A Stoop on Orchard Street is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 by Jay Kholos. The story, inspired by a visit to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, is a nostalgic look at the year 1910. The musical premiered Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 in 2003, where it enjoyed a long run. It has since been revived several times.

Productions

A Stoop on Orchard Street was first performed in a workshop at the Gordon Jewish Community Center, Nashville, Tennessee, in November 2002. The musical ran successfully Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 at The Mazer Theatre on the Lower East Side

Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

 of New York City for a year and a half. The musical started in previews on July 8, 2003 with an opening night on August 7, 2003; it closed on November 14, 2004. The production was directed by Lon Gary and orchestrated by Tom Berger and Jeffrey Campos. It reported a total income of $750,000, unusual for a non-Equity musical housed in a 172-seat theater.

Stoop also toured in North America, starting at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, Skokie, Illinois

Skokie, Illinois

Skokie is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Its name comes from a Native American word for "fire". A Chicago suburb, for many years Skokie promoted itself as "The World's Largest Village". Its population, per the 2000 census, was 63,348...

 in October 2004, and also appearing in Los Angeles, (Canoga Park) (2005), San Francisco, and the Leah Posluns Theatre, Ontario (October 2004), with a separate company in Florida. In a regional production, it played at the Helen Hayes Theatre Company, Nyack, New York

Nyack, New York

Nyack is a village in the towns of Orangetown and Clarkstown in Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of South Nyack; east of Central Nyack; south of Upper Nyack and west of the Hudson River, approximately 19 miles north of the Manhattan boundary, it is an inner suburb of New...

 in December 2004.

Synopsis

On the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Orchard Street, in 1910, Eastern European immigrants, the Lomansky Family, begin a new life in America. An old vaudeville actor, Benny Lomansky, recalls his poverty-stricken childhood and the gossip around the tenement stoop, reliving the struggles and triumphs of his family and neighbors. He remembers that his father Hiram, who worked long hours for little pay, was envious of the lifestyle of his more affluent Americans. Hiram eventually abandons his family.

Roles and original principal cast

• Lon Gary (The Old Man)
• Joel Halstead (The Cop/Guard)
• Joseph Spiotta (Benny Lomansky)
• Stuart Marshall (Shlomo)
• Scott Wagner (Sam)
• David Mendell (Hiram Lomansky)
• Eleni Delopoulos (Ruth Lomansky)
• Deborah Grausman (Seama Lomansky)
• John Kirkwood (Simon)
• Anne Tonelson (The Bubbie)
• Stephanie Wilberding (Mrs. Lipschitz)
• Lili Corn (Immigrant Woman)
• Sarah Matteucci (Sarah)
• Edward Anthony (Sid Lipschitz)
• Kristian Hunter Lazzaro (Kovasky)
• Valerie David (The Volunteer)
• Matthew La Clair (Benny Lomansky, alt.)
• Jonathan Schneidman (Benny Lomansky, alt.)
• Selby Brown (Shlomo/Lipschitz, alt.)

Musical numbers

Act One

• Overture - Orchestra
• Melting Pot - Company
• Why Don't They Go Back - The Cop and Company
• I Remember When (I Was Ten) - The Old Man
• At the Palace - Benny and Company
• The Grass Ain't Always Greener - Sam, Hiram and Men
• More to Me - Hiram and Ruth
• Here's to Our Children - Ruth and The Bubbie
• I Remember When (No TV) - The Old Man
• The Stoop - Women
• Sarah - Simon and Sarah
• Human Kindness - Ruth
• I Remember When (Hot Summer Nights - The Old Man
• The Stoop - Men
• Lipschitz - Lipschitz, Kovasky, Shlomo and Men
• Benny's Ditty - Benny
• Gold Beneath My Feet - Sam, Shlomo, Benny and Hiram

Act Two

• I Remember When (Stoopball) - The Old Man
• Man of the Family - Benny
• Bubbie Song - The Bubbies and Bubbies
• In the Hands of Strangers - Sarah and Sick Immigrants
• Another Man's Wife/Another Dreamer - Sam and Ruth
• Best Day of My Life - Seama
• Man of the Family (Reprise) - Benny
• I Remember When (Lives Improved) - The Old Man
• Across the Brooklyn Bridge - Company
• Americans/Finale - Company

Response

The New York Times reviewer wrote that "This show -- one man's memories of his childhood on the Lower East Side almost a century ago -- is mostly self-important sentimentality, uninspired dancing and music with a badly recycled ring...the well-meaning, affectionately told story of a struggling immigrant Jewish family."

The talkinbroadway reviewer wrote that " 'A Stoop on Orchard Street', while far too gentle to be placed along similar shows like 'Ragtime', 'Rags', or 'Fiddler on the Roof', often feels right at home where it's landed in the Mazer Theater. If sometimes staidly educational in its outlook and execution, the show is inherently intriguing and moving by benefit of its venue, in an area central to the lives of the early 20th century immigrants it documents. That authenticity would be hard to match elsewhere.