When Vulture ran into lyricist Sheldon Harnick on the Tony Awards’ red carpet, we asked who would be presenting him with his lifetime-achievement award that evening. “I have no idea. Obama, I think,†Harnick joked. It was apt timing to recognize Harnick’s legacy and work: The 92-year-old’s musicals Fiddler on the Roof and She Loves Me are both enjoying revival runs on Broadway; both productions were nominated for Best Revival of a Musical at the 70th annual Tony Awards.
“They both mean different things to me,†Harnick told Vulture. “She Loves Me perhaps, in a way, is the more gratifying, because it was not successful in its first production. We ran about eight and a half months, I think. They lost their entire investment, and then over years it’s come back and has become a very successful show. That’s extraordinarily gratifying, because all of us who were connected to it loved it.â€
We pointed out that most of the songs he wrote for Fiddler back in the early 1960s — “Sunrise, Sunset,†“If I Were a Rich Man,†“Miracle of Miracles,†and so on — are now a part of American pop-culture vernacular. “All I can say is, from your mouth to God’s ears,†said Harnick, who has won a Pulitzer Prize and several Tony Awards. We assured him that his lifetime-achievement award was well-deserved. “Thank you very much. I tend to agree with you,†he laughed.