arts & culture
Theater Maven to Bring Mentor
Al Hirschfeld Back to Life
JON MARKS | SPECIAL TO THE JE
Courtesy of David Leopold
D avid Leopold has a simple explana-
tion for the unexpected way his life
has played out.

Dayenu! “I’m the luckiest person you’ll ever
speak with,” said Leopold, who’ll bring his
one-man show “Hirschfeld’s Broadway”
to the Bucks County Playhouse on Sept.

28 — a site the late iconic caricaturist Al
Hirschfeld oft en visited during his remark-
able decades-long career. “As a kid who
grew up with Hirschfeld and then stud-
ied theater through Hirschfeld’s drawings,
post-college I ended up being a curator of
Hirschfeld’s museum and getting to know
him, Dayenu! I have to wake up every day
to make sure I’m not dreaming.”
It’s somehow fi tting Leopold should
provide his modern-day take on Lou
Gehrig’s “Luckiest Man on the Face of
the Earth” speech. Th at’s because before
the “Iron Horse” became a Yankee he
played on the same semi-pro baseball
team as Al Hirschfeld.

Hirschfeld came to New York from
St. Louis aft er his family recognized his
extraordinary artistic talent. Aft er start-
ing out as a sculptor, it wasn’t long before
he began drawing for a living, quickly
establishing his unique skills in putting
pen to paper.

Th at’s just part of the story Leopold,
who’s written several books and spent 13
years witnessing Hirschfeld’s genius, will
incorporate into the show, which focuses
on his mentor’s love of Broadway.

Naturally, that will include plenty of
Jewish content, with discussions ranging
from Irving Berlin to Leonard Bernstein
to Rodgers & Hammerstein and to
Barbra Streisand, among others. While
Hirschfeld was more culturally Jewish
than religious, he was an avid supporter
of Israel and even sailed on the 1953
maiden voyage of the S.S. Jerusalem with
Adlai Stevenson.

Following a short stint as a political
cartoonist, Hirschfeld began to make his
mark in the theater in 1926.

"His theater work was as much part
of the Broadway experience as opening
night,” explained Leopold, who grew up
in Harrisburg, where he went to the
yeshiva until ninth grade. He now lives
David Leopold in 2013
in Bedminster, Bucks County.

Hirschfeld was synonymous with the
theater for good reason.

“His drawings appeared almost always
the Sunday before the show opened. So
when he drew ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ he
didn’t know if it would be a hit or a fl op.

Th at wasn’t the point of his drawings,”
Leopold said. “He was a visual journalist.

He was able to capture the essence of the
show and show you all the activity, but he
never revealed any plot.”
According to Leopold, Hirschfeld was
so skilled and popular that, at one point,
he was the ultimate freelancer, working
for three of New York’s 14 dailies then, as
well as six fi lm studios.

“He would draw the same show
sometimes and give them totally diff er-
ent treatments," said Leopold, creative
director of the nonprofi t Hirschfeld
Foundation. “Sometimes, those draw-
ings would appear on the same Sunday,
so you would see two diff erent drawings
of the same show by the same artist.”
However, there was one thing they all
had in common: the Ninas. Beginning
in 1945, hidden within each Hirschfeld
drawing in a couple of places was the
name of his daughter, Nina. Finding them
became a favorite sport of Hirschfeld
devotees, including Leopold.

”I grew up looking for Ninas in his
drawings,” said the 57-year Leopold, who
fi rst met Hirschfeld in 1989 and became
his archivist and confi dant, “and I lived
long enough to look for Ninas in his
drawings with Al Hirschfeld. I came to
realize they came out organically in his
drawings. Th ey weren’t planned.”
For Louise Kerz Hirschfeld, Al
Hirschfeld’s wife from 1996 until he died
in 2003 at 99½, seeing her late husband
celebrated is gratifying.

“He didn’t just doodle and make
little cartoons on a page,” said Louise
Hirschfeld, a historian who served as
president of the Hirschfeld Foundation
from 2004-‘15. “He actually reinvented
caricature for himself and for the
American theater, and that’s what’s so
important about his work.

“What David is doing is kind of an
interesting adjunct to try and bring some
of the stories and relationships he had
with theatrical fi gures into another form.

It’s a very creative stroke, and I’m anx-
ious to see it.”
Having the premiere in New Hope of
a show Leopold hopes will eventually
tour throughout the country factors into
the story. In July 1939, Hirschfeld was on
hand to chronicle the opening of Bucks
County Playhouse.

His event drawing evoked the ire of a
powerful woman who demanded his job
because she perceived she was portrayed
in an unfl attering way. But her eff orts
failed and, as a theater lover, Hirschfeld
returned to New Hope periodically.

Now, 19 years since his death, in a way
he’s back.

“Al Hirschfeld had a long history with
Bucks County Playhouse,” said Alexander
Fraser, the playhouse’s producing direc-
tor. “We appreciate that David Leopold,
the curator of our archives, asked us to
present the premiere here."
“Th is is someone who truly loved the
theater,” said Leopold, who’ll promote
his new book: “Th e Hirschfeld Century:
A Portrait of the Artist and His Age.”
“Part of our mission is to support the
performing arts.” JE
Jon Marks is a freelance writer.

24th Annual Induction Ceremony
SEPTEMBER 21, 2022
5:30 pm
RODEPH SHALOM
615 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA
Buy Tickets Today to Attend or Purchase a Congratulatory Ad
www.phillyjewishsportsevent.org questions: info@phillyjewishsports.org
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 33