Also this issue:

Fit To Print
The self-publishers converging on Zine Fest resist the rise of the machines.
-Patrick Rapa

Chinese Ceramics Today Hide Sadohara: New Work
Chinese ceramicists reflect the country’s changing cultural climate. A local artist complements their vision.
-Susan Hagen

Swoosh
-Lori Hill

E. Lynn Harris
-A.D. Amorosi

Nrityagram Dance Ensemble
-Deni Kasrel

Bridging the Gap
-Dana Procaccino

Puppetry of the Penis
-Deni Kasrel

Mao in the Boardroom: Marketing Genius From The Mind Of The Master Guerrilla
-Andrew Parks

July 10-16, 2003

theater

1776

by Steve Cohen

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., at a memorial for Peter Stone last week, said that Stone’s script for 1776 "probably taught more people about the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence than a generation of historians."

A new production of 1776, the musical, opens at the Ritz Theatre this week. You don't have to be a historian to love this theatrical milestone, which brings the birth of the Declaration of Independence to life with humor and intelligence. It puts a human face on the pages of history as we see these men who became icons as uncertain, irritable and sometimes petty as they organize a break with England.

Stone was eulogized June 30 by friends and colleagues, including former President Clinton (Stone produced fundraising galas for him), Lauren Bacall, Stanley Donen, John Kander, Fred Ebb, John Guare and Maury Yeston. The librettist was an Oscar-winner in Hollywood, responsible for writing Charade, Mirage, Sweet Charity, Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. He also wrote the books for the musicals Titanic, My One and Only, Two By Two, Woman of the Year, Sugar and The Will Rogers Follies, as well as 1776.

Talking with City Paper two weeks before his death, Stone related how he was called in to fix the script of Sugar, and how he brought the story closer to what was originally seen in the 1959 movie, Some Like It Hot, with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. "David Merrick, the producer, said to me that people would know what was coming and wouldn't laugh. He particularly didn't like me reinstating the famous last line from the movie ("Well, no one's perfect."). I said to him, ŒLook, audiences knew that the Titanic was going to sink, and they knew that the Declaration was going to be signed. People will be upset if they don't hear what they remember fondly."

Stone was born into a Hollywood family in 1930. "My father wrote the Tom Mix and Charlie Chan movies. But I loved the immediacy and risk-taking of live theater. That's the career I wanted, and I went to Yale drama school." He lived in Europe for a while, covering Grace Kelly's wedding for CBS News, and came back "when I got a chance to write a show for Alfred Drake, Kean, that was based on a Sartre play that I knew from France."

Stone died from pneumonia at age 73 on April 26.

1776 will be performed July 10-Aug. 9, $12-$19.50, Puttin on the Ritz Theatre, 915 White Horse Pike, Oaklyn, N.J., 856-858-5230.