By: Chris Munzing
The show highlights Crystal's life as a kid in Long Beach, colored by the death of his father, Jack, when Billy was 15. The title of the show is the number of Sundays Crystal and his father had together.
The show also highlights the many idiosyncrasies of Crystal's Jewish family, his immersion in the New York jazz scene and his journey to adulthood.
"I am thrilled to come home and bring this story of my family to Broadway," Crystal told Playbill magazine. "As an artist, I've never felt as complete as I have developing and performing this show. This is not a history of my career, it is about periods of my life and people in my life that helped make me a man."
The show has proved hugely popular, already taking in $10 million in advance sales and charging $100 for an orchestra seat. It will run at the Broadhurst Theater through March 6.
Crystal's brother, Joel, has been a Long Beach fixture for decades, teaching art in the school district and serving on the City Council for eight years. The two have another brother, Richard, also known as Rip, who is a producer in California.
"[The show is] very emotional," Joel said. "There are the good times and the bad times. I've seen it three times, and I still cry at the same time and get that lump in my throat the same time. And I still laugh."
The setting of the show is a replica of 549 E. Park Ave., where the family moved in 1952 from the Bronx, and where the Crystal boys grew up. The windows of the onstage house are replaced by large video screens where old family movies are shown. "My father was an amateur documentarian," Joel said. "Billy was always the kid mugging for the camera."
Joel said he thinks the reason the show is so successful is because it's so accessible to all members of the audience. "Everyone who watches it knows that relative," he said. "They see their own family in it."
Members of Crystal's family that appear on screen include a flatulent grandfather and Crystal's uncle, Milt Graber, a famed jazz producer, who had a big influence on Crystal and his brothers. "We grew up in the midst of the greatest jazz time ever," Joel said. "My father ran the Commodore Music Shop, and we would get all the comedy albums before they came out. My brothers and I would learn the routines and then perform them for our parents and our relatives. Billy used to say, 'We never bombed in the living room.'
"Then they'd watch Bob Newhart or see Bill Cosby and say that they were taking our stuff," Joel said. "We're very conscious of our heritage and the world we were brought up in. When we were kids, our home was always filled with musicians, black and white. And in those days it was unusual for white families and black families to mix like that."
That heritage is on display in Joel's Long Beach home, which is filled with paintings and photographs of some of jazz's greatest names. And Joel said that his brother, despite not having lived in Long Beach for 30 years, still calls the city home, and still comes back when he can.
"He was here the other day for a Hanukkah party, and he was just Uncle Billy," he said. "When he's here, we sneak into Gino's. There's no fanfare. He's just Billy."
More than 200 Long Beach residents flocked to see the show last month, and were amazed at how much they could relate to. "When the Crystals first moved to Long Beach, they lived right next door to my father's candy store," said Gayle Kimmelman, who went to school with Rip Crystal. "We all grew up together.
"[Billy] was always a ham," she said. "I remember that there was always family and friends at the house. His grandmothers would always be cooking something. And wherever we went, little Billy was tagging along."
Dandy Dickler Zisser remembers Crystal as a funny, athletic kid who would do anything for a laugh. "He was a lot of fun, and a good friend," she said. "We used to all get thrown out of Gino's."
Kimmelman, along with Crystal's former high school basketball teammate Danny Rudolph, helped organized the trip to the show.
"It's such a universal story," said Crystal's high school classmate Sima Gordon-Drucker. "We could all relate because we all have families, and many of the memories are the same. It was such a magical night. You saw people you hadn't seen in 40 years. We all felt 16 again.
"After the show, Billy came out and talked with us," Gordon-Drucker continued. "He didn't forget who he was and where he came from. He's still got the sand in his shoes. And everybody connects with him. To me, he's still just Billy."
Comments about this story?CMunzing@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 205.
