Bar Mitzvah Boy – Jack Rosenthal adapted his award winning 1976 TV play (British Academy Best Play Award and Broadcasting Press Guild Best Play Award), for the musical stage with America’s Oscar and Tony award composer Jule Styne and lyrics by Britain’s Oscar and Tony award winner Don Black.
Rosenthal’s hysterical story of a North London family’s anxious build up to their only son’s Bar Mitzvah will resonate with many Jewish families, but this classic tale speaks loudly for any important family occasion – whatever the religion!
Bar Mitzvah Boy was composer Jule Styne’s only London musical. A prolific Hollywood and Broadway composer (Gypsy, Funny Girl, Bells Are Ringing and Gentleman Prefer Blondes), he collaborated with Britain’s own Don Black: (Sunset Boulevard, Tell Me On a Sunday, Aspects of Love – not to mention such classic hit songs: Thunderball, Tomorrow Never Dies, Diamonds Are Forever, The World Is Not Enough, To Sir With Love, Ben and Born Free – for which he won an Oscar).
This brand new production will be the first staging of Bar Mitzvah Boy since the original 1978 London production. For this presentation, Don Black has written new songs to unheard Styne compositions and a revised script has been written by David Thompson, author of The Scottsboro Boys, Steel Pier, And The World Goes ‘Round and the script adaptation of the hit musical revival of Chicago.