NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� When Iris Rainer Dart’s daughter was in nursery school in the late 1980s, she kept noticing an odd thing happening with her mom and finally confronted her.
鈥淪he came to me one day and she said, 鈥楳ommy, why do all the other mothers come up to you and say, 鈥橧 cried’?鈥� Dart recalls. 鈥淚 said, 鈥榃ell, Mommy wrote that makes people cry.鈥� She didn鈥檛 think that was so great.鈥�
A lot of people, respectfully, disagree. That story was 鈥淏eaches,鈥� which celebrates the deep bonds of female friendship as it traces the decades-long intertwined lives of two very different women, the messy Cee Cee Bloom and buttoned-up Bertie White.
鈥淲omen鈥檚 friends are the ones who get them through this life,鈥� Dart says. 鈥淗usbands are great, but they ain鈥檛 your girlfriend, and they ain鈥檛 the one who鈥檚 going to take your call at four o鈥檆lock in the morning.鈥�
鈥淏eaches鈥� became one of the great all-time cry-inducing stories even as it transcended mediums. It started as a novel, then a movie starring and Barbara Hershey, a TV movie with Idina Menzel and Nia Long, an audiobook and now a Broadway musical.
Dart, 82, co-wrote the musical’s story with Thom Thomas and supplied lyrics to songs by Mike Stoller, half the legendary songwriting team of Leiber & Stoller. 鈥淏eaches鈥� stars as Bertie and Jessica Vosk as Cee Cee and comes to Broadway after a more than 10-year development period. It opens April 22.
鈥榃e were one person鈥�
Dart, who has been a regular at rehearsals, was buzzing after a recent run-through. She took note of how her husband 鈥� who has seen many performances 鈥� reacted. 鈥淚 watched him from a few rows back pull his handkerchief out of his pocket. And I thought, 鈥極K, we鈥檙e good. We got him, we got him.鈥欌��
Lonny Price, who directs the musical with Matt Cowart, says Dart is not precious about her creation and is always open to changes or fresh ideas.
鈥淪he鈥檚 an endless font for these characters,鈥� says Price. 鈥淵ou鈥檇 think she would have expressed all there is to say about them, but she keeps finding new ways to express them and in humorous and dramatic and very useful ways for a libretto.鈥�
Musical theater was Dart’s first love, before she wrote for 鈥淭he Sonny & Cher Show鈥� and 鈥淐her鈥� and launched a career as a novelist. She started as a child actor in Pittsburgh, twice wrote the varsity musical with at Carnegie Mellon University and graduated with a theater degree.
鈥淏eaches鈥� draws on the real-life close friendship Dart developed with her cousin, Sandy, who lived in Miami Beach. Their families would frequently visit each other and meet in Atlantic City or another beach, giving the fictional work its structure. Letters between visits kept the relationship alive.
Sandy married early, moved to Cleveland and had kids right away, following a more conventional path. Dart was an actor rising up through summer stock, then a writer chasing the arts. (There’s a bit of Cher in Cee Cee, as there is some Dart.)
鈥淲e balanced each other out. What one lacked, the other made up for. So that was what kicked it all off,鈥� Dart says. 鈥淚 felt as though we were one person.鈥�
At one point in her own life, Dart called Sandy in a panic 鈥� not even saying hello 鈥� to ask if she had ever had chickenpox. Her son had it now and Dart was pregnant 鈥� so the answer could endanger her unborn daughter. Sandy knew the answer.
鈥淪he said, 鈥榊ou have a pockmark on your left thigh.鈥� I said: 鈥楳y husband doesn鈥檛 know that about me.鈥� And she says, 鈥楬oney, we鈥檝e been married longer.鈥欌��
In the musical, Dart has given Bertie the song 鈥淢y Best鈥� with the lyrics: 鈥淲hen I am with her, it’s as if we share one heart/And if I ever lost her I would fall apart.鈥�
The musical, like the beloved film directed by Gary Marshall, traces the friendship sparked in Atlantic City in 1951 that’s tested over the years by a love triangle, failed marriages, single parenthood and illness.
Cowart says it is a show that explores the often-intense friendships that women maintain: 鈥淚 see that very much in the difference between my male friends and seeing my wife with her friends. It鈥檚 just a different level of closeness. It鈥檚 beautiful. It should be celebrated.鈥�
鈥楾he Wind Beneath My Wings鈥�
The birth of 鈥淏eaches鈥� wasn’t always smooth, with Dart’s literary agent initially finding metaphorical doors slammed in her face. 鈥淪he tried to tell the story to publishers, and they said, 鈥業t鈥檚 not commercial. Who cares about two little girls who meet on a beach in Atlantic City?鈥欌��
After the publication of Dart’s novel 鈥淭he Boys in the Mail Room鈥� in 1980 鈥� a bestseller inspired about a quartet of trainees in a Hollywood studio mailroom who went on to big things 鈥� suddenly people wanted to go back to 鈥淏eaches.鈥�
The Hollywood studio that turned the book into a movie wanted to change things 鈥� like some names and the illness that Bertie contracts 鈥� and Dart chose not to turn her story into a screenplay, on the advice of her husband, Stephen Dart.
鈥淗e said, 鈥業 think you should just write another book or write whatever you want, but don鈥檛 try and do their version of the story because you鈥檒l never be happy.鈥� And he was absolutely right.鈥�
The leap to the stage was immeasurably easy since Dart’s love of musicals led her to include plenty of music in the novel, including 鈥淵ou’ll Never Walk Alone鈥� by Rodgers and Hammerstein and 鈥淚’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise鈥� by George Gershwin. The movie, of course, famously added the hit song which has made the transition to stage.
鈥淓verybody loves that song. They identify it with the piece. So, it鈥檚 crazy not to use it,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 stay in a place in New York and the doorman said to me, ‘How鈥檚 it going Mrs. Dart? You are using the song, aren鈥檛 you?’鈥�
Dart says it’s a privilege to be able to return to Cee Cee and Bertie: 鈥淢aturity changes things. That鈥檚 what gives me a better point of view about both of them.鈥�
There’s also a bit more Dart herself in the work, like the song 鈥淩eal Woman,鈥� which has the line, 鈥淵ou’ll tell them if you’re smart/It’s all about the way you feel, woman/Whether a tough or genteel woman/What makes a real woman is her heart.鈥�
Dart says she’s thumbing her nose at anti-trans and anti-gay people with the song. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know if I would have been bold enough to put that into a show years ago. But I want to make that statement.鈥�
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