BWW Reviews: FORTUNE IN MY EYES: A Memoir of Broadway Glamor, Social Justice, and Political Passion

Reinvention.

It's a popular word these days. There are websites, retreats and books devoted to helping people change their lives, presumable for the better. Most reinventions involved changing your career, and changing it to one that enables you to pursue your dreams and/or make a difference. I've read some interesting reinvention stories, but none as dramatic as David Rothenberg's Fortune in My Eyes: A Memoir of Broadway Glamor, Social Justice, and Political Passion.

How does a Broadway producer reinvent himself to found an organization supporting incarcerated and newly released prisoners? It begins, not surprisingly, with a play.

It was producing John Herbert's Fortune and Men's Eyes off-Broadway that changed Rothenberg's life forever. The response to the play - not an overwhelming critical success - was staggering. It shined a light on the needs of those released from prison in a way that brought together an unlikely group of people who founded The Fortune Society. Its ground-breaking work in the area of criminal justice and assisting the formerly incarcerated has earned much-deserved national praise. In becoming its first executive director, you'll witness a pretty dramatic reinvention by Rothenberg.

Along the way, you'll be introduced to a host of memorable characters:

Eddie Morris, a gangster "like DeNiro - in Goodfellas" - who credits the poetry of Lord Byron with saving his life.

Charlie "Peewee" McGregor, an ex-con who not only was a storyteller for high school and college audiences, but who went on to an improbable film career in mid-life.

Chuck Bergansky, whose life story sounds like a movie and also wound up an actor.

Fran O'Leary, a call girl who joined Fortune looking for others to join a scheme, but instead turned her life around, regaining custody of her daughters, and earning a masters degree in human resources.

These are only a few of the people whose lives were changed forever by their involvement with the Fortune Society.

Still, for all this good work, you may still wonder, half-way through the book, "why?" Why would Rothenberg devote himself to starting a much-needed and successful nonprofit organization and stay with it? Why not go back to the theatre? What hasn't he told us?

Deeply closeted, even watching the Stonewall riot outside his window wasn't enough to persuade him to come out. He feared, in 1969, that open knowledge of his homosexuality could jeopardize the operations and acceptance of the Fortune Society. He's right on that point.

He observed from a distance, until he was asked to serve on the board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, representing the area of criminal justice. It was 1973, and at the age of forty, in his first real gay relationship, he was finally opening the closet door.

As it turned out, his family accepted the news and so did the Fortune Society (their main concern being that he dress well on TV and make them proud). The men and women he had helped learn to accept themselves now helped him do the same thing.

Coming out then - and encouraging others to do so as well - was, in the parlance of the day, liberating. But it would only be a few years later, 1981, when Rothenberg was invited to a meeting with health officials, about a new, mysterious disease that afflicted eighteen men at NYU Medical Center. GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) was about to become the health crisis of the decade.

He minces no words in relating how and why he became an early supporter of Ed Koch. He felt strongly that once Koch became mayor of New York City, he changed positions that now found them in opposition. His involvement in stories about Koch's sexual orientation is described in detail, including consequences.

Working for years with the disenfranchised - prisoners and ex-cons - prepared Rothenberg for his work in the AIDS community. He was used to the dismissive attitudes, the bigotry, the hatred that was now directed at anyone who was gay, no matter their HIV status. "I functioned best as a grassroots agitator," Rothenberg explains.

But then it was time once again, as he quotes the lyrics from Follies, "to career from career to career". Founders of organizations shouldn't necessarily stay forever, so he handed the reins of Fortune Society over to JoAnne Page.

Now what?

Back to the beginning, sort of, without the wild-eyed innocence. David Rothenberg was a theatre man again.

Normally I don't enjoy name-dropping in memoirs. But Rothenberg's name-dropping is done with the genuine love and respect he has for those famous artists. His affection for old-timers - such as Betty Davis, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peggy Lee - gave me new insights into the personalities and work habits of people who were larger than life.

I suppose he would describe himself now as "retired." I'm not sure David Rothenberg is capable of retiring. He's still involved with helping people, especially young people from Fortune. He's still making a difference.

Fortune in My Eyes is a fascinating chronicle of how one man, over six decades, moved easily between the glamorous world of theatre and the gritty world of the disenfranchised (gays, prisoners, ex-cons, AIDS patients). And if it seems at times as if he's lived a Forrest Gump-like life, well, that's not a criticism.

More importantly, at least for this reviewer, was that Rothenberg accomplished such an extraordinary body of work (on and off stage) because of his willingness to say one word:

"Yes."