The Story

Set in New York City in 1982, The Kid Who Played the Palace centers on the twilight years of an idiosyncratic but gifted ex-Vaudeville star named Murray Rosen.

A living icon, Murray represents a world that all but disappeared a half-century ago. He lives and works in a small, museum-like walk-up studio near Times Square, surviving by coaching old-school song-and-dance to a talented but ever-dwindling group of aspiring child performers.

Faced with a threat to what remains of his livelihood, Murray convinces his former Vaudeville partner, successful talent agent and adoring friend Rosie Shapiro, into a scheme designed to thrust his name back into the limelight, after an absence of more than fifty years.

Against Rosie’s advice, Murray pins much of his career hopes on his former student-turned-celebrity, 14-year-old Kelly Rabin, now one of Rosie’s more successful clients. Unbeknown to Murray, Kelly has in adolescence become as problematic as she is famous.

Murray’s focus on Kelly leads to the end of his coaching practice, as his few remaining students abandon him in protest. When Kelly proves too unstable, Murray turns desperately to Rosie and deceives her into a revival of their old act, to be presented at no less than the Palace Theater. Murray’s presentation at the Palace is soon exposed as having been promoted under false pretenses, resulting in the very public collapse of his attempted come-back, as well as a seemingly irreconcilable separation from Rosie.

The show chronicles how all of these losses contribute to Murray’s discovery that he alone has been the cause of the myriad of difficulties that have plagued his life. The insight more than stuns him; it begins a transformation that catapults him into the present, and at long last offers him the hope of fulfillment.