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Mike Stoller and Iris Rainer Dart talk ‘Beaches’ and reviving their Yiddish musical
A Peanuts poster in the background of our video call reminds Iris Rainer Dart of her brief time starring in a musical.
“I was the understudy for Judy Kaye in the L.A. company of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown,” recalled Dart, 82, the author of the bestselling novel Beaches and the book and lyrics for the new Broadway musical based on it. “She wanted to go home for Thanksgiving, and so they let me go on one time to see if I could do it. And then for Thanksgiving, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then went on as Lucy!”
After that, it was curtains. “That’s my distinguished acting career,” Dart said. “Boy, am I glad it gave me up!”
But Dart never gave up on musicals, which she started writing as an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon with an up-and-coming composer named Stephen Schwartz. She worked as a writer for Sonny and Cher’s variety show, and used Cher as a partial model for the character of Cee Cee Bloom, the brassy diva whose friendship with the more refined Bertie White is the center of Beaches. (There’s a bit of Dart in Bloom, too — namely the Jewishness.) Years later, after Garry Marshall directed the 1988 film version of Beaches, Bette Midler, who gave life to Cee Cee on screen, asked Dart to write a new vehicle for her.
Searching for subject matter, Dart remembered her stint as a replacement teacher at her daughter’s Jewish school in her largely Judenrein neck of California. She felt unprepared to take over — “The understudy doesn’t know the lines” — but she got mailers from Jewish institutions to develop her lesson plans. One was a catalog of Yiddish films.
Growing up in Pittsburgh with Yiddish-speaking immigrant parents, she didn’t need subtitles to watch them. Inspired, she wrote what would become The People in the Picture, a memory play of Yiddish theater and the Holocaust.
Midler wouldn’t go on to star in the show, which debuted on Broadway in 2011 with Donna Murphy, but she made the shidduch between Dart and Mike Stoller, the legendary songsmith who, with lyricist Jerry Leiber, penned “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Yakety Yak” and, yes, a tune called “Charlie Brown” for the Coasters.
When it came time to adapt Beaches, a story built in part around backstage drama, and an enduring friendship that grows out of it, Dart reconnected with Stoller after working with a different composer on a previous run of the show.
Stoller, 93, has had his music feature in many Broadway musicals — mostly of the jukebox variety, long after they had already been hit records. He says he approaches crafting an original score differently, writing for characters rather than an artist like Elvis. With Beaches he set out to write a “musical-musical,” that was traditional and book-driven. In the case of both Beaches and People in the Picture, there’s a heaping helping of Yiddishkeit.
One line that has audiences rolling in the aisles comes when Cee Cee (played by Jessica Vosk) pays a visit to her friend Bertie (Kelli Barrett), whose mother is dying at a Catholic hospital. She tells the nuns “my mother used to point you out to me on the street and say, ‘At least they married a Jewish guy.’”
Stoller spent some of his early years living in the converted basement of his grandparents’ house in Bell End, Queens. His grandmother spoke Yiddish, Russian, Polish and English with a Cockney accent.
“She left Bialystok and moved to Whitechapel in London on her way to America,” Stoller explained.
Stoller never had a bar mitzvah, and learned his father didn’t either. It was only when the family moved to California that Stoller learned his dad, A.L. Stoller’s, full name.
“I was thrilled to find out that his name was really ‘Abraham Lincoln Stoler,’” Stoller recalled. “In a way, it sounded Black, and I was working primarily with African American people when I started writing along with Jerry, and those were the singers that inspired us, and so I felt additional pride in his name.”
The People in the Picture brought Stoller to tears. Beaches, which (spoilers for a 41-year-old story) ends with Bertie’s untimely death, has audiences cracking up before they reach for a Kleenex.
The one song Stoller didn’t compose for the show is “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” which became a standard from the film. But beyond that, the story stays truer to Dart’s novel than the movie did.
“I always knew, because I wasn’t writing it, that it would not be the story that I wanted to tell,” said Dart of the film version. “The story I wanted to tell was in the book and in this musical.”
In the meantime, Stoller and Dart want to bring back People in the Picture. Dart said she has a new draft ready to go.
“I’m hoping that maybe we can get Jeff Goldblum, who says he loves Yiddish,” Dart said. “He’s from Pittsburgh also, and I think his father, Dr. Goldblum, may have been the doctor to my family, to my mother. Because there were two Dr Goldblums, and one of them was an eye doctor, and my mother was always trying to fix him up with my cousin.”
“Need I say more?” Dart asked.
The post Mike Stoller and Iris Rainer Dart talk ‘Beaches’ and reviving their Yiddish musical appeared first on The Forward.
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Report: US, Israel Preparing for Resumptions of Strikes Against Iran
US President Donald Trump speaks during an event to sign a memorandum in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Evan Vucci
i24 News – The United States and Israel are engaged in intense preparations — the largest since the cease-fire took effect — for the possible resumption of attacks against Iran as early as next week, the New York Times reported Saturday citing two Middle East officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Mako News reported Israeli official sources as saying that US President Donald Trump is expected to convene his closest team of advisors in the next 24 hours to make a final decision on the Iran matter. Israel estimates that a decision on military action may be made very soon, the report added.
According to NYT, should Trump decide to resume military strikes, options include more aggressive raids targeting Iranian military and infrastructure targets, US officials said.
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Trump Says Xi Agrees Iran Must Open Strait, But No Sign China Will Weigh In
US President Donald Trump participates in events at the Great Hall of the People and does a greeting with the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping May 14, 2026, in Beijing China during a trip focused on trade, regional security, and strengthening bilateral ties between the world’s two largest economies. Photo: Kenny Holston/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
US President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed Tehran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though China gave no indication it would weigh in.
Flying back from Beijing on Friday after two days of talks with Xi, Trump said he was considering whether to lift US sanctions on Chinese oil companies buying Iranian oil. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil.
“I’m not asking for any favors because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return,” Trump said when asked by a reporter on Air Force One whether Xi had made a firm commitment to put pressure on the Iranians to reopen the strait.
Xi did not comment on his discussions with Trump about Iran, although China’s foreign ministry criticized the war, calling it a conflict “which should never have happened, has no reason to continue.”
‘WE WANT THE STRAITS OPEN’
Iran has effectively shut the strait, which carried one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply before the US and Israel launched attacks on February 28. The disruption to shipping has caused the biggest oil supply crisis in history, pushing up oil prices.
Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said on Saturday that Tehran had prepared a mechanism to manage traffic through the strait along a designated route that would be unveiled soon.
Azizi said only commercial vessels and parties cooperating with Iran would benefit, and that fees would be collected for specialized services provided under the mechanism.
Thousands of Iranians were killed in the US and Israeli airstrikes. Thousands more have been killed in Lebanon in fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, though Israel and Lebanon agreed on Friday to a 45-day extension of a ceasefire that has tamped down the conflict there.
The US paused its attacks last month but began a port blockade. As of Saturday, 78 commercial ships had been redirected and four disabled to ensure compliance with the blockade, the US military said.
Tehran, which carried out strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states after the war began, has said it will not unblock the strait until the US ends its blockade. Trump has threatened to resume attacks if Iran does not agree to a deal.
“We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon, we want the straits open,” Trump said in Beijing, alongside Xi.
Iran, which has long denied it intends to build a nuclear weapon, has refused to end nuclear research or relinquish its hidden stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran had received messages from the US indicating Washington was willing to continue talks.
Pakistan has been mediating between Washington and Tehran. Iranian news agency Nournews said Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni had held “detailed” discussions with his visiting Pakistani counterpart on Iran-Pakistan relations and the prospects for resuming peace talks, but gave no details.
TRUMP LOSING PATIENCE
Trump, who told Fox News’ “Hannity” program in an interview aired on Thursday that he was losing patience with Iran, said Tehran “should make a deal.”
Oil prices rose around 3 percent to around $109 a barrel on Friday [O/R] on concerns about a lack of progress in resolving the conflict.
Talks on ending the war, which has become a liability for Trump ahead of US congressional elections in November, have been on hold since last week when Iran and the US each rejected the other’s most recent proposals.
Araqchi said on Friday that Iran would welcome Chinese input, adding that Tehran was trying to give diplomacy a chance but did not trust the US, which has curtailed previous rounds of talks by launching air strikes.
When the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran at the end of February, they said one of their aims was to weaken the authorities so Iranians could topple the government.
There has been little sign of organized dissent in Iran during the war, and rights groups say the government has cracked down heavily on its opponents.
Iran’s judiciary said on Saturday that 39 people had been executed for collaborating with Israeli or US spy agencies, or taking part in “terror” or armed unrest, since the war started, the judiciary’s news agency Mizan reported.
It said 36 “medium-level” dissidents had received long prison sentences.
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Tens of Thousands March in London in Separate Immigration, Pro‑Palestinian Protests
Protesters take part in a “Unite the Kingdom” rally organised by British anti-immigration activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, in London, Britain, May 16, 2026. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
Tens of thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday in two separate protests – one against high levels of immigration and another in support of Palestinians.
Police deployed 4,000 officers, including reinforcements from outside the capital, and pledged “the most assertive possible use of our powers” in what they called their biggest public order operation in years.
By 1200 GMT, shortly after both marches started, police said they had made 11 arrests for a range of offenses. They had earlier forecast turnout of at least 80,000.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday accused organizers of the Unite the Kingdom march of “peddling hate and division, plain and simple.”
The march was organized by anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson. The government barred 11 people it described as “foreign far-right agitators” from entering Britain to address the protest.
A previous protest led by Robinson in September drew around 150,000 people, police said, and featured a video address by US tech billionaire Elon Musk. More than 20 people were arrested, and police are still seeking more than 50 suspects.
MARCHERS WAVE BRITISH AND ENGLISH FLAGS
On Saturday, Robinson supporters gathered in central London, waving mainly British and English flags.
“I think that too much migration – not migration, but too much migration – is causing a lot of problems, upsetting a delicate balance here,” said Allison Parr, who also criticized net-zero environmental policies.
Annual net migration approached 900,000 in 2022 and 2023, but fell back to around 200,000 last year after tighter work visa rules.
Concern over immigration – including the arrival of asylum seekers on small boats – has weighed on Starmer’s popularity and boosted the right-wing Reform UK party, whose leader Nigel Farage has distanced himself from Robinson.
Some protesters chanted abuse about Starmer.
Robinson, who has convictions for assault, stalking and other offenses, urged supporters this week to act peacefully in what he billed as “the greatest patriotic display the world has ever seen.”
Earlier this year, he traveled to the US, where he met a State Department official and addressed supporters about what he called “the dangers of Islam” and “the Islamification of Great Britain.”
Census data showed 6.5 percent of people in England and Wales identified as Muslim in 2021, up from 4.9 percent in 2011.
PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS MARK NAKBA DAY
Nearby, pro-Palestinian demonstrators held a march to mark Nakba Day, commemorating Palestinians’ loss of land in the 1948 war that followed the creation of Israel. “Nakba” means catastrophe in Arabic.
The march also drew those opposing the Unite the Kingdom rally, alongside predominantly Palestinian flags.
London has recently seen a spate of arson attacks on Jewish sites, and two Jewish men were stabbed last month in an incident being treated as terrorism.
Police said repeated large pro-Palestinian marches – 33 since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 – had left many Jewish people feeling too intimidated to enter central London.
While protesters held a range of views, police said they routinely made arrests for racially and religiously aggravated public order offenses, inciting racial hatred or supporting proscribed organizations.
The government said police would arrest protesters who chanted “globalize the intifada,” a reference to Palestinian uprisings against Israel that many British Jews view as inciting antisemitism.
Some protesters on Saturday chanted “Death to the IDF”, referring to the Israeli army – language that police said had previously been a reason for arrests when aimed at Jewish people.