"Pearl Rosen and Pearl Stein are 'out to sea' in the new comedy by Reagan McFagen"
-- Casting Pearls press release

"Not since World War II has anything done more damage to East-West relations."
-- New York Daily News

Again it is summer, and again it is live theater in New York. Seven years removed from his last performance in Happy Like God, David Sicherman made his grand return in the Reagan McFagen masterpiece Casting Pearls, a musical set on a Jewish seniors' cruise to the Bahamas. First written as a vehicle for Carole Channing and Jessica Tandy, fighting between farsighted producers and ultraconservative backers over the song "I've Sprung a Leak" left the show on what seemed a permanent hiatus. Specifically the lines "If spring is for chickens / and winter for hens / then autumn's for dickin's / and some are for mens" created ire in the Union of Southern Baptist Preachers, which had put up the largest part of the money.

Says Rev. James Sandmuller of the USBP, "I thought I was backing a hog-calling contest. If I'd known it was a musical about bisexual elderly Jewish women having intercourse on a boat, I don't think I would have been so supportive."

The production seemed destined never to get off the ground until it was sold outright to the No Shoes No Shirt Noh Theater Company, a small cutting-edge performance troupe out of northern California that had been looking for a mainstream play they could use to bring themselves and their special brand of theater to a wider audience.

"Audiences were dwindling," says artistic director Lee Heihachi, "we knew we needed a change. Sacramento can only stomach so much traditional Japanese theater, so we packed our bags and headed for New York, and somewhere along the way that thing fell in our laps."

Theirs and countless others. Sicherman, having made his return to the stage a year earlier in Again We'll Do This at the Yale Repertory, signed on to do a tour beginning on the west coast and making stops across the country until finally taking up residence at Broadway's Barrymore Theater. The production featured an all male cast in Japanese Noh masks while leaving the play itself untouched. The result was "a bizarre mishmash of eastern and western cultures not so subtly thrown together to create a tasteless parody of everything we as global citizens stand for. To call this play unfortunate would be an insult to the homeless." This from the New York Post.

But before the reviews hopes were high, as was most of the cast, and it was thought that the addition of Leonard Nimoy as Pearl Rosen playing off of Sicherman's Pearl Stein would sign their sure fire ticket to success.

"Leonard was such a pro." Says Lee Heihachi, "Sicherman too. They were both behind the project from the moment they saw it and they really carried it to the next level."

Says Leonard Nimoy, "I wasn't in that show. I saw it in Pittsburgh, and in response to your question, no. I didn't like it."

Lee Heihachi: "I'd really love to work with them again. Of course, Leonard returning my calls would be a good start, but I do have a promise from Sicherman that we'll work together when he's dead and gone. Man, I can't wait for that."

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©2002

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