When New York Yankees pitching ace CC Sabathia took the mound against the Philadelphia Phillies’ star Cliff Lee in the first game of the 2009 World Series, sports commentators were abuzz over the fact that the players once shared pitching responsibilities as teammates on the Cleveland Indians.

           

Interactive Articles from Fall 2008 Magazine Coming Soon ....

It was hot that day, blisteringly hot as is typical of an August afternoon in Washington D.C.   But, nothing else was typical about that afternoon back in 1963 that has entered into history—least of all the memorable words that rang out that day from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

They were the words of a young minister calling out to some quarter-of-a-million people gathered before him.

“I have a dream,” shouted the minister, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal¼. ’”

The crowd cheered as the speaker went on: “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood¼.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character¼.

“I have a dream today.” 

The day was August 28, 1963 and the audience had come from all parts of the country to participate in the March on Washington to lobby for passage of the Civil Rights bill then before Congress.   People of all races and creeds, all ages and economic backgrounds, had joined the march. Those gathered at the Lincoln Memorial realized  they were witnessing history-in-the-making as they listened to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. exhort all Americans to “let freedom ring.”

Don Maggin ’44 was in the audience, in a distinctive spot near the podium, where he had listened to one after another of the esteemed speakers and legendary performers call and sing for equal rights in the 95 degree heat.  And he almost missed the historic speech.  He was about to step away because it was so hot and King was two hours behind schedule.    But something kept him planted where he stood—something that put him front and center of that historic moment—and he heard the immortal speech directly from its author, directly from up front of the Lincoln Memorial. 

Maggin was there for that historic moment, as he has managed to be repeatedly at different moments throughout his life. For, at significant points in this country’s history, this HM alumnus was not only present—he was working behind the scenes to make the moment happen.

“Moments” like the founding of Project Head Start, for which Maggin served as national field director of this pivotal 20^th Century American program in education and social development.  He played a role in the efforts to bring Robert F. Kennedy to the Senate and the White House—efforts cut short by the Senator’s assassination. And, he was there in the White House itself—as part of President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

Through it all Don Maggin was a writer, ever applying a talent awakened in him soon after he entered Horace Mann in the ninth grade, and which he honed into a skill as a student at the School. Writing was a talent Maggin used in his continuing pursuit of a life in public service and the arts. One such effort had Maggin chronicle the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1970s through mid-1980s that many believe still effects our economy today. Maggin’s reporting became the basis for his book Bankers, Builders, Knaves and Thieves. The book remains an important contribution to understanding the economic history of our country in recent decades.

 

 

But politics and economics represent just the tip of the many areas of expertise of this alumnus. With interests as diverse as Maggin’s are, it is not surprising that his other books reflect his involvement with the arts. These include biographies of jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz—Dizzy, the Life and Times of John Birks Gillespie, and Stan Getz, a Life in Jazz. But there’s more. Maggin’s literary accomplishments have led him in another direction still—to join the editorial board of the literary magazine, The Reading Room, created by Barbara Probst Solomon to bring to the public quality poetry, short stories, essays, and art.   Maggin himself is a regular contributor of poetry.

 

Disparate as his political and literary lives may have been, Maggin’s own history speaks to the seamlessness with which he combined a life in the arts with one of public service—a feat he attributes, not in small part, to his education at Horace Mann. For, as Maggin emphatically states, it was at Horace Mann that he discovered his love of writing—both as a reader, and as a writer himself. It’s a passion that has fueled the octogenarian’s undiminished energy ever since. Readers can find that passion in lines from a poem such as Maggin’s “Stomping the Blues Away” published in the first volume of “The Reading Room” series in 2000.

 “The beat in my blood

  Lifting me to joy

  In the mote-filled sunlight

  Of the living room.”

 

It’s a poem that speaks to how life’s most miniscule moments of inaction can nevertheless lead to powerful emotion. 

And he says, forcefully, “I am prouder of my poetry than anything else I’ve done.”

Maggin expressed that kind of passion publicly in a presentation at New York’s Merkin Concert Hall just last winter at a rousing concert on the religious roots of jazz that he produced and narrated. Explaining, at the concert, the Lucumi/Santeria roots within jazz of the African-based religion of African peoples in the Caribbean, Maggin told the audience, “If the essence of jazz is improvisation, then its soul is rhythm¼. An essential thing to know about jazz, whether it comes from a Christian religious tradition or a Lucumi one, is that it is a music of pulse, of rhythm, of heartbeat¼. “

Audiences had the chance to hear Maggin expound further on rhythm in a radio show broadcast on New York’s leading jazz station, WBGO, on October 21, 2007 in commemoration of Dizzy Gillespie’s birthday. This jazz great would have been 90, and his music would be a defining presence throughout much of Maggin’s adult lifetime—a lifetime the alumnus recalls as having been greatly enhanced by his years at Horace Mann.

A great awakening

Maggin describes his transition from public school in New York at PS 166 to high school at Horace Mann as his “awakening.”

“Through education, which has given me so much hope and an avenue for change, my mind has expanded and my moral values have been challenged to rethink my world view. I credit education for showing me that I do have what it takes to be a better citizen, and a better father with much to contribute to society…. Now my aspirations are such that I want to pursue a career in social work in the field of reentry, helping people like myself reenter their communities as productive citizens, never to return to a life of crime and violence.” – from the valedictory speech of Bobby Evans, Patten University at San Quentin class of 2006, and a former student of Dr. Jody Lewen ’82, Executive Director, the Prison University Project.

Donald S. Hillman ’42, TV Pioneer: making history through history

While The History Channel filmed Hillman discussing his launch of the Thanksgiving Parade coverage, the interviewers might also have asked this alumnus what it was like, in general, to be part of the dawn of what is arguably the most influential media expression of the modern age. For, Donald Hillman was among the originators of TV programming in the second half of the last century, inventing the medium even as it was being developed, and captivating the attention of modern society ever since.

Pictured: Television pioneer Donald S. Hillman '42 (second from end, far right) worked with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (center) on the program Prospects of Mankind when he was Executive Director of National Educational Television in the 1950s. 

Pictured: Don Hillman recorded his reflections on Eleanor Roosevelt as an oral history with archivists at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York in spring 2005.

An August 2005 article in The New York Times questioned why readers and filmgoers in this country are so enamored of pirate lore. From the enduring popularity of Treasure Island to the recent awakening to the romance of pirates by a new generation who clamored to see Johnny Depp’s portrayal in Pirates of the Caribbean, The Times mused about the recent publication of a slew of books on pirate history.

Neil Baldwin ’65 Helps Americans Understand Themselves

            It’s been 20 years since Neil Baldwin ’65 visited his high school alma mater, Horace Mann. The year was 1985 and the occasion was his class’ 20th reunion. Baldwin recalled that his classmates shared with him memories of his prowess as a track star.
           “A three-season track man for three-years,” as he was described in The Mannikin, Baldwin captained and co-captained HM’s cross-country, winter and spring track teams in his senior year. But the yearbook also recounted that “joining the Class of ’65 in the Third Form, Neil immediately became known for his literary acumen… An Honors English student for three years, he worked unstintingly as Assistant Editor of The Mannikin, Associate editor of Quest, and contributing editor of The Record. Readers of The Record eagerly awaited Neil’s ‘hip’ comments on the changing Village jazz scene.”
           Baldwin returned to Horace Mann on October 29, 2005 for his class’ 40th reunion. Classmates again recalled the hours Baldwin spent pounding the paths of the Van Cortlandt Park track, or rounding the tight curves of the Prettyman Gym balcony. But, when they walked past the glassed-in bookcase surrounding the fireplace in HM’s Olshan Lobby – the portico to the school’s Katz Library, which was donated by another Class of Sixty-fiver, HM Trustee Board Chair Bob Katz – they noted that it was the literary side of the mark Baldwin made during his years at Horace Mann that has defined his life since leaving the school.

"It was wonderful to linger outside the Library," Baldwin said, "and chat with Bob Katz, Dick Feinberg, Jeff Brosk, Billy Salter, Ken Ettinger, Bob Axelrod, and others whom I hadn't seen in so long. I had been somewhat apprehensive driving up to the school. But it was easy to pick up where we had left off. And I also had the pleasure of running into my friend and colleague, Bob Caro, his wife, Ina, and their grandson. It was a delightful day. The school has grown -- there are more buildings, of course -- and yet HM has managed, with grace and thoughtfulness, to preserve the essential ambience and beauty of the campus."
            Twenty years ago Neil Baldwin had authored two books, both published the year before. The first was a warm-up – a Barron’s Book Notes guide to reading John Knowles’ prep school novel, A Separate Peace. The second is a much-referenced biography of a Horace Manner of an earlier age: To All Gentleness: William Carlos Williams, the Doctor Poet  tells of the life and work of this member of the Class of 1903, one of the giants of American literature.
          The years since have seen Baldwin add eight more books to his list of literary accomplishments. These are not only works fueled by his imagination – they are books presaged by that long ago reference to Baldwin’s “literary acumen”: each one serves as a guide along the path toward the public’s understanding of American letters, the American imagination, and America itself. In his biography Man Ray, American Artist Baldwin continues the journey he began in his biography of Williams, exploring the realm of creativity through a portrait of an American surrealist. Edison, Inventing the Century, examines a quintessential American’s translation of ideas into action. Henry Ford and the Jews delves into one of the darker sides of the American saga by analyzing the anti-Semitism that colored the legacy of the great turn-of-the century entrepreneur. Legends of the Plumed Serpent, Biography of a Mexican God explores the 5,000-year-old Mesoamerican myth of Quetzalcoatl, a subject with which Baldwin became fascinated through visits to Mexico. The American Revelation, Ten Ideals that Shaped Our Country from the Puritans to the Cold War, published this year, traces the roots of the ideals that defined America in the past, and underpin this country’s culture today. From John Winthrop’s call to his followers in his “City on the Hill” speech in 1630 to John Marshall’s “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Europe after World War II The American Revelation delves into the words that are at the foundations of American thought and action. Baldwin traces the roots of these concepts by examining the lives of those who placed them into the American lexicon, as well as their crafters’ intent upon expressing them in speech and writing.
              Of The American Revelation Baldwin’s hope -- he said in an interview posted on his informative and award-winning website www.neilbaldwinbooks.com. -- is that “the reader will close the book with the thought that he or she has learned something new about the cumulative identity of our country, something new that will engender a sense of pride despite the adversities of our time. And then, building upon that feeling, I hope the reader will concur with me that a modern democracy, if it is true to its informing principles, must permit – or, I will go further and say must encourage – its thoughtful citizens to be free to re-evaluate those principles.”
             St. Martin’s Press, which published The American Revelation, sent a copy of the book to every U.S. Senator. Of the seminal expressions of U.S. identity and their roots as described in this book Baldwin said, “I’m hoping the book will help get people thinking about the circumstances as these ideals might apply today, without hitting them over the head with conclusions. Whether we have a 'melting pot' in this country (as one of Baldwin’s subjects Israel Zangwill said) or whether it’s more of a 'tossed salad' is up to the reader to decide.” Baldwin also hopes readers – including policymakers who have seen the book – will examine the context in which these defining phrases were uttered, and understand that they may not apply in different circumstances. “I think some of these ideals have been a) forgotten, or b) they have been spun around or reconfigured to suit whoever may be espousing them to his or her own design. One of the most recent misappropriations," Baldwin pointed out, "is the use of ‘Marshall Plan’. The paradigm of the Marshall Plan for Europe in 1947 does not apply to Iraq, or to Louisiana. We need to know what are the actual words of the Marshall Plan – what it actually says, and not what we think it says.”
                 In many ways The American Revelation, the latest of the books Baldwin has published since his days as a student at Horace Mann, represents the synthesis of the author’s own progression as a writer. As a biographer and historian, the way Baldwin explores his subjects has always led to an examination of the lasting implications of their sayings, writing, and actions. The use of words is a subject Baldwin has explored in other ways, through a series of books that give readers rare insights into the thoughts of great literary figures, and access to them in the way only a person such as Baldwin could have had.
                For 15 years Neil Baldwin served as founding executive director of the National Book Foundation. Through his educational and fundraising activities on behalf of this organization, including the administration of the prestigious National Book Award, Baldwin came to know well this country’s literary luminaries. The books that resulted from his association are ones that every devoted reader craves to read: in National Book Award Classics: Essays Celebrating Our Literary Heritage Baldwin reflects on the work of such authors as William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Ralph Ellison. In The Writing Life Baldwin and other noted authors and critics discuss with contemporary authors just what is involved in the thinking and methods of a writers’ work. The Book That Changed My Life -- a collection of interviews with an Introduction by Baldwin discussing the literature that influenced other literary greats -- has now become an event complete with a 12-hour marathon held on October 22, 2005 at New York’s Symphony Space featuring prominent actors, authors, athletes, business and news-people reading excerpts from the seminal works of other writers.
              Transforming the very private act of writing into a participatory event may have its roots in some of Baldwin’s experiences at Horace Mann. Through his Mannikin, Record, and Quest experiences, the writing he did as a student contributed to the collective product of a group. But, for Baldwin, the experience that focused on team effort, even more than these literary forays, was being part of and captaining three athletic teams. “It was the ambiance of competition at all levels I remember so vividly from Horace Mann. I was captain of cross-country, winter track, and spring track during my senior year, with my classmate Jon Towers ’65. I feel that the competitive mentality that was part of being on that team, being at the school on the whole, in my teenage mind, was about being the best, trying to achieve, to accomplish.”
             Throughout the time he was researching and writing the significant body of work he has produced, Neil Baldwin held fulltime positions, as a teacher and a college professor, in the development office of The New York Public Library, as executive director of the NBF, and as a family man as well.
             Baldwin recalls that the atmosphere of his days at Horace Mann also contributed to the discipline with which he pursues his writing and research – all of which he does on his own. “I never could have a research assistant. I have to have complete control of a project, even to the book jacket,” he laughed. “I also like doing the research. I cherish my collegiality with archivists and librarians. In my acknowledgements in The American Revelation I thank first and foremost the librarians at The New York Public Library where I spent so many hours and days.”
            Of Horace Mann, Baldwin said, “From taking an hour to commute to the school in the morning by crosstown bus and then subway (not to mention the trudge up the hill), to giving me my disciplined and competitive nature, I responded to the rigor of the environment. There was a thoroughly-enforced dress code; you had to ask permission if you wanted to take off your jacket. I remember well those after-school 'detention' sessions for lots of infractions of the rules. We were all boys back then, and there was a lot of testosterone around,” Baldwin recalled of the Horace Mann of his era. “It whipped me into shape – literally.”
            That competitive spirit and sense of discipline made its appearance in one of the positions that led to Baldwin’s leadership of the National Book Foundation. Baldwin had distinguished himself in his work at the NYPL by successfully running its $50 million annual fund, under the leadership of Andrew Heiskell, Vartan Gregorian and Gregory Long. When he was recruited to set up the National Book Foundation with the dual goal of administering the National Book Awards and promoting literacy in America, the organization had less than $5,000 in the bank. “We raised $25 million to build the National Book Foundation into a major institution – into what it is now,” said Baldwin.

             One of the first actions Baldwin took was to streamline, while also expanding, the scope of the renowned Awards. “Since the first awards were given in 1950, the program had been through many vicissitudes. The first thing I did was prune it back to fiction and non-fiction, back to the basic genres. Then we added children’s books, and poetry, which had been dropped in 1986. I’m very proud of that,” Baldwin said.
             Along with administering the book awards program, the NBF sponsors a variety of innovative educational outreach programs to connect authors with the public, and promote literacy and a love of reading among young and old across the economic horizon. The American Voices program brings National Book Award authors to Native American reservations to explore the ways in which reading and writing can help preserve the ancient tradition of Native storytelling. NBF also sponsors author residency programs in settlement houses and schools, and assists teachers in their roles as literature educators. The NBF Family Literacy program offers children and adults in urban areas the chance to discover great writing relevant to their lives through a partnership with New York City public schools. Through this program National Book Award authors meet with at-risk as well as honors students. Through its Pleasures of Reading program NBF brings together National Book Award authors with millions of Americans who live in small cities, towns and rural areas rarely served by the established literary community. Finally, NBF sponsors a summer writing camp in the Berkshires where talented teens and adults can experience “the writing life” under the guidance of writers-in-residence free of charge.
            Overseeing, and continuing to develop programs for the NBF, while also producing his oeuvre, clearly required the discipline Baldwin honed during his high school years at Horace Mann. On November 17, 2003, the evening of the 15th consecutive National Book Award gala ceremony he presided over, Baldwin felt he was finally able to move on, and leave the organization in others’ hands. When he was seized with the idea for The American Revelation – an idea about which he was particularly passionate – Baldwin decided it was time for him to exit his “day job” and try to write full time. He finalized that decision in the year following September 11, and left the NBF in December 2003.
               “Henry Ford and the Jews was finished on September 13, 2001,” Baldwin recalled. “That was very significant, because I felt like I’d just finished a book about the dark side of an American icon, and I finished it at a very dark moment in our history, in our time, and mentally for me and emotionally for everybody. I decided that my next book was going to be the flip side. It was going to be a redemptive book. A lot of the motivation of The American Revelation had to do with almost a desire for a corrective in my own emotional life as an author … because of the downward theme of the (Ford) book and the theme and mood of the times. Part of it was to draw myself out of that, and part of it was to draw American history out of that.”
              The title for The American Revelation came to Baldwin as a revelation itself. “The book literally ‘came to me’ in two ways,” he recalled in his website interview.  “For as long as I can remember, like many authors, I have kept a notepad and pencil on the table next to my bed, on top of a pile of a half-dozen books that I am reading at any given time. One night in the sultry summer of 2002, I had a dream in which these three words, ‘The American Revelation,’ appeared hovering in mid-air just above my face. I woke up and jotted them down and went back to sleep. The next morning I looked at the words and instantly knew this was my book title. That fall, I read a piece in The Economist magazine about the emotional and political ambience of the United States one year after 9/11, and it struck me that we were living in a historical watershed moment, and I needed to respond to that moment.” Baldwin drew himself out of his post at the NBF in order to complete the book in a timely enough manner to have it contribute to the national discussion during this time of ongoing recovery.
             “In terms of the facets of the publishing world, I felt I had become too caught up in the machinery. It had become too complicated for me to be so deeply involved over the years with publishing as an author as well as an administrator. I had to step away from the Foundation in order to clarify my identity as an author.” And how has the fulltime writing life been for a person who had devoted his entire career helping to support and advocate for the literary efforts of others? “In simplest terms -- when it’s good, it’s great. When it’s bad, it’s horrible,” Baldwin said. “Writing full time has been hugely liberating intellectually, to know that at this point in your life you still have worlds and worlds to conquer in your mind. William Carlos Williams said 'Only the imagination is real,' and now I finally think I know what he meant.”
              Baldwin encounters the more frustrating aspects of his work during the course of a book’s production. “I’m used to being in control,” he said. “Now I’m subject to the terms of the incremental processes of publishing and that makes me very anxious -- which is when my very understanding wife, Roberta, and my very tolerant agent, John Silbersack, have to sit me down, and remind me to please stay calm!”
             However, there’s one character in Baldwin’s life who does seem to exert control over the author’s writing schedule -- he’s working on a novel now, his first-ever foray into fiction.  It’s the schedule of his faithful companion now that he spends his days working from home – his tabby cat, Whiskers. An early riser, Baldwin pores through the daily newspapers from 6 a.m. before he starts his writing day. Whiskers’ feeding needs are met around 8 a.m. “Then, he takes a nice, long nap in the bedroom, before ambling up to my office on the third floor to visit me during the day. He’s an indoor cat, so I can’t let him outside by himself. In the early evening, the two of us take a break and go outside into the yard. He gets to chew on the grass near our flower beds, under my supervision, and it’s a nice interlude for us. I don’t know what I’d do without him,” Baldwin said.                                  

About The American Revelation:
In the four years since September 11 Americans have experienced a collective soul-searching of themselves and their country as they have only a few other times in history. The necessity to make a decision between the side of patriot or loyalist back in 1776 was one of those times; another was the choice between loyalty to the Union or endorsing secession, during the Civil War.
            These were momentous choices, for momentous times, and often the answers were delineated in black and white, or, in the post-9/11 world, in red and blue. But, along the way to the emergence of movements that galvanized the masses toward one side or another were individuals whose actions, speeches, and writing sewed the seeds of the ideological foundation upon which all in this country stand.
            Among these people were the Puritan John Winthrop in 1630, Thomas Paine and Eugene Du Simitiere in 1776, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John L. O’Sullivan in the 1840s, Henry George in the 1880s, Jane Addams and Israel Zangwell in the early 1900s, Carter Woodson in the 1920s, and George C. Marhsall in 1947. And, from among them emerged the seminal notions and images of Winthrop’s “City on the Hill”, Paine’s “Common Sense” and Du Simitiere’s “E pluribus unum,” Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” O’Sullivan’s “Manifest Destiny,” George’s “Progress and Poverty”, Addams’ “Sphere of Action” and Zangwell’s “The Melting Pot,” Woodson’s “The Negro in Our History,” and George C. Marshall’s Marshall plan.
           To Neil Baldwin ’65 understanding this country, both before and after 9/11, requires an understanding of these concepts. He discusses each one, while also telling of the lives of those who fomented these ideas, in his latest book, The American Revelation. A slim volume for the territory it covers, the book is wonderfully readable and enlightening, for a reader can delve into each of the ideas individually, or engaged with them together as collective continuum.  Whatever one’s approach to the book is, it is a grand contribution to American letters and thought in itself.
            To hear Baldwin discuss the book itself, check his schedule of radio interviews posted on www.NeilBaldwinbooks.com.

Horace Mann alumni from the mid 1970s will surely remember Peter Yawitz ’76 as one of the most prominent presences in productions of the Horace Mann Theater Company. On January 31, 2005 Yawitz was introduced to a packed audience at Manhattan’s Town Hall as the New York cabaret world’s funniest singer/songwriter/performer of the year.

The occasion was the annual Nightlife Awards ceremony, which celebrates the best in New York cabaret, jazz and comedy performance. When producer Scott Siegel announced the awards on December 29, 2004, Yawitz had captured the award for Outstanding Cabaret Muscial Comedy/Characterization Performance for A New Man, the one-man show he premiered last summer.

Those attending the January 31 award ceremony got a taste of Yawitz’ wit and dazzling performance style: At this event, honorees offer the audience bits of their performances, rather than acceptance speeches, and on this night the audience saw why a superstar like Keely Smith, who was honored, along with Karen Akers, as Outstanding Cabaret Female Vocalist in a Major Engagement, has held center stage for over half a century, why the unique lyrical interpretations of Mark Murphy won him the title of Jazz Legend, and why HM’s own Yawitz is poised to join the ranks of song and comedy stardom.

According to Siegel, who created the Nightlife awards, their purpose is to “give New York City’s nightlife—its clubs and performers—the same importance in the public mindset as Broadway.” According to Siegel the award has “immediate credibility and importance because it is given by the broadest possible spectrum of this city’s most influential authorities on cabaret, jazz, and comedy from those who see acts in the big rooms to those who cover the nightlife waterfront” – the reviewers, including Rex Reed of The New York Observer, Steve Futterman of The New Yorker, and Naomi Steinberg, of Comedy Central, and others who served as judges. 

 

A star among stars

Other 2005 award winners, along with Akers, the legendary Smith, the late Cy Coleman who was celebrated with a performance of a medley of his songs, were sister songstresses Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway, Bill Charlap, and spectacular saxophonist Joe Lovano, and the hilarious rising star Patrice O’Neal among others. Host Bruce Vilanch, who is currently starring in Hairspray on Broadway, kept the audience laughing as he introduced guest presenters, including Tony Danza, and Andrea McArdle, who introduced the winners.

From the moment he stepped onto the stage dressed sharply in business attire, to the second Yawitz completed his rendition of his own Talk Like a Guy, the singer had the audience mesmerized. Many must have wondered – who was this Lehman Brothers-looking executive belting out, in a range of octaves, his hysterical parody of social interaction between uncomfortable strangers. And when Yawitz added, at the end, that even women can “talk like a guy” he had the crowd of nightlife aficionados rolling, and singing along with the refrain.

It was in that very magnetic stage presence—the one that takes audiences from their first impression of Yawitz as an Ivy League business school grad to a side-splittingly funny stage presence—that gave Yawitz his impeccably-timed comic pizzazz. For, in this case, the first impression is true. Yawitz is all that: an Ivy grad with a business degree, and what one reviewer called “a dazzling triple threat” showman whose career is currently catapulting through the cabaret scene.

By day, or by weekends, or whenever his clients need him, Peter Yawitz is president of Clear Communication, a company that helps corporations and their executives effectively convey their business’ message. By night, Yawitz’ hilarious observations on business and social relationships, offered to audiences in song and riveting monologues on modern life, have earned him an avid following on the nightclub scene. Oh, and in between, Yawitz is a devoted family man—husband and father of two. But, this balancing act—between advising business clients, and also writing material about the business world, between being able to “be there” for his children, attend their school and sports events, and spending numerous nights out of the house performing, is what fuels Yawitz’ act. Yawitz admits that more and more his observations of his daily life, from the board room to parent teacher conferences, could end up in his routine. No doubt, that’s what has brought him followers among people of a certain age.

“Not many people were writing songs about married dads in their 40’s who are balancing family, work, and friends,” Yawitz says.

 

A stage-presence developed at Horace Mann

Yawitz attributes his ease in going between his different worlds in large part to the theater experience he gained at Horace Mann. As a self-proclaimed “major theater jock at HM” Yawitz recalled “performing in about 10 plays from eighth to twelfth grades, or 2nd-6th form as we said then.” He calls on that experience in front of audiences in both his cabaret work and as a business communications consultant.

“I run my business communication seminars and I know where I’m going to get laughs each time. I’m just very comfortable in front of a lot of people either on stage or at the podium,” Yawitz said. As a performer whose A New Man plays to sell-out audiences, Yawitz has been called “a singer, songwriter, and comedian” who “never met an audience he didn’t like.”

“Theater was a major part of my experience at HM.  I was in a landmark class, in the class of 1976: we were the last all boys’ class, and were privileged to be part of the HM Theater in transition.  I was part of the group that named it the Horace Mann Theater Company.  I even had t-shirts made!   I had the pleasure of working with long-time theater teacher Fred Little in acting classes (“Upstage, Downstage, Upstage, Turn, Upstage, Downstage, Upstage, Turn”—a favorite exercise), and in one of the last plays he directed in his final year, The Time of Your Life, in 1972.  I also was in the first play Barry Siebelt directed at HM—our eighth grade production of an original story theater, and worked with him many other times   Finally, I was in the first play Anne MacKay directed—him by ee cummings, in 1973, and again in many other plays.

Yawitz is still in close touch with Anne MacKay, who traveled from her home in Orient, New York by bus to see his show last summer. “She gave me a book of her poetry and signed it, ‘To Peter, my favorite actor.’”

Yawitz returned to Horace Mann last year with his family. “We toured the amazing new theater, and I was surprised to see pictures of me in HM productions from the early ’70s.”

The fact that Yawitz’ HM Theater Company career is still current, at least on the walls of the Alfred Gross Theater’s Jordon Roth Lobby, hearkens back to another experience the performer had as a student here.

“Fred, Anne and Barry were all incredibly supportive of me, and encouraged me to pursue a career in performance,” said Yawitz. “I remember my telling Barry that I didn’t want that kind of life, and didn’t think I’d end up in the performing arts.  He laughed and said: ‘That’s what you think.’  Those words haunted me through business school and all the jobs I’ve had since college.

            “I performed just a little at Princeton, but didn’t start up again until I was in the Wharton Follies in grad school.  When I moved back to New York, I joined St. Bart’s Players—a wonderful community theater geared for former high school and college theater performers who chose the business life.  I was cast as the lead in many musicals there.  I can’t believe I had the energy to work full time, travel, and still rehearse at night! 

“When my employer went belly-up in the late-80’s I tried acting full time, joined Actors’ Equity and got an agent pretty fast.” Among Yawitz’ roles was that of the voice of Mumfie The Elephant in the television series The Magic Adventures of Mumfie. But, Yawitz said he “just hated the lifestyle, so I eased myself back into business.”  

 

The business, comedy balancing act

No one sees the links, and some of the irony, between the double life Yawitz leads than the businessman/performer himself. A Princeton graduate who earned his MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Yawitz has taught management communications at Columbia Business School of Management. At Clear Communication his clients include all of Wall Street’s heavy hitters, and some branches of government as well. The work Clear Communication does in coaching executive speakers, offering communications seminars, and institutional research and sales advice, receives rave reviews from satisfied customers within this list, who respect Yawitz for the respect he gives their work. But, another set of reviewers—those in the entertainment press—laud Yawitz’ out-of-office antics about the business world as being “dead-pan funny” and “instinctively sharp.” His wit has been compared to that of Mort Sahl.

Of the interception between business, comedy, and the ethics of using his experience with clients in one area to amuse audiences in another, Yawitz’ show is one of the most popular on the corporate private event calendar. “Most business people I encounter love to laugh at business and some of the stupidity and inefficiencies they see,” Yawitz said. “I am also extremely discreet. I never say anything about clients or other people I’ve met.”

The ability to say “just the right thing” is why reviewers rave about A New Man. It includes such songs as Talk Like a Guy, with music written by every singer’s favorite arranger Dick Gallagher, who passed away in January, and Semi-Demi Intellectual, with music by nightlife great David Friedman. Not Good Enough, Yawitz wrote with his friend, TV and film composer Peter Lurye, has stopped shows cold.

In one of his crowd-pleasing favorites, Cliché Bingo, Yawitz does for business what fellow alum Tom Lehrer ’43 did for science. In 1959 Lehrer’s immortal song The Elements combined all 102 listing on The Periodic Table of Elements into one anthem In Cliché Bingo Yawitz assembles 85 business buzzwords into one of the richest send-ups of contemporary commerce culture since some of the testimony in the Martha Stewart trial. Show Business Weekly, for one, called the song a “masterpiece of construction and performance.”

A masterpiece of construction? Similar words have been used to describe the work of a host of other Horace Mann alums with distinguished writing careers. How does Peter accomplish this in the short-song and comic bit format? How does he manage to say “just the right thing?”

“When I am in any business meeting I jot down every new cliché I hear,” Yawitz said. “I’ll often tell young business people to cut out the jargon since they’re not saying anything specific or original.  I remind them that just because they hear other people saying these buzzwords doesn’t mean that when they use them they’ll seem more with-it.  When I show the cliché bingo board at a seminar I always get a collective ‘Oh I hate that phrase!  My boss uses it all time!’” 

“I must admit, I am very meticulous in my writing, and won’t settle for crap. I remember Tek Lin saying—and I still life my life by this—is “cut the crap and get to the point.”

For those who missed Peter’s acceptance “performance” at the Nightlife Awards ceremony, Peter Yawitz and his show A New Mann will be warming the winter weather away at The Hideaway Room at Helen’s, a club on 169 Eighth Avenue, between 18th and 19th Streets in New York on Fridays and Sundays in February, with shows at 7 p.m. on February 4 and February 11, and at 4:30 p.m. on Sundays, February 6 and 13, 2004.

It’s a show no HM alum will want to miss. As Michael Portantiere wrote on theatermania.com “There’s still quite a bit of intelligent, witty fare out there. Example: the hilarious lyrics of performer-songwriter Peter Yawitz, whose show is a winner.” For a preview, you can go to www.peteryawitz.com to hear clips of some of the performer’s songs.   

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Josh Bernstein ’89 Hosts History Channel’s Adventure Archaeology Series

Digging for the Truth

 

 

Horace Mann’s answer to Indiana Jones makes his TV debut on January 24, 2005 in the person of Josh Bernstein ’89 who is hosting The History Channel’s new series, Digging for the Truth.

            The series premieres tonight and runs for 13 weeks on Monday nights. It takes viewers deep inside the pyramids of Egypt, the jungles of the Amazon, and the volcano Vesuvius in an effort to examine, through an historical lens, some of the world’s great myths, legends, and actual events. Bernstein is at the front and center of each of the stories, climbing inside the pyramids, rappelling into the mouth of Mt. Vesuvius or off 12^th-century castle walls in France, and swimming through shark-infested waters in a segment shot in Mexico. Two episodes launch the program tonight. In the first, Who Built the Pyramids? Bernstein explores with archaeological experts the question of whether the pyramids were built by the ancient Egyptians or by an even older civilization. In Neferetti: The Mummy Returns Bernstein follows a trail of clues into Egypt’s sacred and secret places to piece together clues about the legendary and powerful beauty of Egypt, and why she disappeared. Other segments send Josh on a hunt for the lost Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, Otzi the Iceman, the treasures of the Inca, and King Solomon’s Gold. The History Channel describes the program as a cross between CSI and Indiana Jones.

But to answer another question, why JWM Productions, which produced the series for The History Channel, chose Josh Bernstein to lead this quest, one can go all the way back to this survival expert’s early education at Horace Mann. Bernstein is president and CEO of Boulder Outdoor Survival School, or BOSS, the world-renowned outdoor survival school that has taken groups and individuals on adventure and survival-skills-building trips for the past 37 years. Bernstein recalls outings to Horace Mann’s John Dorr Nature Laboratory in Washington, Connecticut, as having launched him on a life-long love of the outdoors, and his pursuit of outdoor adventure.

During Bernstein’s tenure as BOSS’ fourth CEO, a variety of TV and film writers, directors, and producers have turned to the BOSS when they needed assistance with productions that involve extreme outdoor experiences. Bernstein has been a consultant on Castaway, Charlies’ Angels, Lost, and several National Geographic specials. “BOSS is the leader for wilderness survival,” said Bernstein, who began leading tours for the school while he was still in college as an undergraduate at Cornell University.

“When The History Channel started looking around for someone who could handle the outdoor adventure part of the shows, and could also serve as host, several people recommended me,” Bernstein said. “I did the screen test, and I was hired.”

Bernstein’s well-honed outdoor skills, his articulate ease, and his rugged good looks no doubt helped him ace the screen test. There’s also the fact that he had no trouble engaging the experts on archaeology and lost civilizations he interviewed for each segment: Josh majored in anthropology and psychology at Cornell.

But, when the producers began working with Bernstein, they learned of an added bonus from casting him as narrator and guide. With each segment they shot the producers learned that they could add drama to the show by tapping into Bernstein’s his abilities as an “extreme” adventurer, as well as his comfort with danger. “At one point I suggested we do a scene riding across the desert on horseback,” recalled Bernstein. “After that, the director said, ‘Josh likes to ride. Let’s film him riding.’ There were different directors, producers and camera people for different segments. I was the only one who was with each show throughout the whole series. When I would meet up with a camera man I worked with weeks before, they’d say, ‘you’re still alive?’ One cameraman joked, ‘could Josh die while he’s doing this? Would that be a good shot if Josh died in the scene?’” Bernstein laughed. Clearly, no stunt man needed to be hired for Bernstein’s daredevil scenes. 

Thus, tonight viewers will see Bernstein galloping horseback across the Giza Plateau in Egypt to the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the first pyramid ever built. While inside the pyramid, Bernstein makes squeezing his six-foot-frame into shafts underneath the pyramid that are three-and-a-half feet high, and 20- inch by 20-inch chambers, look easy. “You pull yourself along. It’s not for the claustrophobic,” he said. Promos for the program show Bernstein underwater in full scuba gear. “I already had an advanced diving certificate, but the network had me take a course in cavern diving for a segment shot in Mexico. They did everything they could to ensure my safety, while trying to make the production really exciting.”

Bernstein’s adventures at BOSS, and his travels for Digging for the Truth, take him a long way from Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, where he was raised, and from the bus and subway rides that brought him to Horace Mann every day as a student here, but today’s survival expert always attributes his appetite for outdoor adventure to the first taste of “roughing it” he received as a student at Horace Mann, when he visited Dorr.

“I had spent time in the outdoors at camp as a kid, but my first real camping experience was at DORR. When people ask me when I started to enjoy camping, I think back to those days with Chris and Glenn (Dorr director Glenn Sherratt and former teacher Chris Schenk) IALAC cards, and overnights in fourth grade,” Bernstein told Horace Mann Magazine in an interview in 2002. “Twenty years later I can still remember our camping trip when I personally set up almost everyone’s tent for them. I’m not sure why. I just think I got it pretty quickly and was able to help. The whole group was so appreciative, and I loved that. And then, someone accidentally kicked open a bee’s nest right on me and I got about 20 stings. That part was tough – but it was incredible – being out there and having real-life experiences in the woods with my friends. Those early times definitely made me want to do more trips outside, which led to more camping, more learning, and eventually finding BOSS.”

Tonight, the world will find Josh Bernstein, as Digging for the Truth is aired for the more than 87 million Nielsen subscribers The History Channel reaches. In the process, Bernstein found out a lot about his own capabilities.

“Two hundred people were involved in the production, from the researchers and writers who flesh out the story, and the experts we interview. I was the only one in the whole production who was going for eight months of non-stop travel, from Egypt to Ethiopia, from one continent to another. I learned what it was like to work and to think when you are so tired. I learned a tremendous amount doing this program. I never knew TV before this. I learned the craft of talking on camera, and I learned the production side. Whether or not I continue in film or TV, I learned so much about this craft,” Bernstein said.

“On a more exciting intellectual level, to have the experience of exploring, alongside the leading archaeologists in the world, the experts who literally wrote the books on these subjects – that was exhilarating.”   

 

Picture Credit : Joshua Kessler

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