‘Millions’ is About Catholics with a Jewish Touch

“Millions,” the new musical that is winding up more than a month of performances at the Alliance Theatre, is filled with Catholic saints. Clothed in their antique robes and topped by gold metal halos, they pop up from time to time to dispense moral guidance and practical advice to two young boys who are sorely in need of help.

The boys, aged 10 and 12, are brothers whose lives have been turned upside down by the sudden windfall of millions in cash that literally falls on them from the sky.

The musical, which has been in development for a number of years, is based on a charming British film of the same name that was a minor hit more than 20 years ago. In his review of the film in 2004, the prominent film critic Roger Ebert called the drama, “an imaginative and thoughtful blend of fantasy and reality, one of the best films of the year.”

Although Danny Boyle, who directed the film, is Catholic and the script was written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, also a Catholic, the Alliance stage production has a strongly Jewish undercurrent. The composer and lyricist is Adam Guettel, grandson of Richard Rodgers, the Jewish American composer who with the Jewish lyricist Oscar Hammerstein largely revolutionized the American musical theater.

Much of the financing comes from Sonia Friedman, the prominent London producer who was largely responsible for the Tony Award-winning, “Harry Potter And The Cursed Child” mega hit.

Twelve-year-old Yair Kadar (right) is a strong presence in “Millions” // Photo Credit: Greg Mooney

But perhaps the most interesting element in this production is the commanding presence of Yair Keydar, the 12-year-old co-star, whose mother is Cantor Magda Fishman of Congregation B’nai Torah, a prominent Conservative synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla. Keydar got his start singing at the Broadway Bound Academy and then got interested in the online service his mother lead at the synagogue.

“A year-and-a-half ago, or two years ago, I kind of started co-leading the service with her,” Keydar said. “I’ve been learning a lot of new things and learning the service. And it’s great. It’s fun just getting up there and being able to sing and sharing.”

His interest in performing with his mother developed when he started crowding his mother on stage while just a toddler.

“He used to grab the mic from my hands when he was three-and-a-half,” Cantor Fishman remembers. “He just wanted to sing. So, it’s pretty incredible to see the way he’s developing, with acting and singing and dancing. I’m not just his mother, I’m often his partner on stage, too.”

Yair Kadar, who co-stars in “Millions,” began performing with his mother, Cantor Magda Fishman, when he was three-and-a-half.

To bring this new musical to the dramatic stage, the producers have hired the veteran Broadway director Bartlett Sher, resident director of the Lincoln Center Theater in New York. His Broadway successes have included, “The Bridges of Madison County,” a revival of “Fiddler on the Roof,” and the wildly popular production in 2018 of “To Kill A Mockingbird,” one of the biggest dramatic hits in Broadway history.

In addition to “Millions,” this year he’s signed up for “Dolly – An Original Musical” based on the life and music of Dolly Parton. He’s also working on the world premiere of “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” by the Jewish-American author Michael Chabon. It’s on the Metropolitan Opera’s schedule for 2025-2026.

His grandfather was a Jewish horse trader in Lithuania before he immigrated and opened a barber shop in California. The Jewish presence in the Alliance production is not the only thing that sets this work apart. In Sher’s eyes, this production is very different from the film version.

“The stage is a very figurative art form, it can’t go abstract. There are actual human beings in front of you who have to be certain things. So, a lot of that is through the strength of the music and the lyrics, something that wasn’t in the film.”

To carry the much of the dramatic burden of the production, Sher relies on Kaydar and 10-year-old Keenan Barrett, whose making his professional stage debut.

It’s fun just getting up there and being able to sing and sharing.

Both boys are rarely off stage in the two-and-a-half-hour production. They are at the core of the production, which is not just about how to deal with sudden wealth, but how to deal with sudden heartbreak when their mother dies.

Off stage, Kaydar’s mother is very much alive. On June 30, after “Millions” closes, the two of them are performing during a celebration of Yiddish music presented by the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene at SummerStage in Central Park.

And then, he may have to start getting ready for his next big starring role, his bar mitzvah next March in Boca Raton.

Watch the video below to see Yair Kaydar and his mother, Cantor Magda Fishman, perform in Yiddish at the Central Park SummerStage: