Stage
Romeo & Bernadette
With music of Classic Italian Melodies
Book and lyrics by Mark Saltzman
Photo by Russ Rowland
A musical tale of Verona and Brooklyn. Romeo returns and finds himself in another feud - this time, warring mob families.
New York Times Critic’s Choice. Drama Desk nominee for Outstanding Book and Lyrics for a Musical.
Productions
Theater 555 (Off-Broadway, NYC)
Paper Mill Playhouse (NJ)
Skokie Theater (Chicago)
Greenway Theater (Manila, Philippines)
Naru Arena Performance Hall (Seoul, Korea)
In ‘Romeo & Bernadette,’ It’s Off to Brooklyn for This Tale of Joy
Romeo & Bernadette is a sweet, spoofy romp of a musical comedy. It feels fond, familiar, escapist: theater as merry comfort food. The appeal of that—especially in this time of relentlessly dire headlines—is not to be underestimated."
—The New York Times
2020 AWARD NOMINATIONS
OFF BROADWAY ALLIANCE
BEST MUSICAL
DRAMA DESK AWARDS
Outstanding Lyrics – Mark Saltzman
Outstanding Book – Mark Saltzman
OUTER CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
Best Book – Mark Saltzman
Best Supporting Actress – Judy McLane
RIOTOUSLY FUNNY! THE COMPANY IS FULL OF TERRIFIC VOICES.“
–Michael Dale, Broadway World May 16, 2022
YOU’LL FIND YOURSELF LAUGHING OUT LOUD!
This musical spoof has some very funny dialogue and song lyrics delivered by an uber talented cast. It’s pure entertainment and receives an “A+” from us."
–Sandi Durell, Theater Pizzazz, May 16, 2022
IT’S BEDDUH THAN EVUH!
Riotously clever and over-the-top funny, Romeo & Bernadette is sharp-witted and fun-loving, while affirming the importance of love and harmony to avert tragedy."
–Deb Miller, DC Theater Arts, May 16, 2022
A LAUGH-OUT-LOUD FUNNY SHOW
that'll send you off smiling. Excellent performances feature some full-on belting and wow the crowd. For a fun night out, grab your goombahs and say, 'Andiamo!'"
– Pete Hempstead, Theatermania
THE PERFECT COMBINATION OF LOVE AND LAUGHS!
To describe Saltzman's show as something that simply 'works' is a complete understatement. It's quite exciting to see a piece of theater fully take charge of itself, and Romeo & Bernadette is truly a model citizen of Off-Broadway productions. Say "fuhgeddaboudit!" to any show you were thinking about seeing this week and allow Romeo & Bernadette to sing, dance and perhaps even throw some Italian charm into your life instead.”
– Kristen Morale, BroadwayWorld.com
A FUN ROMANTIC NIGHT AT THEATRE WITH LAUGHS GALORE!
This bada bing bada boom tale is like Moonstruck mixed with The Sopranos and is laugh out loud funny thanks to Mark Saltzman’s book and lyrics and clever use of songs adapted from classic Italian melodies arranged with panache by Steve Orich. Director Justin Ross Cohen makes over the top Italian stereotypes lovable thanks to his fresh and uber talented stellar cast.”
– Times Square Chronicles
A new take on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet so clever and well performed that you can say it's been worth waiting centuries for.”
– Rob Lester, EDGE Media Network
A SMART, MELODIC BREATH OF FRESH AIR!
This nutty and very funny mashup is the brainchild of Mark Saltzman who wrote the book and lyrics. Your face will ache with smiles and laughter. Go see it for yourself. Probably twice so that you catch all the jokes.”
– Oscar Moore, Talk Entertainment
Another Roll of the Dice
Book by Mark Saltzman, based on Damon Runyon stories
Songs by Frank Loesser and his collaborators
Another Roll of the Dice reunites songwriter Frank Loesser and author Damon Runyon, the creators of the legendary Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. In “Dice,” three classic Runyon stories are intertwined with hits from the Frank Loesser songbook - “Heart and Soul,” “Two Sleepy People,” and “Let’s Get Lost” and many more.
Productions
North Coast Rep. (San Diego, CA)
If any part of you is tickled by the minks, fedoras, crooks, and coppers of ’20s and ’30s gangster schtick, you’ll love this consistently fun romp.
- San Diego Magazine
A fabulous return visit to the “Guys and Dolls” universe with some fun characters, romance, and lovely songs.
- Broadway World
Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but with “Another Roll of the Dice” you’ll find a real winner.
- North County Sun
A cleverly crafted story of shady characters and shady stories.
- The Vista Press
Alice Formerly of Wonderland
Playwright: Mark Saltzman
Music: Classic British songs arranged a cappella
Production
Ensemble Theater Company ( Santa Barbara, CA)
“In the thoroughly entertaining Alice, Formerly of Wonderland a biographically-themed musical by playwright/songwriter Mark Saltzman receiving an impressively polished world premiere staging from Santa Barbara’s Ensemble Theatre Company, the real-life Alice Liddell once again provides the inspiration for a work of quirky creative imagination.
Creator Saltzman clearly knows his way around a winning musical theatre template, but he takes an inventive risk here with an all a-cappella score composed of period-appropriate songs and verse (with vocal arrangements by Jack Lipson)...his witty, literate dialog receives admirably assured delivery from all.”
- Stage Raw, Los Angeles, Philip Brandes
“Hilariously bittersweet, smart and daring, Alice, Formerly of Wonderland is a refreshing take on a revered tale. With a whirlwind story and the use of stagecraft complimented by the illusory nature of the source material, it works...a triumph.
Saltzman uses all the richness of the time, place, and the rabbit hole itself to craft a sharp, funny, and reassuring story about the difference between what we want and what we can have.”
- Santa Barbara VOICE, Jesse Caverly
“A real corker!...Switching scenes from Oxford University in 1872 to Buckingham Palace, and the dean’s (Alice’s father) garden, the Mark Saltzman-written musical, directed by Jim Fall and with a cappella music arranged by Jack Lipson, is an absolute joy from beginning to end.”
- Montecito Journal, Richard Mineards
54 Forever
Playwright: Mark Saltzman
With songs of the Disco era
Directed by Tommy Tune
A new musical about the rise and fall of the man who co-founded the iconic 1970s nightclub Studio 54, is being created by dramatist Mark Saltzman and multiple Tony Award-winning director-choreographer Tommy Tune in the relative quiet of the Department of Theatre Arts of the University of Miami, where the creators have been in rehearsal with students in recent weeks…
Productions
U of Miami (Florida)
Falling for Make Believe
Playwright: Mark Saltzman
With songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
The true story of Lorenz Hart is presented for the first time – his struggle with the closet and the bottle, his tortured relationship with his songwriting partner Richard Rodgers, and most poignantly, his ability to capture love in his lyrics, but not his life. Featuring 21 Rodgers and Hart classics, including “The Lady is a Tramp,” “Bewitched,” and “This Can’t Be Love.”
Productions
Colony Theater, Los Angeles
Skokie Theater, Chicago
Rocket City, Alabam’
Playwright: Mark Saltzman
Rocket City, Alabam’ dramatizes a carefully hushed-up episode in the history of the American South. In the early 1950’s, at the dawn of the Cold War, Hitler’s top rocket engineers were quietly slipped into the U.S. to create an American missile program. These Germans had to be settled somewhere, and the spot selected by the U.S. Army was Huntsville, Alabama, a Southern town which happened to be home to a century-old Jewish community.
In this fictionalized account of true events, young all-American Army major, Hamilton Pike Jr. oversees a team headed by Hitler’s brilliant rocket designer, Wernher Von Braun. As the Germans are carefully assimilated into Huntsville, passionate objections arise from some townspeople and from Amy Lubin, a college-age Jewish New Yorker engaged to Jed Kessler, a local boy.
The battle of wills between Major Pike and Amy explores revenge and forgiveness, idealism and practicality, presenting these themes with sensitivity and a bittersweet humor. The Alabama townspeople are wise, greedy, petty, and deliciously funny as “little ol’ Huhs-vull” is transformed into Rocket City, Alabam’. This comedy-drama of a suppressed slice of American history is enlivened by some famous regional songs, including “Down By the Riverside,” “Alabama Bound,” “This Little Light of Mine.”
Productions
Alabama Shakespeare Festival
Skokie Theater (Chicago)
Set Up and Punch
Playwright: Mark Saltzman
Music: Berton Averre. Lyrics: Rob Meurer
They write the words, he writes the music. A clever songwriting duo’s promising relationship is blown to bits when they must collaborate with the sex-god singer-composer of a cutting edge rock band. Love gets sung in the wrong key, proving the old adage: there are two sides to every triangle.
Nominated as “Best Musical”by Los Angeles Weekly
Productions
Blank Theater Company (Los Angeles)
World Premiere Production, Blank Theater Company, 2009
Los Angeles Weekly: Nomination - Musical of the Year 2009
“Freud said it all comes down to love and work, but didn't mention what to do when the two collide head-on. That's the premise of Mark Saltzman's droll new comedy, 'Setup & Punch’ - double entendre intended. Featuring four songs by The Knack's Berton Averre and keyboardist Rob Meurer’s, this deft three-hander is a kind of ‘Will and Grace’ meets ‘The Bad and the Beautiful’...’Setup’ makes the point that joy can be person-specific. Painfully so. That source of delight may leave your life, but the longing for what he or she brings out in you never does. "
—Los Angeles Times
“Cross ‘They're Playing Our Song’ with ‘Will & Grace’ and stir in hip seriocomic undercurrents oozing with up-to- the-minute relevance. The result is Mark Saltzman's deliriously funny and surprisingly touching world- premiere play, revolving around a Rubik's Cube of crisscrossing motivations that prove all's fair in love, war, and fervent showbiz ambitions. It's hard to recall a play that explored the crazy world of driven creative artists this incisively or one with such a fresh and savvy view of sexual politics in the 21st century."
—Backstage
“Three pitch-perfect actors draw us into the giddy fun, then sock us in the solar plexus with the rueful emotional reality at the play's core.”
— LA Stage Happenings
Mr. Shaw Goes to Hollywood
Playwright: Mark Saltzman
1933 Luncheon at MGM: Bernard Shaw, Marion Davies, Louis B. Mayer, Clark Gable
On March 29, 1933, as part of a round-the-world tour he took with his wife, playwright and social reformer George Bernard Shaw visited Hollywood for the first and only time in his life. For the Shaws, Hollywood was a three-hour whirlwind which included a luncheon on the MGM lot with Clark Gable, Louis B. Mayer and William Randolph. The hostess was Marion Davies, Hearst’s young mistress who was a prominent film actress and producer. With reporters following Shaw’s every step, the events of that day were well documented, and they are re-created in Mark Saltzman’s comedy Mr Shaw Goes to Hollywood.
The Shaws’ day started off absurdly enough. Flying in Hearst’s private plane, an aviation mishap caused an emergency landing on Malibu Beach. Hitch-hiking along the coast highway, the Shaws accepted a ride with a UCLA sophomore — Shaw in the rumble seat. Meanwhile, at MGM, Marion Davies is determined to star in a film of Shaw’s hit play Pygmalion and will stop at nothing to weasel the rights from the playwright. Unknown to Davies, studio head LB Mayer has plans to make that very movie with Marion’s rival, Norma Shearer as Eliza Doolittle. But Marion is fortunate that Mr Mayer’s attention is elsewhere, on the scandal surrounding his biggest male star, Clark Gable, whose secret affair with an MGM star is about to become public knowledge All this is seen through the eyes of our guide, Charlotte Shaw, a sensible, intellectual and socially aware woman, who finds herself an Alice in this strange Wonderland of scheming, greed and glamour.
Productions
Laguna Playhouse (Laguna Beach, CA)
Pioneer Playhouse (Kentucky)
Greenhouse Theater (Chicago)
Irish Rep, NYC (Staged reading)
Los Angeles Times - Don Shirley
A vivacious, sprightly comedy...Expect no heady, long-winded Shavian arguments here. Mark Saltzman’s play is replete with wisecracks and fast-paced scenes.
Backstage West - Kristina Mannion
Thanks to author Mark Saltzman, in this comedy we get a taste of some of the clever banter that might have passed between George Bernard Shaw and his fellow guests as Shaw attempts to soak in the Hollywood lifestyle. Ultimately, with Shaw’s wry humor and satiric wit as its anchor, Saltzman’s script turns out to be an inventive and amusing romp that both celebrates and light-heartedly indicts Hollywood’s glitzy reputation.
Orange County (Calif.) Register - Paul Hodgins
Vivid and wickedly funny. Saltzman’s puckish comic voice sparkles.
The Tin Pan Alley Rag
Playwright: Mark Saltzman
Music by Scott Joplin and Irving Berlin
Although there is no historic record of Irving Berlin and Scott Joplin ever having met, it’s not unlikely that the legendary songwriters’ paths might have crossed in that district of New York City known in the early part of the 20th century as Tin Pan Alley. That’s the premise of this intriguing musical play, set into motion when the aging Joplin happens into young Berlin’s office in search of a publisher for his opera, Treemonisha.
The ensuing musical discourse highlights influential and emotional moments from each of their lives. This bracing, original piece contrasts the ironic similarities and differences between the men to the sustaining surge of musical abundance. While Joplin received a conservatory education as the prodigy of a father born into slavery, it was Berlin, the Russian immigrant who couldn’t read music, who had his first international hit song at the age of 23. What becomes clear is that both Berlin and Joplin possessed musical gifts beyond measure and shared a passionate humanity, both of which are beautifully showcased and illuminated in The Tin Pan Alley Rag.
Productions
Roundabout Theater (Off-Broadway, NYC)
Pasadena Playhouse
Goodspeed Opera House (Conn.)
Cleveland Playhouse
Maltz Jupiter Theater (Florida)
Los Angeles Times - David C. Nichols
Mark Saltzman’s rumination on Berlin, Joplin and the American dream has laudable aims beyond nostalgic diversion. It operates as a colloquy between parallel giants, posited against the current of their era…beautifully rendered musical selections that eschew a revue-style “greatest hits” program…panoramic…excellent.
Hollywood Reporter - Jay Reiner
In The Tin Pan Alley Rag, Mark Saltzman has devised a highly entertaining and original show about two of America's most celebrated composers, one an immigrant Jew with a passion for writing hits and the other a black man with a passion for writing art.
Philadelphia Inquirer - Douglas J. Keating
Musically impressive...fine stuff well-staged and sung by an able ensemble with feeling and energy
Philadelphia Weekly - J. Cooper Robb
It's another musical. So who cares?
You should.
In the vein of Death of a Salesman, Angels in America and Ragtime, The Tin Pan Alley Rag examines art, death, racism and the pursuit of the American Dream.
Philadelphia Tribune - Kimberly C. Roberts
The profound emotional exchanges between the two musicians are juxtaposed against the happy sounds of ragtime. Aside from being a profound history lesson, The Tin Pan Alley Rag is a singing, stomping good time.
Florida Sun-Sentinel - Bill Hirschman
More than a hit parade, The Tin Pan Alley Rag dazzles with ideas as well as music...A thoughtful play illuminated by glorious music...You're almost certain to come away joyously surprised and thoroughly entertained.
Orange County (CA) Register – Eric Marchese
A crowd-pleasing piece of entertainment…The Tin Pan Alley Rag works, delivering compact biographies of both men along with generous samples of their catalogs in a colorful package….supremely confident….passionate.
Backstage West – Les Spindle
A thoughtful glimpse at the dreams of creative artists and the ways in which their art and lives are intertwined. …delightfully entertaining…sprinkled with unforgettable tunes.
Pasadena Weekly - William Campbell
Mark Saltzman's Tin Pan Alley Rag has IT, that untouchable variable, that magical force of theater that seemingly blankets an entire show in a winning, can't-go-wrong sheen, and infuses it with a near inexhaustible level of energy and entertainment. The result is a marvelous and engaging theater event that is wholly confident, fast-paced and enchanting from start to finish....The stuff of theatrical miracles!
KNX Radio - Los Angeles - Tom Hattan
Filled with great fun and great music. Unless I'm very much mistaken, there could well be a long and happy future for The Tin Pan Alley Rag.
Palm Beach Post - Hap Erstien
That rare commodity, a highly entertaining evening with plenty to say. How exhilarating to leave a theater with a few songs on your lips and a few thoughts on your brain.
WJTW Radio – FLORIDA
If you’ve seen the wonderful reviews in all of the local newspapers regarding The Tin Pan Alley Rag you know the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has a hit on its hands….The Tin Pan Alley Rag is sheer theater magic.
WINNER Of Three Florida Carbonell Awards
Maltz-Jupiter Theatre Production, 2006
BEST MUSICAL ,
BEST DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL (Jiri Zizka)
BEST MUSICAL DIRECTION (Brad Ellis)
And Carbonell-nominated for:
Best Sound Design, Best Actor in a musical (Alton White and Fred Berman)
Best Supporting Actress in a musical (Idira Victor)
Best Set Design, Best Choreography
FIVE Philadelphia Barrymore Award Nominations:
Best Musical, Best Choreography, Best Direction of a Musical
Best Actor in a Musical
WINNER: Best Supporting Actor in a Musical, Joel Blum
FIVE Los Angeles Ovation Award Nominations:
Best Musical, Best Writing of a World Premiere play or musical
Best Direction, Best Choreography, Best Actor in a Musical (David Norona)
Clutter: The True Story of the Collyer Brothers Who Never Threw Anything Out
Playwright: Mark Saltzman
Clutter is based on the compelling true story of the wealthy, reclusive Collyer brothers who became hoarders in their Fifth Avenue mansion in 1920s Harlem. After years of compulsive collecting, the brothers have become notorious shut-ins in their aristocratic New York neighborhood. Langley Collyer is missing and Homer Collyer is found dead amongst floor-to-ceiling piles of newspapers, books, and junk. The police investigating the case, two brothers with a strained relationship mirroring that of the Collyers, are simultaneously making discoveries about themselves. Narrated by the brothers and the police investigating the bizarre case, this darkly fascinating tale is a poignant and profound exploration of human behavior.
Productions
Colony Theater (Los Angeles)
Greenhouse Theater (Chicago)
Lompoc (CA) Civic Theatre
LOS ANGELES TIMES – Don Shirley
A packrat’s motto: “This could be worth something someday.” Mark Saltzman’s new play “Clutter” is already worth a lot….this examination of the Collyer brothers, the world’s most famous packrats, is shamelessly entertaining…But Saltzman doesn’t depict the Collyers as completely weird. By the end, he makes a broader point about the common human insecurities that surely contributed to the Collyers’ problems…richly comic…brilliant…
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER - Ed Kaufman
Mark Saltzman’s pseudo-documentary murder mystery, “Clutter” is charming delightful and wonderfully well-staged….He has written an entertainment that is wise, generous and witty.
BURBANK LEADER (L.A. TIMES BURBANK SECTION ) - Maurice Barnfather
It is Saltzman’s writing and Rick Sparks’ compelling production, deploying comedy to tackle a subject one would expect to find approached with hushed naturalism, that give this play tensile strength and the power of an impassioned fable. What Saltzman does, with extraordinary humorous compassion, is to use the tale of the Collyer Brothers to also portray the same strained relationship of the two brother cops involved in the unfolding drama…”Clutter” is a great play.
A…My Name is Alice
Contributing Songwriter
Productions
Village Gate, NYC
And hundreds of productions globally
This slick and lively revue created by a wide variety of comedy writers, lyricists and composers offers a marvelous kaleidoscope of contemporary women. Sophisticated, bawdy, funny and insightful, the twenty numbers portray friends, rivals, sisters and even members of an all women's basketball team.