January 7, 2005

First Traditional Musical on Frank Lloyd Wright

Tells How Businessman Helped

Save Architect's Career

RENEWING WRIGHT Celebrates Buffalo Executive Darwin D. Martin as the Great Architect's Unheralded Benefactor and Top Patron

Playwright Researched Hundreds of Letters Between the Two Men

Special Performances Also Set for June at Graycliff, Martin's Wright-Designed Summer Home

AMHERST, N.Y. - A new musical premiering in March tells the story of the largely unheralded Buffalo, N.Y., businessman whose years of financial support for Frank Lloyd Wright played a pivotal role in saving the world-renowned architect's career.

RENEWING WRIGHT, the first traditional musical theatre production about America's greatest architect, focuses on his 32-year friendship with Darwin D. Martin, chief executive of the Larkin Co., a huge manufacturing and retail giant based in Buffalo at the turn of the 20th century.

One of the highest paid executives in the nation at the time, Martin had Wright design and build three homes for him and his family in the Buffalo area. A century ago, Martin championed Wright as the designer for the Larkin Co.'s administration building, Wright's first major public commission and the building that first brought the architect acclaim in international architectural circles.

But while those commissions helped build Wright's career, it was Martin's decades of financial and other assistance that really helped save Wright, a notorious spendthrift, from financial ruin.

"Martin went far beyond what Wright's other clients did in terms of supporting him financially," said Renewing Wright writer Randall Kramer, artistic director of MusicalFare Theatre, an innovative, intimate professional theater on the campus of Daemen College in suburban Buffalo.

Kramer set out to write a musical primarily focused on Wright's sometimes stormy relationship with Martin and his wife, Isabelle, especially during the design and construction in the mid-1920s of Martin's summer home, Graycliff, built on a 70-foot cliff overlooking Lake Erie. Kramer also interviewed several volunteers of the Graycliff Conservancy, which since 1999 has been restoring the home after 50 years of neglect and remodeling by other owners.

But Kramer changed the focus of the production after researching hundreds of letters exchanged by Martin and Wright from the archives of the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. The two men corresponded from 1903 - when Martin solicited the young and unproven Oak Park, Ill., architect to come to Buffalo to design two homes and the Larkin Building - until Martin's death in 1935.

Kramer discovered a friendship between Wright and Martin that far surpassed the traditional architect-patron relationship - and even some of Wright's other notable client relationships, including with Fallingwater owner Edgar Kaufmann and Herbert F. Johnson of the Johnson Wax Co.

"Without Martin's help over the years, especially his efforts to save Taliesin, Wright's home in Wisconsin, Wright might never have been in a position to salvage his career in the 1930s.

He might not have had the opportunity to design and build such masterpieces as Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax Building, and the Guggenheim Museum," Kramer said, echoing the conclusion that the musical draws in its finale.

"Some of the things Martin did to help Wright have been noted in Wright biographies, but for the most part, such as in the Ken Burns television documentary on Wright, Martin has gotten short shrift. This musical aims to change that and tell Martin's compelling story," Kramer said.

The musical 's first act covers the early relationship of the two men, during the design and construction of the Larkin Building, the Barton House for Martin's sister, and the Darwin D. Martin House Complex, Wright's largest Prairie style house and considered one of his greatest.

From the beginning, Martin, a fastidious businessman and self-made millionaire who worked his way to the top from peddling Larkin soap on the streets of Brooklyn as a boy, argued with Wright about design details and budgets. But Martin was so taken by the charismatic Wright that he not only ended up letting Wright have his way, often at odds with the desires of Martin's own wife, Isabelle, but also ignored the huge cost overruns on the homes.

"Could it be that Lloyd Wright is his vice?" Isabelle sings about her husband in one chorus.

The musical's first act concludes by following Martin's dealings with Wright through the mid-1920s. The second act continues the story of how Martin bailed Wright out time and time again. Over the years, Martin's support of Wright included:

*Commissions in the early 1900s for two homes in Buffalo, including the opulent Darwin D. Martin house complex, with pergola, conservatory, gardener's cottage, carriage house, and stables.

*The commission for the Larkin Co. Administration Building in 1904.

*Helping Wright obtain commissions for homes for two other Larkin Co. executives, attorney William R. Heath (1905) and Walter V. Davidson (1912).

*Loaning Wright thousands of dollars periodically while receiving little or nothing in payments. Martin tracked his loans to Wright, estimating he provided the architect nearly $38,000. Martin also paid Wright thousands of dollars for some of the Japanese prints Wright often sold off to cover other debts.

*Buying out the mortgage on Wright's original home and studio in Oak Park, Ill., in 1912 so Wright could support his first wife and their six children after a scandalous affair in which Wright abandoned them and ran off to Europe with a neighbor's wife. The move also allowed Wright to begin building Taliesin.

*The commission in 1926 for Graycliff, Wright's first major project since 1923 and one that

helped keep him afloat as his career was hitting bottom.

*Editing Wright's autobiography in the 1920s, sales of which helped Wright recapture attention and pay off some debts.

*Helping bail Wright out of jail in 1926 when he was arrested for violating the Mann Act after leaving his second wife for Olgivanna Hinzenberg, who would later become his third wife. Martin solicited the Larkin Co. attorney, Heath, for assistance.

*Contributing $10,000 - the most of any of Wright's friends or clients - toward incorporating Wright to pay off his numerous debts, including in 1926 to repurchase Taliesin from the Bank of Wisconsin, which foreclosed on the mortgage but received no bids on the property at auction.

Kramer said he also discovered correspondence between Martin and Philip F. La Follette, Wright's attorney on the foreclosure, indicating that Martin, without Wright's knowledge, had told LaFollette before the auction that he would cover any bid needed to outbid any surprise bidders on the property.

"If Mr. Wright loses Taliesin, he will be devastated. His career may be over. I cannot allow that to happen." Martin tells La Follette in a scene from RENEWING WRIGHT.

Later, in a subsequent scene after Martin's death in 1935, Wright, who was often incredibly crass toward his chief benefactor, thanks an angelic vision of Martin:

"You saved Taliesin. Without you there couldn't have been a Taliesin Fellowship. Edgar Kaufmann asked me to design my most famous design, Fallingwater, after his son, who was a Taliesin fellow, introduced me to him. Fallingwater was on the cover of Time magazine and created an entire second golden age for me. So, without you saving Taliesin, there would have been no Fallingwater. And, after that, no Johnson Wax Building, no Guggenheim Museum, and hundreds of other buildings. You were my architect."

Kramer said the musical also ties Martin's efforts to the efforts of the Graycliff Conservancy to restore the Martins' summer home. "I had already looked at pictures of the tearing down of the Larkin Administration Building, and I couldn't live with myself knowing that I let another Wright building be torn down," a Graycliff volunteer says in the opening scene.

"I think this story of Martin and Wright enhances the significant efforts in Buffalo to restore both Graycliff and the Darwin Martin House Complex," Kramer said. "Now these houses are even greater in importance to Wright's legacy because of Martin's key role in Wright's life."

RENEWING WRIGHTmakes its world premiere at MusicalFare Theatre in Amherst on the campus of Daemen College on March 4, with performances running through April 4. Additional information about the production is available from MusicalFare or the agency contact below.

Wright has been the subject of a number of plays, including Robert LePage's GEOMETRY OF MIRACLES, and WORK SONG: THREE VIEWS OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT by Eric Simonson and Jeffrey Hatcher. There has also been an opera, SHINING BROW by Daron Aric Hagen and Paul Muldoon, but RENEWING WRIGHT is believed to be the first traditional musical theater production about Wright, Kramer said.

RENEWING WRIGHT will also be performed in June at Graycliff in Derby, N.Y., about 25 miles from downtown Buffalo, as a charitable benefit for the Graycliff Conservancy.

More information about Graycliff is available at http://graycliff.bfn.org.

"The performances at Graycliff will be very special and memorable because of the history and beauty of the setting," Kramer said. "This will be the first time that a production about Wright will be staged with one of the buildings he designed as a backdrop."

MusicalFare Theatre, one of the only musical theater companies in Upstate New York, is an award-winning not-for-profit, professional musical theater company that has produced more than 90 shows, entertaining more than 200,000 people in Western New York. In 2003, STORIES OF LIFE, written by Kramer, won praise from critics, patrons, and a statewide organization representing not-for-profit senior care facilities for its telling of the real-life anecdotes of dozens of elderly Western New Yorkers.

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(pictured above: top photo: Tom Zindle; middle photo: Lisa Ann Ludwig & John Fredo; bottom photo: Tom Zindle & John Fredo in RENEWING WRIGHT (2003-2004 Season).  Photos by Chris Cavanagh.)