Theatre Register

Ervin Drake

Shows · Ervin Drake

ComposerLyricist 1919–2015

Ervin Drake (born Ervin Maurice Druckman; April 3, 1919 – January 15, 2015) was an American songwriter whose works include such American Songbook standards as "I Believe" and "It Was a Very Good Year". He wrote in a variety of styles and his work has been recorded by musicians around the world. In 1983, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Also credited on2 works

Around the World
What Makes Sammy Run?

These come off the person record, which names a work and not a production. So we can say this name is attached to the work and we cannot say which staging, or in what capacity. For a composer or a writer that is the whole career we hold; there is no cast list to find them in.

In the literature8 passages

  • “Steve Lawrence wasn’t our first choice. Bobby Darin was,” says Ervin Drake, the show’s composer-lyricist. “He told us that he really wanted to do movies so he’d be recognized when he walked down the streets of Calcutta.”ebooks/Filichia, Peter/B007L4OWCU EBOK - Peter Filichia.txt
  • The score was written by Ervin Drake, who also suffered the sophomore jinx; his rookie outing was the score for What Makes Sammy Run? Drake’s songs, taken on their own, were melodious and lyrically well crafted. However, few of Cleopatra’s songs sounded right. There’s a 1940s supper-club feeling to “The Wrong Man(‘s the Right Man for Me)”…ebooks/Filichia, Peter/B007L4OWCU EBOK - Peter Filichia.txt
  • If Kasha and Hirschhorn weren’t up to Dickens, there was never a mismatch quite equal to Bernard Shaw and Ervin Drake. Drake, basically a pop composer, wrote the score for What Makes Sammy Run?, which had a long if unprofitable run. But he was unwise to attempt to adapt Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra, writing not only the score but the book…ebooks/Mandelbaum, Ken/Not Since Carrie_ Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops - Ken Mandelbaum.txt
  • Yes, but nobody had told [songwriter] Ervin Drake. It was crazy, crazy, crazy. I am out there singing a song and I can hear, “Stop!!!!” Ervin Drake in the balcony.ebooks/Shapiro, Eddie/Nothing Like a Dame_ Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater - Eddie Shapiro.txt
  • [>] “Shaking hands with Bob was like”: Ervin Drake, interview with the author, April 25, 2011.ebooks/Wasson, Sam/Fosse - Sam Wasson.txt
  • untried-as-director Gower Champion, but most of the time you come up all thumbs. Sammy (1964) had a score by uninspired pop-songwriter Ervin Drake, script by novelist Schulberg (whose work was doctored), and direction by musical novice Arthur Storch (who was fired). Her First Roman (1968) was written, songs as well as book, by Drake (whos…theatre-pdfs/More Opening Nights on Broadway - Steven Suskin.txt

Passages naming this person, found by keyword across 178 books. A keyword match is not a biography, and a common name will pull in the wrong one.

What this page does not know

  • What this person played. No cast list we hold records a character against a performer.
  • Any staging. This name appears in no production cast list we hold — 1,877 of 7,139 people are in that position, most of them writers, composers and designers rather than performers.
  • Which of the credits above the roles on this record — composer, lyricist — apply to. The roles sit on the person and never on a credit, so a director who also acted looks the same here as one who did not.

Something wrong here? Correct a field or report the problem. Every change is recorded in public under the contributor licence.