NEW YORK CITY — Wherever Jamie deRoy goes in her apartment, one of her cats follows. Harpo is one very busy cat.
The Squirrel Hill native and Broadway producer flits around her spacious New York digs, wondering what to point out first — her mother’s art, the Andy Warhol collectibles, perhaps the silver piano where Melissa Manchester and other celebrities play.
One thing you can’t miss is those seven Tony awards.
The awards, the ones that look like a gong on a pedestal, are lined up on a mantel above Harpo, who walks a glass table full of delicate collectibles. The magnificent seven don't begin to represent all of the shows that deRoy has brought to a Broadway stage, including more than two dozen Tony nominations.
So what is a typical day for a Broadway producer?
“I don’t think I’ve had a typical day in my life,” she says.
Her journey to big-time Broadway player began in Pittsburgh, as the daughter of multimedia artist Aaronel deRoy Gruber and Irving Gruber, owner of American Forge and Manufacturing Co. He dabbled in Broadway investments, with some wins (“The Pajama Game”, “Damn Yankees”) and losses (“Merrily We Roll Along”).
Jamie and her brothers, Jon and Terry, grew up in Squirrel Hill, where she attended Linden Elementary School, Pittsburgh Allderdice High School and then Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), Class of 1967. In October, she was back on campus, sharing her life story and secrets with future dramaturgs, directors and actors, and perhaps, producers.
Her path reveals that there is no right way to get into producing, the backbone of a Broadway show. Lead producers put the teams together, while the many co-producers, such as DeRoy, raise money.
It helps to have friends, and deRoy, 74, has maintained friendships from her earliest days in the theater community, when her goal was to be in a musical. One very early summer stock job found her in “Threepenny Opera,” playing Polly Peacham opposite fellow CMU grad Rene Auberjonois’ Mack the Knife. She still counts the Theater Hall of Famer as a friend.
As a newcomer in New York, she went to a producer’s office for an acting job and wound up working for him. Later, she worked for a press agent, but her goal was to be onstage.
For most of her career, she was a staple of the New York cabaret scene, with “Jamie deRoy & friends,” a brand that stretches to YouTube and a New York cable TV show.
"Entertainer extraordinaire Jamie deRoy has been declared ‘The Fairy Godmother of Cabaret’ because she has helped so many performers in the cabaret world,” notes Theatermania.com.
As a musical comedian, she opened for Joan Rivers. It didn’t start well.
“I was told not to be funny because Joan wouldn’t like that, but that’s what I do,” deRoy recalls. “I got a lot of laughs, and as I came off the stage, I saw Edgar [Rivers’ late husband and manager] coming towards me and I figured that’s it, I’m done. But he said, ‘You really warmed up the audience for Joan, and she loved it. Keep doing what you’re doing.’”
As the 2000s approached, a thyroid problem put her stage career in jeopardy. Then she saw a production of “The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged” by the Reduced Shakespeare Company.
“I was asked if I would raise money for them, and I thought, ‘I can do that.’”
Nine years and more than a dozen shows later, she won her first Tony. By then, she was established in the producing world.
Apartment envy
In her New York apartment, on the 10th floor of a 1907 building, signs of her success and her Pittsburgh past fill every wall and nook and cranny. A visitor begins her tour with Rachel Stange, an aspiring producer and deRoy’s assistant for eight years, with time off to have two children.
Working with deRoy, Stange says, “is really neat because she has incredible friends, like Melissa Manchester will sometimes come and stay. So, I’m in here working, and Melissa is sitting at the piano and singing and playing.”
Before a “Jamie deRoy & friends” concert, the room becomes a rehearsal space. An April benefit at Birdland included Mike Birbiglia and Pittsburgher E. Clayton Cornelius, who appears in one of deRoy’s current Broadway shows, the Temptations musical “Ain’t Too Proud.”
DeRoy joins the tour in one of two kitchens. An architect friend noticed that three symmetrical windows were split between a tiny kitchen and an adjacent room. So a wall came down, and the expansive kitchen now features an island with bar stools (covered in cat cushions; Harpo prefers the island). There are vintage cookie jars, some from the Warhol estate, along the top of the cabinets.
Some of the collectibles are deRoys from her mother’s collection. Aaronel deRoy Gruber’s distinctive Plexiglass sculptures reside throughout the apartment, including a 6-foot tall case that captures light in strands of color.
Taking time to inspect each of the art pieces and theater posters could take hours, maybe days. There are not one but two Charlie McCarthy puppets, one in the living room and one in a bedroom. Asked if either is original to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, deRoy shrugs. She just likes them.
A day in the life
It’s Nov. 4, a Monday, when Broadway is mostly dark. Among deRoy’s shows, “Tootsie” is playing that night.
It is 4 p.m. when she opens her door to a visitor. She is between seeing the Martin Scorsese epic film “The Irishman” at the Directors Guild of America’s 57th Street screening room, and attending “Celebrating 25 Magical Years of Disney on Broadway,” which benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, with performances from stage shows and guests including Whoopi Goldberg, Gavin Creel and deRoy.
Stange begins the tour while deRoy finishes editing program copy for a new edition of her variety show. Finally, she takes a seat and talks about what it takes to be a Broadway producer.
To be a success, it helps to have good taste or at least be aware of the zeitgeist of the moment, she says. It also helps to have friends and connections, and the chutzpah to ask for money.
“You have to love theater and love people, and you can’t be afraid to be involved in something. Someone writes a check, and they don’t see any more money back.
“You’ve got to have a little bit of a thick skin because a show that you love could close early, and you can’t fall apart. You’ve got to be able to pick yourself up and do the next one.”
She has a mindset that helps for those times.
“I don’t ever look at things that close as failures. There’s great acting or a great song that can come out of a musical.”
As an example, she mentions the song “Here’s That Rainy Day” from “Carnival in Flanders” — “a huge hit song from a big flop.”
She sometimes chooses projects by reading scripts, but prefers the undivided attention of a reading. Through her association with the off-Broadway Primary Stages, she usually gets a script first.
She is currently working with an old friend, Charles Busch, the writer, drag legend and star of “Psycho Beach Party” who is making a stage comeback with “The Confession of Lily Dare.” Many years ago, “he put me in an event where I had to play myself, which was the hardest thing I ever did.”
One more award
The wins for de Roy began with “Norman Conquests,” the Tony-winning best revival of 2009, followed by “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” (best play, 2013) and “A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder” (best musical, 2014). In 2018, she won for the musicals “The Band's Visit” and “Once on This Island” and the revival of “Angels in America.” “The Ferryman” brought her the 2019 best play Tony,.
As 2019 fades into 2020, current projects include “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” which opened on Nov. 7, and potential Tony nominees “Slave Play,” “The Great Society,” “The Inheritance” and “The Lehman Trilogy.” “Tootsie” is to close next month and then head out on tour; “To Kill a Mockingbird” is heading next to London.
The producer believed “Mockingbird” would run its course after a year with Jeff Daniels as its star. Now it has been recast for Broadway with Ed Harris, and Richard Thomas heads up the American tour.
“Who knew it could have such an amazing life?” she says.
On this particular night, a mild one for November, she has to prepare for a gala and mingling with the Disney crowd.
She opens her apartment door, Harpo at her heels, and finds a small white box on the threshold. She unwraps a Drama Desk Award for “The Ferryman.” Even though she knew it was coming, and a card expresses apologies for its lateness, the latest addition to her shelf comes as a surprise on this day, another typically atypical day in the life of a Broadway producer.
First Published: December 2, 2019, 1:00 p.m.
