Eastern Iowa natives in Barry Manilow’s ‘Harmony’ on Broadway

Nov. 13 was a triple treat for triple-threat singer/dancer/actor Daniel Z. Miller.

That date marked the Cedar Rapids native’s 27th birthday, his Broadway debut, and opening night for “Harmony,” the new show by composer Barry Manilow and writer/lyricist Bruce Sussman.

Showcasing the Comedian Harmonists from pre-World War II Germany, it’s billed as “the extraordinary true story of the greatest entertainers the world would ever forget.”

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Naturally, the cast of “Harmony” showered Miller with “Happy Birthday” in glorious harmony backstage.

“We don’t do anything (that’s) not in harmony,” he said with a laugh.

Miller described the whole experience as “very surreal,” and he “half expected to wake up.”

So many dreams came true for him that night, and continue to come true not only for Miller, but also for Iowa City-born Kayleen Seidl, who is making her Broadway debut, as well. But that’s not all. Cedar Rapids native Karissa Riehl is running the follow spotlight for the show.

At a glance

What: “Harmony” on Broadway

Local connection: Eastern Iowa natives onstage and behind the scenes

Where: Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St., New York

When: Various times Tuesday to Sunday; no shows Monday

Tickets: $80 to $318 premium seating; harmonyanewmusical.com/

Miller is part of the ensemble, and an understudy for two of the Harmonists, Erich and pianist Chopin, as well as the Nazi officer known as Standartenfuhrer. Seidl is an ensemble member and understudy for Mary, the Nazi officer’s wife. And Riehl trains her spotlight on lead actor Chip Zien, who plays the older version of Comedian Harmonists singer “Rabbi” Josef Roman Cycowski.

Coincidentally, all three Iowa natives live in the same Astoria neighborhood of Queens. Miller’s household will be expanding, since he and his wife, Marion native Allie Hagerman Miller, are expecting their first child “soon.”

In yet another “small world” moment, Marion native Ellie Detweiler, who works for the Broadway publicity firm DKC/O&M, arranged all The Gazette interviews and provided the photos for this article.

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Synopsis

The six German singers who delighted audiences with their close harmonies and hilarious stage antics, rose to fame in the 1930s through concerts and films. Three were Jewish, and another had married a Jewish woman, all of which drew the ire of the rising Nazi regime.

“In that pre-World War II time, they hit their break and started getting very famous,” Seidl said. “They were kind of on track to be as famous as The Beatles (later would be), and even performed at Carnegie Hall and started traveling internationally.”

But stifled by censorship of their material and eventually banned from performing in public, the group disbanded. Several tried to form new groups abroad, with modest success, before they, too, gave up.

“Miraculously, they did all survive through the war,” Miller said. “Some of them fled, some of them were arrested and then deported. Some of the non-Jewish members who were German natives, were inspected, arrested, sent to the front, but they did all actually survive through the war. ...

“That’s one of the nice things about our show. It’s like, OK, this is all crazy, but we’re not going to end up with everybody dying,” unlike the tragic ending to “Cabaret,” also set at the rise of World War II.

“We compare it to ‘Cabaret’ a lot, just because it’s in a similar time, it’s largely in Berlin and it does punch you in the gut at times,” Miller said. “But there’s an extra couple of dashes of optimism and hope that you don’t really see in the script for ‘Cabaret.’ ”

Manilow and Sussman have been working on the musical for nearly 30 years. Previews began in San Diego in 1997, reportedly to mixed reviews. After a lack of funding nixed planned runs in Philadelphia in December 2003 and Broadway in 2004, it had short runs in Atlanta in 2013 and Los Angeles in 2014.

An off-Broadway run was postponed twice — in 2020 and 2021 — because of the pandemic, so the two reworked the show during the shutdown. In addition to the six main characters, Manilow and Sussman added an older version of the singer known as “Rabbi.”

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“So it ends up taking the form of a sort of memory play,” said Seidl, who was born in Iowa City when her father was in medical school at the University of Iowa. Her dance roots were sown there, before her family moved to Omaha when she was 3, then Joplin, Mo., when she was about 7. Despite the moves, she said her family and Iowa relatives remain die-hard Hawkeye fans.

She has been with “Harmony” in earnest since workshopping it in 2021, then moved to the off-Broadway cast in 2022, followed by the current Broadway production.

The off-Broadway show picked up the 2022 Off-Broadway League Award for Outstanding off-Broadway Musical, and Drama Desk Award for Sussman for Outstanding Book of a Musical. The show then moved from the intimate J. Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage to Broadway’s much larger Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Reactions

The reviews are glowing. Variety deemed: “Every element of Harmony clicks in place like a gorgeous puzzle. And that’s Harmony’s greatest thrill. It demonstrates the power of making humanity sing, even in our darkest hours.” Theatermania noted: “Harmony lets comedy sing in the unlikeliest of places.”

Pointing to the correlations to today’s unrest on the world stage, Entertainment Weekly declared: “Powerful, moving and more resonant than ever.”

That’s one of the aspects Miller especially embraces, and he’s glad word-of-mouth also is helping the show reach holiday travelers who want a Broadway experience during their stay in the city.

“The audiences that we have had, have been super receptive. It’s such an important story to be telling right now during this time,” he said.

Reactions at the stage door after the show, and online, have been calling it “a moving show” and “an important show for right now.”

Debuts

Miller, whose family moved to Houston when he was 10, feels “very blessed and very grateful” to be stepping onto a Broadway stage.

“Obviously, you work very hard and you chase after something for a very long time,” Miller said. “But when it actually happens, it’s like you just have this awareness of, ‘If I hadn’t been in this place at this time, living when I do now, being raised by the people that I was raised by.’ All of these life things, you look back and you’re like, ‘Wow, I literally wouldn’t be here if my parents weren’t so awesome, and if my wife wasn’t so awesome, and the program that I went to for school hadn’t prepared me so much.’

“You think about all the people who work and work and work and work and never get to have that experience, and it’s just very humbling,” he said. “You have to do the work to get there, but gosh, it’s also just a lot of pieces that fall into place that are so outside of your control. I feel very grateful and humbled by that.”

Seidl, 32, echoed that sentiment.

“Obviously, there’s the excitement in just making a Broadway debut,” she said. “It’s something I’ve been working toward, but it’s really more than that for me. I mean, any Broadway debut is going to be exciting, but the joy of getting to be in this process in an original musical on Broadway.

“And not only that, but the culmination of so many years of work on Bruce and Barry’s part — just the sheer amount of perseverance and passion that is infused in this work in this company. That is so joyous to be a part of,” she said. “ ... I said to my mom, 'Long- running shows, no matter how amazing, can get tiring.’ But I said, ‘I will always just think about Bruce because the joy on his face because of making this happen and not giving up, it means so much.

“They knew this was important, and it’s getting its moment. And that,” she said, “brings me joy. That — and just seeing the impact it’s having.

“I think we all knew that Barry Manilow fans would love it because it’s Barry. But seeing high school groups that are so thrilled over the show is one of the big surprises for a lot of us. It’s really a joy. There’s so many layers, because it’s a joy to be a part of an important story. ... It’s really special on many levels.”

Fair warning for Manilow fans: The score doesn’t sound like the ’70s pop hit parade that sent so many swooning.

“It’s gorgeous. I love it,” Miller said. “A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that it’s a jukebox musical that pulls from the Barry Manilow catalog that we all know.”

He likens it, instead, to the Golden Age of Broadway’s classic sounds, with a timeless element.

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Tech aspects

Riehl, 40, a 2002 graduate of Cedar Rapids Washington High School, then Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids and the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, has been working in New York for nearly 17 years.

She’s been working behind the scenes in Broadway houses for about 10 years, including several shows at the theater where “Harmony” is playing. Lighting is her specialty, but she works wherever she’s needed, including load-in and load-out.

The scope of productions was eye-opening when she arrived in New York after college. Not only are they bigger, grander and have more money behind them, but moving into a theater means bringing everything — all the technical equipment as well as the scenery, costumes and props.

“They don't own any gear, they don’t own speakers, they don't own lights, they don't own costumes, they don’t own sets — they own nothing,” she said. “You literally get the theater’s four walls, so we have to bring in absolutely everything to the theater and build stuff on the site.”

it can take three weeks just to load in the equipment, since advance pieces are built in shops outside of the city and trucked in, she added.

While “Harmony” is smaller in scope for scenery, “you gotta have those lights,” she said, noting that unlike most shows, which use two or three spotlights, this show uses just one.

In the end, the joys of her job involve working with her hands.

“I like working hard for money,” she said. “Sometimes you have to run miles and miles of cable in the ceiling and it’s kind of dirty and dusty work, and it’s hard and it’s sweaty really putting together a show. ...

“And it’s fun to watch, especially in Broadway houses that are not that big in terms of stage space. Putting on these intricate-looking musicals in just the tightest, tightest spaces. It’s fun to see that — all your hard work coming together.

“It’s fun to follow people around with the follow spot (and) run the lighting board. It’s fun to be on stage running around the lighting towers and stuff,” she said.

“It’s exciting, and I’m really fortunate that I can do this — that it’s my job.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com