Photo credit: Randi Baird
Arnie Reisman didn’t set out to be one of the country’s leading experts on the history of face powder, let alone create something that would, years later, be the inspiration for a headline-grabbing musical show. But the Vineyard poet laureate, man about town, NPR game show panelist, and award-winning writer, producer, and performer has apparently never encountered a creative opportunity he wasn’t willing to pursue. So when theater producer Robert Brustein suggested back in 2010 that the documentary film The Powder & the Glory that Reisman and his filmmaking partner Ann Carol Grossman made could be a “great stage musical,” he thought: What the heck, let’s give it a whirl.
The result was a series of referrals, all emanating from Vineyard connections. Brustein, who summers on Lambert’s Cove, made an introduction to James Lapine, the Broadway writer and director who has a home in Edgartown. Lapine saw the vision but had no bandwidth and suggested sending it on to David Stone, who produced Wicked. The tale goes on, but Stone eventually optioned the rights and hired the creative team behind Grey Gardens, which also became a musical after it had been a documentary.
The result is no amateur production. The Goodman Theater in Chicago will premiere War Paint, which chronicles the lifelong rivalry between cosmetic giants Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, two entrepreneurs who built empires but purposely never met and were fierce competitors for over fifty years. The musical, which opens June 28, will star Tony award winners Patti LuPone as Rubinstein and Christine Ebersole as Arden. If the six-week run is well received, it will open on Broadway next year.
It’s a journey the filmmakers never envisioned, particularly when they hit multiple roadblocks in securing financing. But PBS finally stepped up to help fund the film, which itself was based on the book War Paint by Lindy Woodhead, and now the story of these two women, who arrived as immigrants and built a worldwide health and beauty industry, will become musical theater. And the creative pair – Reisman and Grossman – have already bought forty seats for a weekend in Chicago this July with family and friends.
“It’s something that truly never entered my brain,” said Reisman. “It was hard enough to raise money for the documentary and now it’s going to have another life as dueling divas
with song and dance. It’s been an interesting ride.”
