Growing up, my home was filled with music of all sorts—music that echoed from the radio and flickered from the television screen. Our local AM radio station played top 40 tunes, and I would memorize every word of every song as if it were my job. On the television, my family would watch and listen to the smooth rhythms of Lawrence Welk, cry over Elvis performing on a TV special, and dance to the groovy vibes of Soul Train and American Bandstand. Music was a constant companion in our home. This is how my love for musical theater blossomed…

Way back when (and you know how long ago that was!) the film The Cotton Club was in production. Bill Rudman and I knew for sure it was going to be a big hit. Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler were the most prominent composers for the Cotton Club shows and I knew Harold Arlen’s biographer, Ed Jablonski. I had produced and directed a Harold Arlen revue in Washington, D.C. that was a big success and which featured a lot of extremely rare songs from the Cotton Club.