Gene Saks

On stage 9 productions, 13 years

Each row is a staging this name appears in the cast list of, read from the production record rather than from the person record. The person record names works instead, and a work cannot say which run somebody was in — that is how Elaine Stritch ends up filed under Show Boat 1927 when she was in the 1994 revival. No row here says what part was played, because no cast list records it.

Worked with more than once3 names

Both names in the same cast list, more than once. It is not evidence of a partnership — a long-running company puts the same forty people together every night — but it is where one would start looking. 3 of these names are not links because we hold no record behind them; the name is set from the identifier and its punctuation may be wrong.

Also credited on4 works

Half A Sixpence
I Love My Wife
Mame
Rags

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

• Virtually every major director was flown to Boston, including Jerome Robbins, who urged the creators to leave it alone. Gene Saks, who eventually accepted the assignment, looked back on Robbins' advice ruefully, when the show closed after a week on Broadway. "We took out the things that camouflaged its deficiencies," he observed.ebooks/Engel, Lehman/Words with Music_ Creating the Broadway Musical Libretto - Lehman Engel.txt
• Later I read for him and the director, Gene Saks. Then they started talking about the play. Finally I said, “You know, I have to go home and make dinner. Am I going to be doing this?”ebooks/Frommer, Myrna Katz & Frommer, Harvey/It Happened on Broadway_ An Oral History of the Great White Way - Myrna Katz Frommer & Harvey Frommer.txt
• Afterward we went out to have a bite to eat. Neil asked what we thought. Gene Saks said there was something wrong with the second act. I said I missed the mother in the second act. Neil said, “Give me two weeks.”ebooks/Frommer, Myrna Katz & Frommer, Harvey/It Happened on Broadway_ An Oral History of the Great White Way - Myrna Katz Frommer & Harvey Frommer.txt
• Initially, director Gene Saks, who had steered Lansbury to triumph in Mame (1966), had taken on the project at her request following her appearance in the short-lived Dear World (1969), a casualty of weak direction. 36 “He invited us to his house in Connecticut to work,” Merrill remembered. “After a couple of weeks, I thought we were doin…ebooks/Gilvey, John Anthony/Before the Parade Passes By_ Gower Champion and the Glorious American Musical - John Anthony Gilvey.txt
• Mame director Gene Saks said that Lucy turned on Madeline the first day of rehearsal, criticizing her voice and walk. Kahn stood her ground, which infuriated Ball, who had casting approval and complained to her director and wept in front of her producers. A devastated Kahn was eventually fired, but thanks to her contract, was fully paid.…ebooks/Hadleigh, Boze/Broadway Babylon - Boze Hadleigh.txt
• Near the end of the tryout, Gene Saks agreed to take over the direction, and Ron Field replaced Ken Rinker as choreographer. Saks had directed the Robert Preston vehicle The Prince of Grand Street, which was set in the same time, place, and milieu, and Rags’s spoof of Yiddish theatre was reminiscent of those in the earlier musical. Meanwh…ebooks/Mandelbaum, Ken/Not Since Carrie_ Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops - Ken Mandelbaum.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 portrait. 1,626 of 7,139 people have one, so this is the usual case rather than the exception.
• Which of the credits above the roles on this record — director — 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.