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Barbra's Childhood >>

Part 1 of Early Career >>

Another Evening with Harry Stoones

October 21, 1961
Gramercy Arts Theater
New York, NY

(Above) Barbra sang "Jersey" next to a half-packed suitcase

With a first act billed as "The Civil War" and a second
act titled "The Roaring Twenties" (neither act had anything to do with those time periods), Another Evening with Harry Stoones was a mischievous review performed by eight young talents who sang and acted in the show’s various skits. Even the title made fun of theater conventions — there had never been a first evening with Harry Stoones!

The show opened with the cast running onto the stage and singing "Bye, Goodbye and Thanks". Barbra starred in several of the sketches. In "Indian Nuts" she played an Indian in a spoof of Columbus’ discovery of America; The song, "Value" ("I’m in love with Harold Mengert") comes from Harry Stoones; Also, the short comedic number which Barbra performed before the Bergdorf Goodman section of her first television special ("I’ve Got the Blues")
was from Stoones; "Big Barry" was a comedic sketch whose punch line was Barbra walking up to her boyfriend in the locker room and saying, "Barry, I’m pregnant."; "Jersey" was a three-act song about a woman whose lover has moved to New Jersey. She ends the song by vowing to find him. The ending lyrics are, "I won’t yell, I won’t scream, I won’t squawk, for it’s better to die together in Jersey than
be single in New York." Barbra, with her Brooklyn accent, rhymed "squawk" with "York".

Barry Dennen recalled another number ("I'm Gonna Build a Dream House") in which the cast try to put together a honeymoon cottage. Streisand played a cross-eyed bride being carried across the threshold in this number.

Variety’s review mentioned Streisand as "a slim, offbeat comedienne with a flair for dropping a black-out gag. And she belts across a musical apostrophe to New Jersey with facile intensity."

copyright © 2003-2007 Matt Howe