Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect that "Last of the Red Hot Mamas" runs through July 27 at the Bucks County Playhouse.
When you’re hot, you’re hot.
And nobody was hotter than Sophie Tucker, the raucous risqué Red Hot Mama who torched the song charts in the early-mid 20th century.
Now, producers Susan and Lloyd Ecker bring her legend to the stage in “Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” starring Ryann Redmond as Sophie, coming to the Bucks County Playhouse in a world premiere production, June 28 to July 27.
Before that, they introduced their award-winning documentary on the sultry singer, “The Outrageous Sophie Tucker,” at an event and post-screening Q&A at the KleinLife building in Northeast Philadelphia.
While the musical at BCP will focus on the naughty Ukraine native’s early life, the documentary proved ageless for its older audience at KleinLife. Notes Lloyd: “One of the audience members came up to me afterward and said how much she was looking forward to seeing the musical now that she’s seen the documentary. She said, ‘It was great! I loved it! And, if I’m still alive, I’ll be there at the musical!’”
Tucker’s appeal radiated way beyond her Jewish roots. Her rendition of “My Yiddiche Momme” hit home for a catholic crowd and she’s found a rooting section among modern music men and women (Paul Anka, Bette Midler) who charted so much younger. (Tucker died at age 79 in 1966.)
Indeed, these days the singer/comedienne, whose signature song was “Some of These Days,” ropes in followers, either from those who grew up on her recordings owned by their parents and those who discover her for the first time.
The Eckers were ecstatic when they encountered the Last of the Red Hot Mamas for the first time.
“Susan and I were on a date, in 1973, at a Bette Midler concert in Ithaca” — the Eckers were both students at Ithaca College.
Susan remembers vividly Midler’s mind-blowing rendition of one of Tucker’s numbers.
“We got married, had three kids, sold our (successful) business and so I asked Susan, ‘What do you want to do now?’.”
Have dinner with Bette Midler came the response.
“I have a better idea,” retorted Lloyd. “Let’s do a musical about Sophie Tucker, then a Hollywood musical, then an eight-part series for HBO starring Midler, who will win an Emmy Award — and then we’ll have dinner with her.”
Keep that OpenTable app open: BCP is the first stage in bringing Tucker to Broadway.
In fact, an hour-long press preview of the production’s musical numbers is being held Thursday, not at the Playhouse, but at the Roundabout Theater Rehearsal Studio on West 45th Street in New York City.
But there have been other steps along the way in this finely choreographed plan to connect with Tucker’s long-lasting legacy. The Eckers put out “The Origins of Sophie Tucker,” remastered reels produced by Archeophone Records. The collection earned a Grammy Award nomination for the pair.
They also made book on her record career by researching and microfilming Sophie’s scrapbooks at Lincoln Center Archives and the New York Public Library as inspiration for their documentary.
Along the way, they’ve met and mingled with other Tucker minions: producer Phil Ramone (“He helped us with the film as an executive producer,” says Susan) and Carol Channing, whose wide-eyed love of Tucker is tucked into the many memorable parts of the documentary.
“When I met Carol, I felt I could die and go to heaven now,” says Susan, who, with Lloyd, derived a wickedly wonderful rainbow-of-a-retreat on Tucker with Broadway luminary composer Stephen Schwartz.
For contemporary audiences, Tucker touches on the importance of a positive self-image.
“She was a big woman and she embraced that,” says Susan. “She wouldn’t allow others to fat-shame her.”
Would she embrace this new musical at BCP after all this time? Tucker would have a word for it, R-rated it might be, concedes Lloyd. “She would say, ‘It’s about (expletive) time!’”
Michael Elkin is a playwright, theater critic and novelist who lives in Abington. He writes columns about theater and the arts.
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