Joel Hirschhorn
and Jennifer Carter

Heartfelt... stark emotional power.

-- Los Angeles Times

Heartbreakingly beautiful songs... Hirschhorn has written several soaring melodies. The first act climax, "How Do You Go On" is as moving as any show tune in recent memory.

-- "Rave" - The Daily Breeze

A powerful story. Hirschhorn's empathetic score travels a wide range. Rachel's beautiful solo, "The Lights Of Palestine" and "Wait" her duet with David, are gorgeous and full of yearning. What happened at Theresienstadt is probably not as widely known as what happened at other camps, and it is a story that needs to be told. Hirschhorn does so with great faith and intensity.

-- The Tolucan Times

This play features beautiful music, very interesting, sensitive lyrics which move the story constantly forward, a book that feels real and true, a cast of actors that sing beautifully, powerfully and touchingly.

-- The Heritage.

A melodious, often sweeping score.

-- Daily News

If there is a play to see in September, it is "Musical Chairs." An extraordinary mixture of excellent drama, history, storyline, music and compelling songs...I attended the play with a couple, one of which was at Theresienstadt from age 9 to 13. We cried. She pieced her life back together successfully but her parents were not as fortunate.... superior acting, singing, stage design, lighting, lyrics and music make this play one of the winners of the year.

-- Sharona Justman, Reviewplays.com

In his latest work, "Musical Chairs" -- a penetrating look at Theresienstadt, a ghetto populated with the great talents of Europe -- Joel Hirschhorn has demonstrated his ability to combine serious subject matter with passionate, poignant lyrics. We are riveted by this new work... we are privileged to include Joel Hirschhorn along side such talented composers and lyricists as Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein and Richard Adler, to name a few.

-- Music Theatre International

CONNECTIONS from Heritage
by Joseph N. Feinstein

According to the Geneva convention, the warring nations agreed to have on-site inspections by the Red Cross to ascertain that there was fair and just treatment of prisoners. For the Nazis, that place was Theresienstadt. Cunningly, the Nazis created a symphony orchestra at this ghetto and gave the musicians instruments, time and a place to rehearse and perform for other inmates and for the neutral inspectors to observe that the inmates were treated justly and humanely.

Taking this place as the basis for his musical of horror, inhumanity and yet ever-shining, ever-constant hope, Joel Hirschhorn, two-time Academy Award winner, has created a splendid symphony of cacophonous, raucous yet inspiring anthems in "Musical Chairs." The play opened on Friday, August 24 at the El Portal Center for the Arts in North Hollywood.

This is not an easy play to review. Its elements are a blend of despair, the same cruelty we've seen in countless plays and movies and the insidious horror as the Nazis juxtapose their overt "concern" with their true, hideous behavior. However, each play deserves to be recognized on its own merits.

And this play features beautiful music, very interesting, sensitive lyrics which move the story constantly forward, a book that feels real and true, a cast of actors that sing beautifully, powerfully and touchingly. Most of all, it reminds all Jews that the world has never changed their feelings about us as a people; but as long as we have Eretz-Yisroel, we have a homeland which is ours. If that isn't current news, I don't know what is! This is a big-scale production in the intimacy of a 99 seat theater. The set design is marvelous, lighting most effective, direction by Jules Aaron sure and true. "Musical Chairs" is quality throughout and very worthy of your attendance.

DAILY NEWS, August 25, 2001

NEVER FORGOTTEN
Evan Henerson - Theatre Writer

There's music that pays the rent, music that catches the ear and music that fulfills your soul. And sometimes, when you're very lucky, the same song or group of songs fits all three categories. Joel Hirschhorn has written ear candy and scores to 1970s Disney films like "Freaky Friday" and "Pete's Dragon." For a while, he became typecast as the man to hire if you need a ballad for your disaster movie after he collected two Oscars for songs from "The Poseidon Adventure" (The Morning After) and "The Towering Inferno" (We May Never Love Like This Again").

His musical theater career hasn't exactly been a bust either. Hirschhorn was nominated for a Tony award for his score of "Copperfield" and for the revised version of "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" which gets regular revivals.

His latest theater venture, however, is not designed to inspire toe tapping. If audiences leap to their feet after sitting through "Musical Chairs" they may well do so with tears streaming down their faces. "Musical Chairs" written with his wife Jennifer Dlouhy Carter, and opening this weekend at the El Portal Center for the Arts in North Hollywood, takes place in the ghetto of Theresienstadt during the Holocaust. It's about music -- and musicians - who disappear.

No peppiness here, although Hirschhorn is hoping audiences will find his story of the human spirit enduring despite considerable odds as uplifting to watch as it was for the composer to write it.

"I think, in every writer's life, there's a time when you don't just want to take assignments," says Hirschhorn, sitting with Carter in the living room of their Agoura Hills home. "You want to make a statement that's personal. I've written a lot of pop songs, even doing the songs for the Disney films. That was wonderful and I loved it all, but it wasn't necessarily anything you had to do with me personally. I guess at a point in your life when you're not 25 years old, you feel like 'I want to say something I feel very very powerfully' and I think that happened. It just became an obsession."

To hear husband and wife tell it, "Musical Chairs" was a mutual obsession. Billed as the "model ghetto" 90 miles north of Prague, Theresienstadt was the camp built at great expense by the Nazis to demonstrate to the world that they were treating Jews humanely.

In preparation for a visit from the International Red Cross in 1943, the SS cleared out all the sick and dying and fabricated a ghetto to look like a mini paradise. They constructed dummy storefronts, a cafe, bank and kindergarten.

"It was so fascinating, when I got into all of this, and started finding out to what extremes the Nazis went to put out this whole false front," says Carter, whose father is of Czech descent. "They had a soccer game and a goal was scored right on cue. They had little kids calling the commandant, one of the most brutal, vicious murderers 'Uncle Rom.' "Oh, please, Uncle Rom, don't feed us sardines again," and here they were starving."

"I really want people to understand that they must never just take a situation at face value," says Carter. "Always go deeper for the truth."

Some of the most talented artists of Europe were gathered at Theresienstadt, many simply for purposes of propaganda. Artists Leo Haas and Malvina Schalkova were at the camp, as were composers Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, Hans Krasa and Viktor Ullmann.

"All of the people who would have been celebrated had they lived," says Hirschhorn. "That's the whole thing: the incalculable loss of talent."

PERSONAL RESONANCE

Hirschhorn and Carter's research has included meetings with officials at the Museum of Tolerance and visits to Theresiestadt.

Hirschhorn also found some of the play's thematic inspiration from his own life. Growing up in the Bronx, Hirschhorn said he was an outsider, the type of kid who wasn't especially good at athletics.

"I felt like I didn't fit in," he says, "I felt very out of it, but I had my music. Music was there and it gave me that impetus to move on no matter how difficult times were."

"He was supposed to go off to camp for the first time," adds Carter, clearly recounting a favorite anecdote. "And he had just heard Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. He was so taken by the incredible beauty of it that he begged his mother not to send him off. He didn't want to go off to camp."

"I was pulled kicking and screaming," concludes Hirschhorn.

Hirschhorn later studied at the High School of Performing Arts and went on to play in a rock band called the Highlighters. Performers who have recorded Hirschhorn's music include Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, Sammy Davis Jr. and Elvis Presley, who scored a hit with the Hirschhorn-penned song, "Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby."

But even years away from his awkward school days, Hirschhorn could still identify with a character who could use the power of music to transcend a horrible situation.

"Creativity and art and music can give you hope when everything else looks bleak," says Hirschhorn. "That's embodied in my heroine, who is able not only to go on in the midst of great adversity, but also to inspire everyone around her."

Acclaimed director Jules Aaron, like the Hirschhorns a mutual friend of El Portal Artistic Director Jim Brochu, found the material intriguing as well.

"When Jim told me about this play, before I even read it, I found it such an interesting moment in history, both moving as well as terrifying," said  Aaron. "To me the play is about the development of a hero, and Rachel in the play comes from a point where her music certainly is one of the reasons that this group is allowed to stay in the camp. We all have it within us to become heroes and to fulfill whatever our destiny is."

SELECTED REVIEWS FOR
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting

I Write The Songs -- Newsweek’s David Gates contemplates The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Songwriting -- and considers a different career track:

"I’d hate for this to get back to my bosses at Newsweek, but here in the anarchic, free-spirited world of the Internet I have no problem with letting it out: this may be the last piece of journalistic content-providing I’ll ever have to do. The publishers of that line of “Complete Idiot’s” how-to books sent me their newest item, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Songwriting, apparently hoping I’d review it. Well. Not only will I not review it, I mean to do everything I can to keep other writers who know how to play the guitar from finding out about the thing, at least until I’ve made my pile. (For readers of a certain age, I guess I should explain that I’m not the David Gates of the ’70s rock group Bread, who’s already made his pile.)..."
Read the rest of this wonderful review at Newsweek Online.

MUSIC WORLD MAGAZINE: ON THE SCENE by Bruce Britt "Informative and tremendously fun to read, Joel Hirschhorn’s book The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Songwriting (Alpha; $16.95) is for anyone that has ever heard a song on the radio and thought, 'I would have done that a little differently.'  Even though most people are not formally trained musicians, many possess the intuitive skills required to compose hit songs.  Hirschhorn’s book is designed to awaken and inspire the sleeping creator within. Hirschhorn is uniquely qualified to write a 'how-to' songwriting book.  A two-time Oscar winning composer, he has sold over 93 million records and has been nominated for two Tony awards.  Moreover, he has had success in multiple fields, including country, R&B, pop, film, theatre and commercials.

"Though Hirschhorn’s book is a must-read for aspiring songwriters, it’s also a great reference for experienced tunesmiths.  With its uncomplicated format, historical information and advice, The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Songwriting simplifies the often complex craft of composing.  Chapters include 'A Century of Songwriting,' 'Secrets of Great Hit Melody Writing' and 'Becoming a Great Song Salesman.'  The book even comes with a handy reference card that touches on some of its key points.

"Anyone who has sold over 93 million records, won two Academy Awards and been nominated for two Tony awards for Best Broadway score has seen and done it all. Joel Hirschhorn's invaluable tips will benefit every songwriter and give them the keys they need for success."

-- Jerry Herman, "Hello Dolly," "Maine," "La Cages Aux Folles" 

"Joel Hirschhorn has won two Best Song Oscars and been nominated for two Tony Awards and four Golden Globes. The writing principles he used and the secrets of his amazing success are contained in these remarkable pages. Joel covers it all in absorbing detail - from first demos to gold records. If you want to know how to write million sellers and award-winning songs, this is the book for you."

-- Marvin Hamlisch, "Chorus Line," "The Way We Were," "The Sting"

"If you want to carve out a career in music and lyric writing, you'll learn how in this gracious and insightful book. Thank you, Joel! "

-- Maureen McGovern, "The Morning After," "We May Never Love Like This Again" 

"Here's a great collection of tips for anyone interested in writing songs, film scores or stage musicals."

-- Paul Williams, 'Evergreen," "We've Only Just Begun" 

"This book gives realistic, practical advice on how to tap your bit potential, by a two-time Academy Award winner who's traveled every road - from the Bral Building to Broadway."

-- Carole Bayer Sager, "They're Playing Our Song," "Arthur," "That's What Friends Are For"