INTERVIEW: As Young Rabbi, Danny Kornfeld makes his Broadway debut in ‘Harmony’
Photo: Harmony, a new musical on Broadway, stars, from left, Steven Tesley, Blake Roman, Danny Kornfeld, Chip Zien, Eric Peters, Sean Bell and Zal Owen. Photo courtesy of Julieta Cervantes / Provided by DKC O&M with permission.
Harmony, the new musical playing through Feb. 4 at the Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, tells the tale of the Comedian Harmonists, a singing group that found great success in the early part of the 20th century, but whose story was largely forgotten after they stopped performing in the 1930s. The show, with music by Barry Manilow and book and lyrics by Bruce Sussman, tells the anguished reality of these performers, who rose to prominence as fascism spread and the Jewish community faced unimaginable horrors.
Danny Kornfeld plays the pivotal character of Young Rabbi in the musical. He portrays one of the six young men who take the Comedian Harmonists to international heights, including an engagement at Carnegie Hall. He also bears witness to the sadness and violence that enveloped the group in their final years. Chip Zien, a legend on Broadway, portrays the Rabbi character as an older man, looking back at the rise and fall of the singers.
For Kornfeld, Harmony represents his Broadway debut. He also portrayed the character in the off-Broadway premiere of the show last year.
“One of my favorite things is getting to see people at the stage door afterward and hearing how incredibly moved they are by the story and how this is one of the best things they’ve ever seen on Broadway,” Kornfeld said in a recent phone interview. “I’m just so proud, especially of our producers, for taking on this show, which is a risk to produce. [It’s] something that is not found source material where people haven’t read the book, haven’t seen the movie, aren’t watching the life of someone famous on stage. It’s completely original, and so I just feel so lucky to have gotten to tell a completely original story to audience members, and one that I think is still incredibly timely, important, really artful and profound.”
Kornfeld’s journey with Harmony, which is directed by Warren Carlyle, began before the COVID-19 pandemic. He originally auditioned for the show in 2019, and he made it to very end of the process. The feedback he was receiving was solid, but he was also told he may be too young for the Young Rabbi role. Well, that production ended up being canceled due to an illness in the creative team, and then 2020 happened. The timing was somewhat fortuitous for Kornfeld, who could re-audition for the show after theaters opened back up following the height of the pandemic. And now he was a little older and ready to take on the role.
“So I was on this rafting trip, and I got this email being like, ‘OK, Harmony is happening again, and they want to see you again,’” he remembers. “And this time it’s for this role, Young Rabbi, and I was like, oh, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m a leading man type. I still had in my mind that I was maybe too young. So the initial audition was over self-tape, and then I think it was about five auditions later I got to do a dance callback, which I was very much dreading because I did not consider myself a dancer. And knowing that Warren was attached to it, I was like, oh, I never envisioned my artistry crossing over with his.”
The actor added: “My final audition was a chemistry read. Right before I was about to go in the room, they told me that it was going to be with Sierra Boggess, and I was freaking out on the inside because I was so fond of her from The Little Mermaid and from Phantom of the Opera. So I collected myself, and I went in. I instantly felt connected to her, and she made me feel so at ease. I remember leaving that day, and Warren came out of the room and sat next to me. And he said, ‘No matter what happens, you have a whole bunch of fans in that room.’ And I had a pretty good feeling that I was going to get it, and it ended up being as such. That was the beginning of it all.”
Kornfeld said that after he landed the job, he needed to conduct some homework. He didn’t know the story of the Comedian Harmonists, which is likely the case for many audience members at the Barrymore Theatre. Sadly their story is not that well known. So, Kornfeld read books, watched documentaries and also visited Berlin. In fact, he traveled to the location of the group’s very first rehearsal.
“They were incredibly singular for how popular they were for the time, but imagine all the stories of people that we don’t know about,” the actor said in reference to the stories lost during the Holocaust and World War II.
For Kornfeld, the challenge has also been to find the hope and humor in these young men. They were entertainers who were remarkable in their ability to harmonize and put smiles on the faces of their fans. The actor wants to honor that part of the story as well.
“Especially in Bruce’s writing, there’s a twinkle and a nod,” Kornfeld said. “There’s such a sense of humor to it, and I think that’s what I first really responded to in Rabbi, both young and old. He has such an appetite for life. He has such a sense of humor about everything. Even despite things being terrible, he still has this sense of optimism and this belief that things are going to be OK and that they’re going to work out. I think that’s even more heartbreaking in a way, having this hope. … Ultimately Rabbi’s tragic flaw in this is his sense of optimism, but luckily he escaped. Luckily he gets out.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Harmony, starring Danny Kornfeld, continues through Feb. 4 at the Barrymore Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.
