Joe Masteroff was an American Librettist and playwright, whose most famous work was Cabaret (1966). Some of his other major works include The Warm Peninsula (1959), She Loves Me (1963), Dear World (doctored) (1969), 70 Girls 70 (1971), Six Wives (1992), and Paramour (1998).
Born in Philadelphia on December 11, 1919, Joe Masteroff was one of two children to parents Louis and Rose Masteroff. Masteroff attended Temple University, where he studied journalism and graduated in 1940. During his time at Temple University, Masteroff performed with the University’s theatre group, The Templeplayers, and was the editor for the student publication, The Owl. He also wrote the play Brain Child while at Temple, which was performed in New York by a group called Six and Co. Masteroff joined the military in December of 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Stationed first in Florida and then in England, he served in the Air Force for three years where his contribution consisted mostly of personnel work. When he left of the military, he returned to Florida and managed a movie theatre up until he became assistant editor of The Exhibitor, which was a trade publication for motion theatre exhibitors. In 1948 he went to New York and began writing plays while studying at the American Theatre Wing for from 1949 to 1951. Award winning playwright Robert Anderson (1917-2009), author of Tea and Sympathy and I Never Sang for My Father taught him in a special class on playwriting specifically for soldiers returning from the war. In the class students would write at least a one-act play a week and then discuss them.
Masteroff had the opportunity to work as Howard Lindsay’s assistant on The Prescott Proposals in 1954 and just two years later won a John Golden Fellowship and the New York Theatre Club’s Most Promising Playwright of 1956-1957. Masteroff’s next noteworthy production was The Warm Peninsula which starred both Julie Harris and Farley Granger. At the time, Julie Harris was already a star actress with multiple Tony nominations and awards along with an Emmy Award, while Farley Granger had appeared in a multitude of movies, television shows, and on the stage. Harris read the play and wanted to go on tour for a year with the production before bringing it back to Broadway. It ran for 86 performances at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway starting in October 1929 after its national tour. His next production was She Loves Me which was a modestly successful 1963 Broadway musical. This production was the first musical for which Masteroff wrote a libretto. It opened on April 23, 1963 at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre and ran until January 11, 1964. Based on the Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, the show follows the story of two young lovers who are writing each other anonymously while working at the same store. The musical led to a Tony nomination for Masteroff in the category of Best Author of a Musical (McFadden).
While collaborating on She Loves Me, director Hal Prince approached Masteroff about wanting to create a musical based on the play I am a Camera. Masteroff knew the play well as he had worked with Julie Harris, who had starred as Sally Bowles in I am a Camera and won her first Tony award for the production. Masteroff had actually seen the play when it was performed and commented to Keith Garebian in The Making of Cabaret that “she was incredible” and without her he didn’t thing the play would have amounted to much (26). Masteroff worked with John Kander and Fred Ebb to write the musical piece by piece, working in sections song by song. Prince was very involved in the process of the libretto production as the producer and director.
Masteroff, Kander, Ebb, and Prince were all concerned with the many sensitive topics addressed in the musical. One of these sensitive topics was the use of swastikas onstage. In a 1998 interview for The New York Times, Masteroff stated, “The idea was that showing just one swastika onstage can be more effective than showing 100 if the timing is right,” (McFadden). This is how the idea of only having the swastika shown on Ernst Ludwig’s armband instead of flags or a large group of Nazis was formed. Even showing this one swastika was still a sensitive topic to audiences, especially when the musical premiered in 1966. Overall, “musicals about abortions and Nazis were not particularly popular in those days,” though the creators “hoped it would get good reviews” they did not expect the large commercial success (Sawyers). The lyrics to the song “If You Could See Her (Through My Eyes)” were also a major concern. There was trepidation from the producers regarding possible audience reactions to the lyrics which discussed a Jewish woman dressed as a gorilla. In an interview with The New York Times, Masteroff denied accounts that a word in the lyrics was changed from “Jewish” to “meeskite” on the musical’s opening night. “It was a debatable line, but really terrific. They were worried that people would be offended by it. But the audience accepted it. They applauded it, and the show went on” (McFadden).
Masteroff personally thought the greatest problem with I am a Camera was the two lead characters. Due to the fact the first lead character was British, and the other lead character was American, what was going on in Berlin didn’t directly involve them. This was one of the reasons the subplot of Schneider and Schultz was created, in order to provide characters that were more directly impacted by the culture and political climate of Berlin at the time. Along with adding in the romance of Schneider and Schultz, Masteroff changed the character of Fraulein Schneider to have what might be termed a softer personality. In a sense, making Fraulein Schneider less harsh and more stereotypically feminine. Masteroff also changed the relationship between Sally and Cliff to be more romantic rather than platonic. Masteroff admits that in the original 1966 production “Cliff was totally sexless” and his character evolved throughout different iterations of the production. (Sawyers) Since Joe Masteroff worked with Julie Harris frequently, he stated that the Sally Bowles he wrote was inspired by her and her performance of Sally Bowles previously in I am a Camera. The original Broadway production of Cabaret led to a Tony Award and international renown for Masteroff.
In 1993, Masteroff heard that there was a very good production of Cabaret in London’s West End and went to the Donmar Warehouse to see it. The director, Sam Mendes, was not present at the performance, but arranged to meet with Masteroff the next day. The conversation with Sam Mendes motivated Masteroff to help bring Cabaret back to Broadway. Masteroff talked to Todd Haimes, who was the executive director at the Roundabout Theatre in New York, about working with the show to bring it to Broadway. The production then transferred to Broadway from London. The show ended up running on Broadway for six years, closing in 2004.
Masteroff did not work on anymore shows after this, but remained in New York. He lived for many years in Midtown Manhattan only a few blocks from Broadway. In an interview with The New York Times, he mentioned that he rarely attended Broadway shows anymore, except for revivals of his own shows. (McFadden) The end of his career was of his own will, as he did not have the desire to work on other shows once Cabaret succeeded. “Ever since I was an infant, I wanted to be a playwright on Broadway. That was all I ever wanted to be,” Masteroff confesses. “The minute Cabaret succeeded, I just retired. I’m not the kind of person who might win a million dollars and couldn’t wait to win another. I know when my dream comes true.” (Evans) Masteroff never married and left no immediate family members when he died on September 28, 2018.