Manny Fox: Diary of a Producer - A New Beginning

Diary of a Producer By Manny Fox - Article # 1 in New Series

My popular articles, entitled "Diary of a Producer", which I have written more than 150 of for the San Juan Star, the leading English language newspaper in Puerto Rico, which alas, didn't survive the recession here. But the good graces have provided for my series to have a new beginning herein, as the beat goes on.

More than thirteen years ago my wife, Cinda Firestone Fox author and documentary filmmaker, ("Attica") and I went to Puerto Rico for the very first time (for me) with our young son for Christmas. - In previous years we had mostly traveled to, we thought more fashionable Caribbean Islands (Barbados, St. Lucia), but the trip to Puerto Rico that winter was primarily for music business meetings. I had been enticed to co-produce a compilation of performances by the most famous Latin American singer of all time, whom I had never heard of, but when I did hear his eternal voice, I became one of Carlos Gardel's most admiring enthusiasts. After visiting Puerto Rico a few more times, my wife said, I don't want to go home, and my then 8 year old son said the same thing. So, before I could say "gee whiz", we rented a house, bought some land, built a new main house, guesthouse/office, clubhouse, tennis court, swimming pool and moved in.

As a life long producer of entertainment properties who has devoted 100% of his time since his teens only to producing, I created this new concept based on a producer's struggles and accomplishments as a microcosm for Everyman. I was inspired by the unique cultural and human soul of Puerto Ricans, which increases every day, and I have chronicled my involvement with the shows and movies that I produced here, in my columns.

The center of my creativity, right now, today, is mining into a musical comedy riot, the irresistible Puerto Rican rhythms with the generally unknown story of the super elite wealthy upper class in Puerto Rico, loosely based on the Firestone Tire family (of which my wife, Cinda, the book writer for my show is a granddaughter). A similar family does indeed exist in Puerto Rico, where their main product is rum. The name of our show is Family Fortune. 

Family Fortune takes place over a weekend in a mansion with many gardens and even more surprises, with family members scheming and fighting for their inheritance, exposing the negative suppressed energies and fragile self worth of everyone. It is true of every family - the rich are passionate for millions - the poor battle over who gets the refrigerator.

To briefly describe further what Family Fortune is all about I will quote two of my most revered mentors, George Bernard Shaw, "My way of joking is to tell the truth: it is the funniest joke in the world", and Paramahansa Yogananda, "Be Happy while uprooting the cause of your unhappiness".
Much, much, more to come. 

Manny Fox is an innovator and artistic visionary in commercial entertainment for his entire life. He is now readying his second major new musical for Broadway- Family Fortune - his first being "Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies"

Born and bred in N.Y.C., his first major credential was in 1959 at the fabled Cherry Lane Theatre on Commerce Street, in Greenwich Village off-Broadway where he created "The Roots of Jazz" - with African tribal royalty, Prince Onago and Princess Muana - the first presentation in the U.S. of African drums, dances, songs and rituals in a theatrical setting. Thereafter Manny presented original Jazz Festivals with Louis Armstrong and Sarah Vaughan and Folk Festivals at Carnegie Hall featuring a theatricalization of "Carl Sandburg's American Songbag" with Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters, Phil Ochs, Buffy Sainte-Marie and the Staple Singers. 

Manny created the first major presentation of Performance Art, "A Happening with Salvador Dali" at Lincoln Center in Philharmonic Hall with Salvador Dali painting 'live' onstage. Manny has produced numerous anthologies including The Radio Theatre of Orson Welles beginning with "The War of the Worlds", "The Golden Age of Comedy" narrated by George Burns, "Showstoppers" - 50 performances by the original casts in Broadway musicals including Ethel Merman, Rex Harrison, Barbra Streisand, Ezio Pinza; "The Best of Broadway" for CBS, "Enchanted Evenings with Rodgers and Hammerstein" for PBS, and "Freedom Rock".

Manny produced a 5 LP retrospective of Duke Ellington which led to Manny producing "Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies" on Broadway starring Gregory Hines and Judith Jameson. Manny produced five subsequent companies of "Sophisticated Ladies" throughout the world including the first time a Broadway Musical was brought to Japan, and the first Broadway musical in Russia, and the first and only time ever of a live performance on Pay-Per-View TV directly from On Stage on Broadway. Recently Manny produced three original children's musicals, "On Our Own", "Relatively Speaking" and "Questionable Quest" which performed at the Beacon Theatre on Broadway and was filmed 'live' on stage. 

Manny wrote 100 weekly columns for the San Juan Star "Diary of a Producer", chronicling his work as a Producer, and co-hosted 135 one half hour weekly radio shows on Radio WOSO in San Juan, "De Aqui Pa' Broadway y Hollywood".  Manny also produced tryouts in Puerto Rico and the U.K. for Manny's new major musical, now headed for Broadway, entitled Family Fortune. Family Fortune is the story of a rich Puerto Rican family battling over their inheritance when the head of the family dies. Then his wife mysteriously disappears. Has she been murdered by her ambitious son, the rapacious lawyer, the bitter homeless man who has been hanging around, or the butler who is secretly in love with her? Amid romantic intrigue and physical confrontation the mystery is resolved in this hysterically funny yet deadly serious musical all set to the Salsa beat.