Howard Cutler’s Thoughts

Stephen “Mo” Hanan, actor, singer, author, playwright, composer, comedian – ever a stalwart believer in our human ability to exchange self-destructive confusion for spiritual emancipation – made his sudden final exit on Thursday evening, April 3, 2025. 

78 years old, he had the good fortune to be conversing in bed with his best beloved when his final cue was called.

The trajectory of his career carried him from engaging, then beguiling tourists forced to wait in line for San Francisco’s Sausalito Ferry, to playing featured parts and starring roles in hit musicals on the Broadway stage, London’s West End and in theaters across the country.

He wrote plays and musicals, as well, and several were produced – in San Francisco, New York, Florida, the UK, and elsewhere, but it was his live performances that brought him the widest acclaim. Blessed with a vibrant, appealing baritone and an innate sense of comic timing, he caught the attention of composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber and director Trevor Nunn who put him in the original Broadway cast of Cats. Lloyd-Webber then wrote him a show-stopping set piece – “Growltiger’s Last Stand”– which they inserted into the show for its Broadway premiere. That won Hanan a Tony nomination.

Nunn and Producer Cameron MacIntosh next sent him to London to join the cast of Les Misérables and play the villainous innkeeper, Thénardier.

Hanan had first stepped into the Broadway spotlight with Linda Ronstadt and Kevin Kline in Joseph Papp’s 1981 hit-revival of The Pirates of Penzance. His role was the Pirate King’s Lieutenant and Second in Command, Samuel

Later, in Jolson and Company, a musical play he co-wrote with director Jay Berkow, Hanan would spellbind audiences in New York and Miami with his uncanny re-incarnation of the complicated man who, as a jew performing in blackface, became America’s highest paid entertainer and its first “talking picture” star a century ago.

With a cast of just three – Hanan as Al Jolson and two talented collaborators playing sixteen other people in Jolson’s life – the play received strong, positive reviews. New York Times critic Lawrence van Gelder wrote,“Riding on the vocal and actorly talents of Stephen Mo Hanan as Jolsonand the splendid support of Robert Ari and Nancy Anderson [this] intelligent, informative and winning new musical biography does justice to the man and his music……brought cheers and applause from the audience.”

”What a set of pipes!” exclaimed Variety’s Marilyn Stasio. “It’s no easy task finding the humanity in someone whose public persona andpersonal failings are larger than life.Working with a clear visionand a tiny cast with a lot of chutzpah, Hananand companypull it off with terrific efficiency.”

Born Stephen M. Kaplan in Washington DC, Hanan was the only child of Jonah Kaplan, a pharmacist and Lottie (Klein) Kaplan, an english teacher at Calvin Coolidge High School. Theirs was a traditional orthodox Jewish household in which academic diligence was non-negotiable, but early on young Steven’s talent (and taste for acclaim) also caught their attention. At Lotte’s afternoon canasta parties, so the story goes, he would be lifted onto the table to sing for the assembled players before the cards got dealt out. 

Eventually he attended the same public high-school where his mother had taught, and, upon graduation, went to Harvard College. There he made straight for the College’s one-and-only ‘for-credit’ theater course, a tiny freshman acting seminar. He auditioned and was accepted. In those days Harvard offered no formal theater arts degree, but it did have an exceptionally lively extra-curricular theater scene. There he acted and sang in numerous productions and also wrote lyrics for two complete musicals. It was clear that comedy was his forte, although not comedy alone.

Nest came a Fulbright Fellowship for a year of study abroad at the London Academy of Dramatic Arts. There he honed his craft and, with the help of a gifted teacher, opened up his voice to such a degree that he was soon able to do justice to grand opera arias. This ability he would put to good use later in some very different settings. The year abroad completed, he returned to the U.S.A. and headed for New York to try out for roles on and off Broadway. 

No such luck. Disappointed, and discouraged, he retreated to Washington DC for a year, where he had good friends.

It was now 1969 and powerful, disruptive currents were swirling through the nation’s capital and the country as a whole. Intense anti-war demonstrations inundated the city, and Hanan began to participate. He got incarcerated briefly with civil rights warrior (soon to be congresswoman) Bella Abzug among others; got inspired by their values and their commitment. Then, a sea-change – a trip to Israel with his parents in the Spring of 1970. While there, he decided to head off on his own one day and take some mescaline. That turned into an extremely illuminating experience - one that would change his life, so he later said, very much for the better. 

That same spiritual journey also gave him insight and the courage to gradually accept and acknowledge something he’d known ever since puberty, yet had kept hidden all through high school, all through Harvard and while abroad in England. He was gay. At last he was able to step forth and stop pretending. He told his parents; he told friends. He accepted the consequences for all his relationships - good and bad – and moved on. 

He was done with the shame.

With theatrical opportunities in the east still sorely lacking, with a new, more spiritual perspective reshaping his priorities, and with his true sexual identity finally accepted, he headed west to San Francisco. There he found a house to share with four other compatible spirits. It was painted bright yellow and located in the Height-Ashbury. 

That yellow house became his home for the next seven years. There he taught himself to play the concertina, developed an irrepressibly jubilant persona decked out in outrageously appropriate attire, and set out to make a name for himself as a San Francisco street performer. 

Once he discovered his spot at the ferry terminal the plan worked spectacularly and became surprisingly lucrative. He could do very well performing just on weekends (when the most money was to be made) and, for the rest of the week, was free to tend garden, read, write, paint, and fully develop all his creative abilities. He could also afford to spend relaxing, inspiring winters at Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, or on the then-barely-developed Yucatan Coast, or in Oaxaca.

Once fully settled in to the Yellow House, writing and composing became his primary focus. Performing at the ferry was simply the most enjoyable way to sustain all his other creative endeavors. 

Forth came a cluster of songs to enrich his ferry routine and, then, his first full-length musical play - David Dances - retelling an Old Testament story he’d known since childhood: the tale of a shepherd boy living in the hills who made wonderful music; whose songs could sometimes heal the mind of a mad King; who’s courage could defeat an army led by a giant; whose bond with the son of that mad king verged on a romance, and who, when he came of age, took it upon himself to lead a rebellion against the corrupt, current royal regime and establish his own dominion in its place.

It was very much a young man’s play, idealistic, but persuasive. The shadows of tragedy and betrayal that haunt King David’ later story were acknowledged but barely touched on. Hanan’s David was young, courageous, idealized, but, he would argue, so was Michelangelo’s. In any case, he took his new play to San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater. They liked it, and they agreed to stage it – a tale they thought appropriate to the times. 

His success in getting David Dances on the boards further spurred his ambition. As his visibility and network of support in San Francisco grew, his thoughts turned, once again, to New York. Might he not be able to get David Dances staged there where it really mattered? And now that he was a seasoned street artist, adept at attracting and holding the attention of meandering crowds, might not his luck at casting calls improve? Was he willing to trade his now-comfortable, very creative, communal life in Northern California for Manhattan’s uncertain opportunities, hard streets, harsh winters and high costs?

With such thoughts in mind, he treated himself to a seat at the opera one night. Pavarotti was in town - the great Pavarotti, then in his prime. He was stunned by the power of Luciano’s performance that night, and once the curtain fell, made his way to the stage door in company with all the other super-fan enthusiasts and autograph seekers. Eventually Pavarotti emerged to acknowledge the accolades of his admirers with characteristic generosity. Hanan, positioned just a bit back from the immediate press of fans, began to sing.

“What kind of fool does that,?” wondered the crowd as their heads swiveled round. But he kept on singing, pouring out a sincere, spontaneous paean of praise, gratitude and admiration. His voice – and the spirit within the voice – were indeed beautiful. Soon it became clear that Pavarotti himself was listening, listening intently and with pleasure. He motioned to Steve to approach him. The crowd parted and made way. The two had a quiet, semi-private conversation, and then Luciano wrote down something and handed it to him “When you get to New York, and when next I come there to sing at the Met, come find me. I will give you a lesson.” 

And so, indeed, it came to pass. But once Hanan moved back to Manhattan it would still take many months – almost three years, in fact, performing on the streets and showing up for try-outs, before his first true break came. By the time summer arrived in 1980, however, he no longer needed to busk; he was on stage in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater with Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt and George Rose, and headed for Broadway that fall.

Along with the successful performing career this first break launched, Hanan would eventually write five full-length plays and musicals. Three would receive multiple productions, David Dances included. He would also write two published books, A Cat's Diary: How The Broadway Production of Cats Was Born, and a novel, Scarpia’s Kiss, plus numerous articles for periodicals. 

The subject matter and tone of his plays varied considerably, and the premises on which he based their action were wildly inventive. Two plays were social satires laced with song – Rainbow’s Return, a Rip Van Winkle fable in which a peace-and-love, tie-died hippie from the sixties reawakens in the greed-Is-good” America’s of the late nineteen eighties – and Hush Money, wherein a high-stakes corporate takeover in the merger-mad nineties hinges on a carefully closeted media mogul’s ability to prevent a prominent right-wing-radio talk-show host from discovering his gay private life. The ensuing complications – mercenary and romantic –transform ‘the art-of-this-deal’ into headlong slapstick farce.

A third play, quite different, was inspired by his love of opera. Verdi’s Wife is a historical romance about composer Giuseppe Verdi’s relationship with his mistress, Peppina, who by the end of the play will become his wife. High opera and romance also played a prominent role in his later novel, Scarpia’s Kiss.

Perhaps his most ambitious work was the full-on Broadway-scale musical, Winter In Paradise, a noire comedy with a deliciously melodic score, based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. In it Hanan transports the Bard’s fable of vice and virtue locked in eternal co-dependency to America’s South-Pacific imperial outpost – Samoa – in the year 1900. There, a naive but rigidly authoritarian U.S. Navy Administrator strives to impose puritanical law and order on a racially complex, morally relaxed populace only to find that he cannot repress suddenly ungovernable desires welling up from within himself.

Although brought to life in several backer’s auditions, Winter In Paradise never reached Broadway. The scale of investment required to fully realize it was simply too great. Instead, it was Hanan’s deft and economical three-person musical Jolson & Company that finally introduced New York to Hanan the playwright. Nonetheless, the score of Winter In Paradise was recorded and several of its songs, repurposed for cabaret and street corner presentation, eventually found their way to the ears of a growing circle of enthusiasts. 

In all the decades following his Broadway debut and Tony nomination Hanan never ceased to write, to compose and to bend efforts towards getting his plays produced. He was just as often on stage, however – sometimes in the city, frequently out on the road – starring in regional theater or touring company revivals of many of America’s most cherished Broadway musicals. Choice roles to dazzle audiences kept coming his way:, Captain Hook in Cathy Rigby’s revival of Peter Pan; Fagan in Oliver!; Pseudolous in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Forum; the dual role of Pangloss/Voltaire in Leonard Berstein’s Candide; Pirelli in Sonheim’s Sweeny Todd, and Sancho Panza in the millennial revival of Man of La Mancha at the Goodspeed Opera House. His roles were not limited to musical comedies alone, however. For the American Bard Theater Company in Manhattan he starred in King Lear, and for years he collaborated with Martina Arroyo to coach young opera singers in stagecraft as part of her Prelude to Performance program. 

 …

All his life Hanan held high expectations for himself. As old age arrived, he was, at times, haunted by the knowledge that he had never quite achieved the level of renown and influence he sought. Delight, gales of laughter, and standing ovations were often his to command, but his name had never become one that producers could mount above the title to drive ticket sales. 

Such fame would have brought greater prosperity, of course, but the true source of his disappointment lay deeper. He could never entirely escape the belief that he’d failed to fulfill the great task he’d been inspired to undertake, and he wondered what he might have done wrong. 

For Steve Hanan the value of greater fame lay in the means it might have provided to achieve ends beyond fame. What he truly craved, far more than popularity, more even than the love of an audience, was positive influence on the imagination, the aspirations and the behavior of his fellow humans. 

It all went back to that revelation he’d experienced on the Mount of Olives as a young man. Put in his own words: “the entire manifest cosmos springs from a single, conscious, non-physical Source with twin attributes that are yet one: Love and Intelligence.”

Yet all across our harsh, beautiful world humans struggle to survive and suffer terribly, continually doing irreparable harm to one another. How to reconcile these irreconcilables? It’s because, he thought, they don’t yet know the source of creation that I have touched and been touched by.

And so he became a secular evangelist of sorts – one for whom the theater was a sacred precinct within which the human spirit could be renewed and uplifted, made whole in a profound and indelible way. 

For those who wandered and were lost in disillusioned bitterness he hoped through laughter, song, and heartfelt joy to help them hear the beat of a more idealistic drum and thereby overcome their coarse cynicism about the human species – a corrosive cynicism that can afflict us all.

What, then, should we make of the fact that the range and scope of his influence as ‘God’s Thespian’ was less than he had hoped? 

None of his musicals or plays ever attained the renown of his most admired role model, George Bernard Shaw, yet his intelligence, open hearted good will and genuine care for the well-being of all whom he encountered was impossible to miss among those whom his influence did reach.

And to come to terms with his own disappointment held, for Mo, a secret revelation of its own: he was, in fact, profoundly blessed in his own closest personal relationships, and such intimacy shared with one’s beloved is where the divine presence is most deeply known and truly felt.

As for that wider world he sought to heal, will it remember him? Will his hopes for it ever be fulfilled? Even now the residue of his fame begins to dissipate.

But…

Whatever it was that Pavarotti saw and heard in young Stephen Hanan that night in San Francisco, whatever it was that Mo himself encountered on the Mount of Olives that fateful day back in 1970 –that was and is the essence of his genius – a greater love that encompasses us all, infused with laughter, celebration and song.

May we, likewise, continually do our utmost to “Thrive and Beam!”

Stephen Mo Hanan’s memoir, The Yellow House – Confessions of a Flower Adult will soon be available here at <stevehanan.com> [<stephenmohanan.com>], along with recordings of his music, a selection of his essays, and scripts to several of his plays.