For playwright Jay Kholos, the origins of his off-Broadway show “A Stoop on Orchard Street” began with a simple query: What ever happened to Tevye and his family after arriving in America?
It was a fair question to ask, considering Kholos hoped to write a kind of sequel to “Fiddler on the Roof.”
“A Stoop on Orchard Street” makes its Bay Area premiere with a two-week run at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco beginning Wednesday, June 15.
The musical tells the story of the Lomanskys, a Jewish immigrant family living in the tenements of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, circa 1910. “It’s about the challenges people faced becoming Americans,” he says. “It is an up show, but it does have its dark moments.”
For Kholos, the tale is a mix of fact and fiction. Much of the characterizations come from the reminiscences of Kholos’ late grandfather, who himself lived in the teeming Jewish slums of New York. Says Kholos, “He was one of the huddled masses.”
Also inspiring Kholos was a trip to the Tenement Museum in lower Manhattan. “It’s a time capsule of what life was like,” he says. “Ten to 12 people to a room, very poor sanitary conditions.”
Kholos’ visit to the museum came not long after the Sept. 11 attacks, an event that hit close to home, as his son had been living in New York City at the time.
“The thought of family and what’s important came up,” he recalls. “Then I wondered more about my own family, how they got here, and the typical Eastern European Jewish story on the Lower East Side.”
That certainly doesn’t describe Kholos’ experience. He grew up in Los Angeles in a secular but culturally rich Jewish household (“My dad’s joke was that the synagogue was closed for the High Holidays”). He went on to launch a career in television, starting out on classic series like “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “Make Room for Daddy,” later becoming an award-winning writer-producer for TV and radio.
Though he always enjoyed musical theater, he had never tried his hand at it until “Orchard Street.” To write the show’s 18 songs, he followed the method Mel Brooks used to compose music for his smash hit “The Producers.” He sang into a tape recorder.
(As an interesting aside, Kholos’ son is married to Mel Brooks’ daughter).
“I did try to get a [Yiddish] flavor musically,” he says, “but I was more interested in the humor.”
Among the show’s songs are: “Melting Pot,” “Grass Ain’t Always Greener,” “More to Me” and a show-stopper called “Lipschitz,” which is about the tendency on the part of some Jews to anglicize their names.
The show premiered in New York’s Mazer Theater (a stone’s throw from the Tenement Museum) in July 2003, and became the longest-running show in the theater’s history. It received many glowing reviews and eventually went on a 30-city tour, playing cities all over North America. The show recently marked its 1,000th performance, and Kholos said he was in the audience for every one of them.
Looking ahead, Kholos is planning a new Jewish-themed musical, this one about the heyday of the Catskill resorts. He also hopes to take “Orchard Street” back to New York, next time on the Great White Way.
Meanwhile, he is happy that the show seems to have struck a chord with audiences across the country. It’s a chord he continues to hear with every performance.
“I’m zeroing in on little nuances,” he says about catching the show night after night. “Then there’s the moments when everything is perfect. It makes me remember why I did it.”
“A Stoop on Orchard Street” plays 8 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, June 15 to 26, plus weekend matinees, at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California St., S.F. Tickets: $49. Information: (800) 957-8667.