Gaines

The one-night, black-tie benefit performance will take the stage—appropriately—at the Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St. The evening will feature Joy Abbott—George Abbott's widow and a Temple alumna—performing an anthology of songs from some of her late husband's Broadway hits and those of his protege and colleague, Harold Prince.

Joining Abbott onstage at the gala event will be Broadway musical star Davis Gaines, who performed as Broadway's “Phantom of the Opera” for some 1,937 performances, and an ensemble of students from Temple's Theater Department, and Boyer College of Music and Department of Dance.

The Abbott-Prince relationship has all the ingredients of a forties Hollywood musical. That was about the time that Harold Prince, fresh out of college (Penn) and with stars in his eyes, headed to New York and George Abbott's office.

“He asked George if he could be a go-fer—anything just to work for him—and George hired him on the spot,” said Joy.

After a two-year interruption when he was drafted to serve in the Korean War, Prince returned and, with Army duffel bag in hand, went straight to the theater where Abbott was directing a show and announced, “Mr. Abbott, I'm back.” Abbott retorted, “Are you back already?”

Within weeks, Abbott, recognizing Prince's abilities, elevated him to script reader and soon after told Prince he should be producing.

“Hal and Bobby Griffith came up with this little known book called Seven-and-a Half Cents and George turned it into Pajama Game,” said Joy.

It was the first of Prince's 20 Tony awards (Abbott won a Tony as well) and the rest is, as they say, the stuff that show business dreams are made of.

Directing the production are Joe Leonardo, head of Temple Theaters, and Dugg McDonough, director of Temple Opera Theater. John Douglas, of Temple Opera Theater, is the music director.

If the Abbott-Prince saga reads like a movie script, the Joy Abbott-George Abbott love affair reads like a storybook romance. She met the theatrical giant in 1959 when he was 72 and at the height of his career, and she was not yet 30.

They dated for nearly 25 years before marrying in 1983. After an 11-year marriage, George Abbott died at the age of 107.

“He was re-writing Pajama Game for the London company two weeks before he died,” Joy Abbott recalled. “It was a happy 41 years. We never had an argument—except maybe about my driving.”

The Abbotts' relationship with Davis Gaines began when George—at age 99—cast him as Joe Hardy in a production of Damn Yankees at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey.

“Davis has the greatest voice, but George wanted to know if he could swing a bat,” joked Joy.

Before becoming Mrs. George Abbott and following her graduation from Temple, she enjoyed success as a performer and as a businesswoman, with her own boutiques in Philadelphia and New Jersey and a fashion production company.

Currently, Joy Abbott is chairman of the Theatre Hall of Fame and will host its 2001 induction ceremony in New York just days before performing You've Gotta Have Heart in Philadelphia. She is co-writing, with Miami Herald theater critic Christine Dolen, a biography of her husband.

Tickets for the performance start at $150 and include the show and a reception with the artists immediately following, as well as a complimentary ticket to the Temple Theaters production of George Abbott's Broadway (running February 7-17 in Tomlinson Theater). Donors of $250 and above also will be invited to a meet the-artists cocktail party on February 11.

Proceeds from the gala event will benefit the performing arts at Temple University. For more information, contact event co-chair Susan Rock at 204-5673.

—Harriet Goodheart, Temple Communications

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