To paraphrase a Stephen Sondheim title, a funny thing happened on the way to celebrating Al Hirschfeld (1903-2003), the legendary New York caricaturist whose signature was his elastically elongated, black-and-white portraits of film and television celebrities, bigger-than-life authors and Broadway stars of the 20th century….
A one-time theater publicist, Emily McGill, became a highly-regarded spiritual psychologist and tarot card reader, yet never forgot her love for the stage, its stars and the work of Hirschfeld. In collaboration with The Al Hirschfeld Foundation, this spiritual magnet (and magnate) let her imagination run wild and created The Hirschfeld Broadway Tarot. To celebrate the deck’s Running Press publication, McGill co-hosts the Hirschfeld Foundation’s Spooky Season Soirée at the Algonquin Hotel on October 22 starting at 5 pm. Considering the mythical ghosts that haunt 59 West 44th, and held court there as “The Algonquin Round Table” – a “Vicious Circle” that included literary wits and Hirschfeld subjects such as humorist Robert Benchley, playwright George S. Kaufman and critic-poet Dorothy Parker – who knows what spirits will be raised?
“I was a Broadway publicist for 15 years before the pandemic gave me an opportunity to reconsider my path,” says McGill about the journey that took her from hawking stage work to the halls of Columbia University’s Spirituality Mind Body Institute. To get her Masters in Spiritual Psychology, McGill’s thesis was “Tarot as an Effective Tool for Self-Reflection.”
While tarot is often seen as a divination or future-fortune telling tool, McGill regards tarot decks as psychological tools. “Tarot allows us to have a deeper understanding of ourselves,” she says.
How this connects to Hirschfeld goes back to McGill’s PR work with Broadway shows like Memphis, Billy Elliot and Elf The Musical, the latter of which opened at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. “Though my spiritual psychology practice took off, I was a theater nerd and wanted a tarot deck that had a Broadway tinge to it.”
McGill sought to create something meaningful that could match the archetypes of the tarot to the archetypes of the theater, and had a singular IP, rather than go through the logistical nightmare of 78 different character licensing fees for each of the 78 tarot cards. “That would have been an intellectual property nightmare,” says McGill. “Hirschfeld, then, was a no-brainer as he captured the essence of a character in a way similar to tarot. There’s a reason he’s known as “The Line King.”
Enter David Leopold, Creative Director of The Al Hirschfeld Foundation, its 10,000+ image collection and the man behind marketing and maintenance of the legend. “As a Western Pennsylvanian kid who grew up getting the Sunday New York Times, looking for his “Nina”s (Hirschfeld hid his daughter’s name in all of his sketches after her birth), Al was my introduction to theater,” says Leopold who became Hirschfeld’s archivist after their first meeting. “As a man and an artist, he was insightful, educational and always left you with a smile on your face.”
Still, when Leopold got the email from McGill to craft Hirschfeld tarot cards, his first reaction was that the proposition was a dubious one. “Al’s spirituality was people – that’s what got him up in the morning,” states Leopold. “If I told him we were putting his work on a tarot deck, he’d think it was insane. But THAT was his seal of approval. ‘Crazy’ is what he liked.”
Once united, the two met at the Algonquin to hash out who would be the tarot’s “Lovers” (West Side Story’s Maria and Tony), who might be “Justice” (Les Misérables’ Jean Valjean), who would represent “The Cycle of Life” (Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart from Chicago) and how Broadway luminaries like Sondheim, Bob Fosse, Joe Papp and Hirschfeld himself would be represented with McGill’s interpretations in the collection’s guidebook.
“Some of our cards, together with Hirschfeld’s portraits were slam dunks; some evolved over time,” McGill says. “Al learned to draw in his pocket because he worked in dark theaters and didn’t want to take the audience’s attention from the stage and the story. He couldn’t see what he was doing, yet he evoked movement and light. Al was a channeler. And now, I’m channeling Al.”
As for October 22’s Hirschfeld Foundation’s Spooky Season Soirée, McGill will “invoke the essence and energy” of the late artist’s Broadway portrait players along with those famed members of the Algonquin’s literary klatch – complete with the hotel’s newly-reinstalled, refurbished original roundtable. “The table spins like a giant Lazy Susan, it’s so cool,” says McGill. “We’ll invoke the spirits of writers such as Dorothy Parker who is so verbose… Pulling the tarot cards, having conversations with authors with wisdom and creativity, sharing their gifts; we’re excited and grateful to bring this to the Algonquin.”
This is particularly poignant as the Algonquin dedicated a “Hirschfeld Suite” in the hotel in 1991, and the caricature artist was a friend to Parker, Kaufman and such. “The Round Table members had very personal connections with Hirschfeld,” says Leopold. “We’re going to raise spirits and drink spirits in Al’s honor at the Algonquin with all of our friends, old and new, and our Hirschfeld tarot deck.”
