For the love of Yuri
LEADING American producer Anita Waxman has been involved in some of the biggest stage shows on Broadway and the West End in recent years.
She has won 16 Tony Awards for productions ranging from the Broadway revival of Cabaret to the West End staging of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, and has teamed up with Andrew Lloyd Webber for his Phantom of the Opera sequel, Love Never Dies.
Last week her latest venture as producer, Dr Zhivago – the Musical, has its world premiere at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre, Star City, with Anthony Warlow starring as Dr Yuri Zhivago.
While she is optimistic that this John Frost production will head to London and Broadway after its Australian season, there are in fact personal reasons that she hopes it will be a winner.
Waxman, who lives in New York, adopted a son from Russia whose name is Yuri, and established an orphanage in Moscow that she later found out was in the building where Boris Pasternak began writing Dr Zhivago.
“My prayer is that Dr Zhivago gets a life after its Australian season and we take it to Europe, London and New York and we use it as fundraisers for the orphanage,” she says.
Waxman, who has been in Sydney since late December with many of the American creative team, became involved with Dr Zhivago over a decade ago – soon after adopting her son.
“In April 1997, I had just brought Yuri home from Moscow,” she recalls. “Being a producer, I would receive a lot of notices of play readings, and one for Dr Zhivago came across my desk that was being put on by Lucy Simon [sister of Jewish singer Carly Simon].
“So I decided to go along and that’s when our paths crossed. And I had no idea all the years that we worked together that she had written the music with Anthony Warlow in mind.”
Dr Zhivago – the Musical stars Warlow, Lucy Maunder, Taneel van Zyl, Martin Crewes, Bartholomew John, Peter Carroll and Trisha Noble. It is directed by Des McAnuff, whose credits include Jersey Boys on Broadway.
The musical depicts one of the most important events of the 20th century – the Russian Revolution. “I hope that the audiences of Dr Zhivago will see it as an important piece of history as well as a great love story,” says Waxman.
“The life of a producer is to first find the project that you want to create and then to finance it, and usually you are financing to the day that you open.
“It’s a huge risk. I pray that everyone loves it the way I do. And I selfishly hope that Australia takes hold of this musical, because we, as producers in America, have to find another place to start musicals.
“America is tough, expensive, critical and crowded. I’m praying that I can bring my shows to Melbourne and Sydney to start new musicals and let them go around the world.”
Away from the stage, Waxman established the Anita Howe-Waxman Foundation and Noah’s Ark Foundation, dedicated to serving the needs of women and children worldwide.
“I met the Chief Rabbi of Moscow [Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt] and decided to establish a Jewish orphanage there,” she says.
It is called the Passin-Waxman Centre in honour of her mother, who was a Russian Jew.
“At the official opening, there were three elderly Russian men who I was introduced to. They had been in hiding for many years because they had been in one of the Jewish orphanages that Stalin had burned down,” she says.
“There had been a large group in the orphanage, but these were the only ones still alive and they could not believe that a Jewish orphanage could open in Moscow. It was such a great moment in my life.”
The building in which the orphanage opened in 1997 was a rented two-storey apartment, which had a plaque on the wall that stated that Pasternak had lived there when he wrote his novel, Dr Zhivago. Six years ago, the orphanage moved to the new Jewish community centre in Moscow.
Looking to the future, Waxman says that after Dr Zhivago completes its tour of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, there are plans to stage it in London and New York. “We already have a partner taking it to Korea and Asia,” she adds.
“And the Russians want it, and I want to take my kids from the orphanage to see it.”
Dr Zhivago – the Musical is at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre, Star City, until April 2 and opens at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, on April 9.
REPORT: DANNY GOCS
PHOTO: Dr Zhivago star Anthony Warlow and producer Anita Waxman.
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