night in the Berkshires, but it stalled like so many other stage productions because of the pandemic. Later, the Nederlander Organization wanted to move forward with the show, and development resumed. “We still needed to test the material, and Billy felt strongly about it, too. At that time, I didn’t know what to say. One of the producers reminded me, ‘Why don’t you call Julie again.’ I thought, that’s a f—ing brilliant idea. I called Julie in the spring of 2021 and told her I wanted to do workshop productions. She said, ‘Look, once our season ends, you can have the run of the space and we can build your rehearsal set.’”

Barrington Stage is no stranger to Broadway. It has sent two productions there: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and On the Town, as well as a number of off-Broadway productions. “Our audience is used to seeing works in development and new plays,” says Boyd. “It was a no-brainer for us.”

The nine Berkshire performances of Mr. Saturday Night, beginning in mid-October, were all sold out. Additional local people were hired to work the show—including a backstage crew and house manager. Holding that many shows allowed everyone to break even—including the producers and Barrington Stage. Also, Crystal requested multiple performances because he knew he had to try out material. This raised national attention to Pittsfield, and local people who never came to the theater came to see Crystal.

Mr. Saturday Night the movie was released in 1992.

“They just took to the show,” says Boyd. “It was exciting to introduce new theatergoers and to see Billy in person. We can follow his journey to New York now. It’s a win for us and for Billy Crystal and his co-creators.”

Boyd often cooks for artists performing on her stage, and this wasn’t any different. She told Rando that she would like to have his team over for dinner at her home in Pittsfield. She served up lamb rangoon, salad, broccoli with lemon and garlic, and 60 miniature cannolis from Zucchini’s Restaurant. Some of the cast didn’t know each other, so this was an opportunity for them to spend time together.

“Billy was one of the last people to leave,” jokes Boyd.

Crystal was later interviewed by The New York Times, and he talked about the audience response in the Berkshires: “I’ve spent so much of my life in front of an audience. The great feeling to hear laughs, live, in a theater, even through masks, was intoxicating to all of us, and it gave us so much joy and so much hope.”

Rando describes the first night they performed in front of the Barrington Stage audience. “They were just loving the show. There was great laughter. I ran backstage after the show, and I was quite moved, too. This show was delayed and delayed by COVID. It’s very emotional to be able to work and to be able to be in front of an audience. Billy was elated and moved and inspired to come back with this character. And he was sharing those feelings with the cast.”

“It was glorious from start to finish,” says Boyd. “It was also wonderful to have John Rando back here.”

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