MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
"Ladies and Gentlemen..." Danny Newman: Storied Press Agent After 68 years, Danny Newman is retiring Danny has been an ATPAM member since 1943
	Photo Courtesy  Chicago Jewish News

CHICAGO (AP) - Danny Newman doesn't sing, but that's not why audiences at the Lyric era of Chicago used to fall silent - or even groan -when he stepped on stage.

It was because Newman, for nearly 45 years, was the Lyric's bearer of bad tidings. It was his duty to tell audiences that the superstar soprano they had come to hear had the flu and wouldn't be appearing in "Tosca", or that the tenor had laryngitis but would soldier on as the Duke in "Rigoletto" anyway.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN ..." Newman would begin, in a voice as powerful as that as any of the singers, and he would proceed with the bad news. The voice seemed incongruous, coming from so small a man, and it came unaided by amplification.

An illness last year left Newman uncharacteristically mute for a while, and when his voice returned in diminished volume, he made his first step toward retirement by turning over the stage announcing to someone else. It was either that or the shame of using a microphone.

"Microphonies" is Newman's epithet ..or pop singers, actors and announcers who have to rely on electronics to be heard in the back rows. He's quick to let you know that he isn't one.

And he also prefers his job description uncluttered by modern innovations.

"I'm not a publicist or director of public relations. I'm a press agent, even though that's a pejorative term now," Newman, 82, insisted in a recent interview. "I've been doing this work for 68 years - since I was 14. 1 was called The Boy Wonder Press Agent back then, and I'm still a press agent."

That assessment, though, is a bit simple.

Newman has also been a theatrical producer, movie theater owner, motivational speaker, sports promoter, announcer, author, and more. He set up an early talk radio show with young Myron (now better known as Mike) Wallace, and earned two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star as a World War II rifleman (the Bronze Star, through a glitch, was delivered in 1984).

And Newman's best-known role? As the man who revolutionized the way live performances are marketed to audiences.

The New York Times dubbed him "the Billy Graham of subscription theatre," and his occasional partner, Ford Foundation Vice President W. McNeil Lowry, has said Newman "has done more for the performing arts in this country than 10 foundations."

"It has widely been said that I am a genius, but I doubt it," Newman commented. "I simply didn't have any competition. People around the performing arts traditionally just didn't think in terms of audience, and I did.

"In my heyday, I was a very good press agent, and 1 got a lot of good publicity for shows that closed after the first Saturday. I realized that we were barking up the wrong tree by relying on walk-in ticket sales."

In Chicago, for example, six consecutive opera companies failed before the Lyric made its hesitant debut in 1954. But Lyric survived, by emphasizing prepaid season subscriptions instead of individual ticket sales. The company now boasts about 39,000 season subscribers.

Newman was not in charge of marketing for the Lyric, but he refined the subscription idea and took it on the road during the off-seasons, serving as an audience development consultant to hundreds of professional performing arts organizations on five continents.

And his 1977 book, "Subscribe Now!", now in its 10th printing, has become a textbook in many graduate schools of arts management.

Newman's office at Lyric has served as home base for his multiple careers, and now, as he nears official retirement some time later this year, he actually gets to spend some time there. It's part museum and part cluttered workspace.

The walls are loaded with autographed photos of opera stars and other memorabilia.

There are also portraits of his late first wife, Yiddish theater star Dina Halpern ("She had a voice like an Amati cello!").

Dina died in 1989 after more than 40 years of marriage. In 1994, Newman married widow Alyce Katz and moved with her to suburban Lincolnwood.

It was a major departure for the lifelong Chicago dweller, who never found time to learn to drive. He prefers his 72-year-old bicycle.

His technophohia is also evident in the centerpiece of Newman's office, a huge manual typewriter.

"I've never felt comfortable with an electric typewriter, let alone a computer," he confessed.

Newman is working on his his second book.

"I want to compile 100 short essays about colorful people I have known. I have about 25 done so far."

What sort of colorful people? Newman rolled off names: Sally Rand and Danny Kaye, from Newman's youth, as a promoter of vaudeville and burlesque shows; Sam Goldwyn, from his movie promotion days; Yul Brynner and Carol Channing, from his stint as a theatrical producer; "and of course, the opera people, Maria Callas in particular."

Callas put Chicago on the operatic map in 1954 when Lyric founder Carol Fox won a bidding war and got the fiery soprano to make her U.S. debut during the company's first full season.

And in 1955, Newman focused all his publicity skills on Callas and made the whole world notice. That season, the Lyric had also signed Callas' archrival, Renata Tebaldi ("We always made sure they weren't in the building at the same time," Newman recalled, but the real news came from a $300,000 breach-of-contract lawsuit filed against Callas by her for her manager, Eddie Bagarozy.

"Bagarozy had filed his lawsuit in New York, so in 1954 we were safe bringing Callas in from Europe through Canada," Newman said. "But in 1955, he shifted it to federal court, so we knew trouble was on the way."

On November 17, 1955, as Callas walked into the wings after her onstage suicide in her final Lyric performance of "Madame Butterfly", U.S. Marshal Stanley Pringle served her with a subpoena. Callas' subsequent rage was to become the stuff of legend. And news photographers just happened to be there to snap the diva screaming multilingual abuse at a sad-faced Pringle.

And just what were the photographers doing backstage?

"After all this time it can’t be much of a secret," Newman said. "I knew it was going to happen and I tipped them off."  It's called press agentry.