Let's pick up the story again of "Hard To Be A Jew".

The cast was picked, the music and lyrics were written, the choreographer had some pretty solid ideas as did the costume designer, and so rehearsal began.

Most of the rehearsal time was pretty uneventful. The songs and dance were practiced with only a piano but the show itself had to have an ensemble of musicians in the orchestra pit.

My father was determined to not have any union problems with this production so he went to the musicians union to hire the players needed. Now the union had a sliding scale rule that based the number of musicians required in the pit on the number of seats in any given theater. The Eden Theater was listed as a "twelve-man" house. There was a problem with this since the musical arrangements called for only ten musicians and the orchestra pit itself could accommodate eleven people with any degree of comfort if they were to move their bows over the strings on the violins, cello and bass, be able to slide the slide on the trombone and fit a set of drums and percussion. The union was pretty adamant about having twelve people there, but finally a deal was struck for eleven people one of which would get paid but not actually be there, (I think it’s called feather-bedding?). Well, the folks at the union had their own choice of someone to receive this charity. They didn't know that both my mother and myself were members in good standing. My mother became the ghost player and the rehearsals continued.

The show was ready to open. Dress rehearsal was a fiasco. There is a saying in the theater that a bad dress rehearsal means a good opening night. There were two choices; to postpone the opening or to trust in that saying.

The show opened the following evening to a full house and even before the reviews were written and read we all knew that the show was a hit.

Richard Shepard wrote the following for the New York Times:

"If you're one of those who think of Yiddish theater in terms of a bygone art, by all means get down to the Eden Theater, on Second Avenue, the original Broadway of the art, and see one of the more lively shows in town, "It's Hard To Be A Jew."

Joyce Wadlar of the New York Post Wrote:

"When Sholom Aleichem's play "It's Hard To Be A Jew" first opened in 1921, it was a hit of the Yiddish theater - a much more flourishing theater than it is today.
Last night "It's Hard To Be A Jew" re-opened - this time as a musical - if the response at the Eden Theater on Second Avenue and 12th Street was any indication Sholom Aleichem will pack them in for yet another season."

Both reviews went on to give the story line, praise the actors, dancers, music and lyrics, and of course the producer, Harry Rothpearl

The final review of the big three was by Patricia O'Haire of the Daily News. She wrote an article entitled "Producer Bat's 1,000". She wrote the following:

"While a goodly number of Broadway show producers - and some off Broadway as well - spent a good deal of the last few seasons singing the blues and crying over the lack of warm bodies to fill up their empty seats, Harry Rothpearl sat happily in a basement office at the Eden Theater downtown, taking reservations from tour groups all over the city who wanted to see his show.

"His show last year was the highly-acclaimed Yiddish language production of "Yoshe Kakb" and it marked Harry's first real venture into producing. This year he's turned up his second hit, Sholom Aleichem's "Hard To Be A Jew"' starring Joseph Buloff and Stan Porter, and again, his phones are ringing away, with people wanting to buy tickets."

She goes on as did the others about the story, the actors, etc., but in addition gives a very nice biography of my father.

So, we had a real hit going eight times a week. Although my sound system was more than adequate and my pre-recorded special sound effects worked fine, I got a call from my father somewhere around the third or fourth performance of the first week. It seems that the sound system was unbalanced and was squealing with feedback. I dropped what I was doing and went down to the theater to find that all of my settings for the six microphones mounted alongside the footlights on the stage had been turned way up from where I had put them. I fixed the problem but was called again about three performances later with the same problem. I again adjusted the settings and went back the next night to see what was going on. Well, it seemed that each performer as he or she went onstage for the first time from the wings reached down and pushed up the volume on the microphone they thought was in a position to pick them up best. So by the time all the players were onstage, all the volumes had been pushed up. Each night they'd turn up the microphone a little more and every three nights everything was all the way up. I finally permanently fixed this problem by taking off the cover of the mixer, soldering the volumes in place where I wanted them and disconnecting the controls. This way they could continue to play with knobs without changing anything. It was a solution that made everyone happy.

My only other problem was that sometimes the dancers would get really over-exuberant and kick a microphone or two. But I was getting used to spending some evenings at the theater and my children loved to go with me on the weekends. I was becoming friends with some of the actors and stage and lighting people. It was alright, especially since I'd discovered two very good places to hang out during the performances.

One was Abe's kosher deli on 10th Street and Second Avenue. The other was John's Restaurant on 12th Street just east of Second Avenue. John's was an exceptionally good Italian restaurant owned by two young guys named Myron and Nick. I became friendly with them and spent many an evening dining with the bosses. By the way, John's Restaurant is still there and still excellent. If you're ever in that area it's worth checking out.

This all came in very handy when my father decided that he and my mother were going on an extended cruise on the Israeli ship The Shalom, and I was going to handle the theater for him. This was in addition to running his lumber yard and trying to keep up with my own sound and recording business.

There is one other special thing I remember about that production which takes us back to my fifth installment. If you remember, I was a bit concerned that the lead was played by Joseph Buloff who was eighty years old. If you also remember, somehow Bruce Adler's name was not on the poster.

Well, Joseph Buloff got sick and lost his voice for about a week. I remember juggling the actors so that Stan Porter took Buloffs' part while Bruce Adler took Stan Porter's part and David Carey moved into Bruce Adler's part. It happened to work but it just as easily could not have.

The show did over one hundred performances and played well into February of 1975. I remember the hundredth performance party and the party after our last performance, during which the theater was broken into and all the costumes and my sound equipment was stolen. The theater had insurance so it was no great loss. A far greater loss was that after that last performance of that show nothing else my father did at that theater even came close.

Until next month, Shalom.