Featuring Charles Kirsch

Charles Kirsch, 14-year-old critic, blogger, actor, director and man-about-town in front of the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York. Photo by Kym Fajardo.

CHARLES KIRSCH:

This 14-year-old superfan knows more about Broadway than most grownups

STORY BY Peter Filichia

And to think that he didn’t even want to go. Remy and Adam Kirsch told their seven-year-old son Charles that they were taking him to the 2014 Broadway revival of On the Town. He agreed to accompany them only after they made a promise: “Candy at intermission,” he recalls.”

The merch man lost a sale, for, “Once I was there, I forgot about that entirely,” he says. “I loved the songs as well as, of course, the big opening dance number.” Up till then, Charles had been interested in cars and United States

presidents. After that night, automobiles were kicked to the curb and chief executives had served out their terms. Yet the On the Town cast album didn’t immediately enter the Kirsch home. “I didn’t even know that was an option,” he says. “I just thought that you saw a show and had to remember it.” A return trip to the production informed him otherwise (and cost his parents money).

Once upon a time

And yet, the recording that truly made Charles fall in love with show music was All American—not even the cast album of the 1962 flop, but a recording of a backers’ audition where the songwriters warbled their score. “I have consistently tried to learn songs from it, make other people in my family sing songs from it, talk about it and listen to it as much as I can,” he says. Still, Charles says the CD that he’s played the most is The Drowsy Chaperone. As he says, “I relate to Bob Martin’s character”—the “Man in Chair” who loves old musicals.

Charles, now 14, may be evidence of reincarnation. When asked a Broadway Radio trivia question—“Who had roles in three Rodgers and Hart musicals and then reprised one of them for a revival?”—he said, without hesitation, “Vivienne Segal.” Well, he does say that “the hits I love are mostly golden age: Fiddler on the Roof; Gypsy; Kiss Me, Kate; A Chorus Line and all the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows except,” he cautions, “Oklahoma!” Lady in the Dark at the New York City Center Encores! series caused Charles to be “swept away by the wonderful production and performances.” Now he’s just getting around to Chicago and Cabaret, because Remy had thought him too young for their salaciousness. But his recent bar mitzvah ushered him into manhood, so she’s issued permission.

His opinion counts

Conversely, Charles was less impressed with Wicked (“very disappointing”) and Rock of Ages (“somewhat dizzying, very intense and abrasive on the eyes and ears”). If that last statement sounds as if a critic said it, indeed one did. Since 2015, Charles has been one of three “Kid Critics” for BroadwayWorld.com, where he raved about Something Rotten and The Prom. This post also got him invited to a Sunday brunch sponsored by the 2016 Fiddler on the Roof revival, where Danny Burstein and Jessica Hecht warmly greeted him. “We got to talk,” he adds, “and eat bagels.”

However, Charles isn’t a mere observer. He recently launched his own podcast: “Backstage Babble” (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ backstage-babble/ id1526353692), named for the opening number of Applause. Shakespeare’s ill-wind quotation comes to mind when Charles says, “I realized how ideal a quarantine was to start a podcast; everyone has a lot of time.”

Theatre in the blood

His first guest was Harold Holzer, a 42nd Street Redevelopment Project board member who was also New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug’s press secretary (which is why Harvey Fierstein mentioned him in his play Bella Bella). Holzer is also Charles’ maternal grandfather and has given his grandson Playbills from the ’70s and ’80s, when he was a frequent theatregoer. “My mom and dad would see a lot of theatre before I was born,” Charles says. “So both my parents are very supportive.”

Despite Holzer’s appearance on “Backstage Babble,” Charles doesn’t rely on sheer nepotism for guests. Others who’ve participated and chimed in with fun facts include Anita Gillette (“she told me the writers of Kelly were barred from rehearsal and actually put on disguises to sneak in”), Chuck Cooper (“extremely honest about the flaws of people he worked with”) and Joshua Bergasse, whose On the Town choreography got the ball rolling for Charles. (Tune in Mondays and see who’s his guest this week.)

His favorite things

Charles has picked up a few pointers along the way. “People don’t like to be asked reverentially about other people who they consider to be their peers,” he says. “I’ve learned to write a lot of questions about all areas of their careers so I will be armed once I figure out which thing they really want to talk about. I don’t want to be caught off-guard with no more questions, so I’ve gone from 40 questions to almost 80. It does lead to some long interviews,” he admits before adding “which is my favorite thing.” It’s rivaled, however, by collecting theatrical memorabilia.

“I have two shelves in my room with theatre books, one for coffee-table books,” he says. If that doesn’t sound like much, give Charles a chance to continue: “And there are nine shelves in the living room for the same purpose.”

Manhattan apartments are hardly McMansions. Hence Charles must “sometimes use the floor for books I can’t accommodate elsewhere.”

Let’s get to the CDs: “On the shelves directly outside my room, I have nine binders of musical theatre CDs as well as four large binders of cabaret and miscellaneous ones.” My Playbill collection is overflowing. I have five binders, and also a giant bin. The bookshelf under my bed is also stuffed full of them.” So that bedroom may be forced to sacrifice its bed one day. “It gets more and more packed,” he admits. “I have bins for old program books and one for theatre magazines—where Encore Monthly will go soon!” And if that isn’t enough, there are “two boxes filled with little theatre oddities such as pins, postcards, the flyers that you get handed in Times Square,” and last, and probably least, “confetti tossed to the ground at shows.

Kirsch on West 45th Street near Broadway. Photo by Kym Fajardo.

He Also Acts

At school and camp, Charles has appeared in productions of 42nd Street, Beauty and the Beast and Annie. “I found a lot more layers to Daddy Warbucks than were on the surface of the cut-down script,” he says. As a result, Charles has made “a lot of friends who love to perform, so they understand.” Although some kids may know that Dominic Smith was the Mets’ best hitter last season and don’t know, as Charles does, that Alexis Smith won a Tony for Follies, he says he’s never been bullied because of his interests.

However, he admits that “I remember excitedly exclaiming to one of my friends ‘They’ve just cast Santino Fontana in 1776 at Encores!’ and not getting any kind of reaction.” We may eventually see Charles stage shows rather than star in them; his email address includes the word “directing.” (He did, at age eight, cast relatives in his own production of On the Town.)

Whatever the case, expect Charles Kirsch to continue to be entranced by Broadway even after he gets his own car or becomes—don’t bet against it— president of the United States.