Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies (Applause Books) by Ted Chapin

volume, could be heard through the door. Then the receiver slammed down and she emerged, heading for Hal, fuming: “Why do you do that to me?” Later on, Hal conceded that Boris was absolutely right, that as producer he understood completely the need for the model at the shop. But as director he wanted it in the rehearsal room.
    If Hal had a conflict at this point in the process, it was that he was both sole producer and codirector. He had started his life as a producer, in partnership with a fellow stage manager, Robert E. Griffith. Together they had produced shows that were directed by the A-team of musical theater artists of the 1950s: George Abbott, Jerome Robbins, and Bob Fosse. Hal was the eager-beaver youngster of the lot, and was even parodied in a book called Say, Darling, written by Richard Bissell, the author of the novel 7½ Cents, on which The Pajama Game was based. Say, Darling told the story of how a book was turned into a musical. Then it, in turn, was made into a musical, with Robert Morse portraying the Hal Prince character in a not altogether flattering portrait. Nothing fazed Hal, though, and he kept right on producing. By the early 1960s, after the death of his partner, he had struck out on his own as one of the very few producers on Broadway to earn a solo credit (“Harold Prince presents . . .”). He still knew how to produce better than almost anyone else, and had assembled a solid staff. Included was Carl Fisher, an elegant elderly gentleman, nephew of George Abbott, who had declined to be a partner with Griffith and Prince in the early days, but who stayed on as their general manager. Fisher also headed a syndicate that invested in shows in his name and in the case of Follies was one of the largest investors. Hal was leaning more and more on Carl and the staff, and Ruthie in the rehearsal room, to take care of business, even to the point of arguing with them over expenditures that he as director thought were needed. The overall producing scheme and policy was clearly Hal’s, but the more he could remove himself from the daily nuts and bolts, the happier he was. One day I brought down a sheet of expenses from Carl for him to okay. It totaled over $200,000. He glanced at it, handed it back to me, and said, “Give this to Ruthie. I don’t have the strength to look at it and get mad.”
    Hal was still the sole producer of Follies, although he gave Ruthie “in association with” billing, as he had since Cabaret. He had his usual large group of investors: for Follies there were somewhere between 170 and 207, each of whom put up between $875 and $52,500 for a total of $700,000. A limited partnership, imaginatively named the Follies Company, was formed as the business entity through which the show was produced; the investors were the “limited” partners who provide the capitalization, and the producer was the “general” partner who finds the property, hires the talent, and does the actual producing. The Securities and Exchange Commission regulates the limited partnerships formed to produce shows in New York, and because of the high rate of failure, the offering papers must indicate the track record of the producer raising money to present the show. The legal partnership documents include a lot of detail about the show, the personnel involved, how much they will be paid, and so on. Each investor and the amount of investment has to be listed and filed. The documents often allowed a producer the right to an overcall of a set percentage from each investor should the show go over budget. If there is no such provision (and there was none in the case of Follies ), the producer is allowed to arrange for a loan to the partnership that would then occupy a first-payback position. Since the final reported budget for Follies was close to $800,000, a loan did have to be made. (Rumor had it that Hal put up the money himself, and in an article in Forbes it was reported that one of the obligations when the show