At 82, 'Beaches' writer Iris Rainer Dart 'appreciates every bit' of her career

The acclaimed writer reflects on her work with Cher, Stephen Schwartz, and now, Broadway, with the musical adaptation of her 1985 novel playing at the Majestic Theatre.

Summary

• Beaches author Iris Rainer Dart reflects on adapting the story for Broadway; working with artists like Cher and Stephen Schwartz; and her life in the theatre; Dart wrote the book and lyrics for the Beaches musical at Broadway's Majestic Theatre

To this day, when women meet author Iris Rainer Dart, they’ll sometimes point to a friend and say, “She’s my Beaches.”

They mean “she’s the one for me. No matter what time of night, she’s there,” Dart said. Her bestselling 1985 novel Beaches has endured for generations: It became a hit film starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey, and now, a musical adaptation is playing on Broadway with Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barrett as best friends Cee Cee Bloom and Bertie White.

Across the decades, one thing hasn’t changed: “women’s friendship,” Dart said. “That existed when I was a kid, when I was a teen, and now as a woman.”

Dart wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the book (with Thom Thomas) for the stage adaptation, directed by Lonny Price and Matt Cowart. At 82, she feels nothing but appreciation for this new chapter.

“From this vantage point, I realize how lucky I am,” she said.

Dart's theatrical beginnings

Dart studied acting at Carnegie Mellon University, but it was writing that really sparked her passion. When she was a junior, a freshman called her saying he wanted to write the music for her next show. They decided to meet on campus, and Dart asked how she’d recognize her potential collaborator.

“He said, ‘I look like a cross between Ringo Starr and Barbra Streisand,’” Dart recalled. It was Stephen Schwartz, the now-six-time Tony Award-nominated Wicked and Pippin composer.

“I gave him his first break!” Dart said with a laugh.

The pair worked on two musicals together while Dart commuted from home as a student. “I lived at home, in Pittsburgh, and I still remember Stephen getting off the bus and writing shows at my parents’ kitchen table,” she recalled. “I remember how much we laughed; he’s just so funny and so smart, and he was my first writing partner.”

Schwartz wasn’t Dart’s only celebrity collaborator, as she went on to write for The Sonny and Cher Show.

“For the first two seasons, I was the only woman,” Dart said. She wrote dozens of episodes, and, as she recalled, “guys were terrified of Cher — she does not suffer fools.” As such, the men would make Dart, as a woman, go into Cher’s dressing room to discuss show bits.

“She would do her own makeup, and we would talk about our lives,” Dart said. “We were both going through divorces at the same time, [Cher’s son] Chaz was the age of my son, so he would come into the dressing room and hang out.”

That show sharpened Dart’s writing chops — “We did mini-musicals, so that was another way for me to write lyrics,” Dart said — but, perhaps most significantly, the experience gave her inspiration for a character.

“Ultiamtely, Cee Cee is based on Cher,” Dart said.

Dart's path to Broadway

Beaches follows two friends, brassy Cee Cee and conventional Bertie, across decades of friendship, tracing their professional ventures, love lives, and personal losses. The story grew in popularity when Dart's novel was adapted into a film featuring the Grammy-winning song “Wind Beneath My Wings,” sung by Midler.

That was all in the 1980s, and it wasn’t until decades later that Dart considered giving the story the musical treatment. Theatre agent John Buzzetti floated the idea to her in the lobby of the Old Globe theatre in San Diego, she remembered: "I said, 'Gee, what a great idea!'”

As new musicals often do, Beaches went through many iterations: It premiered at Signature Theatre in Virginia in 2014, moved to the Drury Lane Theatre in Illinois in 2015, and played at Theatre Calgary in Alberta, Canada, in 2024. Alongside Thomas and the directors, she also collaborated with David Austin, who helped develop the musical, and Mike Stoller, who composed the score.

The show marks Dart’s second Broadway production after The People in the Picture, a 2011 musical starring “the exquisite Donna Murphy,” Dart said. That show opened right on Broadway, and while Beaches has had a longer path, Dart sees that as a gift.

“I now know after many out-of-town venues that you have to keep working and changing and fixing,” she said, noting “the gift of seeing what’s wrong.”

Tonight, March 27, Beaches finally starts performances on Broadway. “I walk into that gorgeous Majestic Theatre, and it’s such a happy place for all of us,” Dart said.

The enduring story of Beaches

Every day at the Majestic, Dart gets to fawn over her two leading ladies, who originated the roles of Cee Cee and Bertie in Alberta.

“Jessica Vosk: Need I say more?” Dart said of the Broadway star playing Cee Cee. “I went to see her do her act at the 92nd Street Y [in December] and I have never seen someone, maybe with the exception of Bette, who was so comfortable on stage — I felt I was being invited into her living room, because she’s so casually brilliant,” Dart said. “I marvel at her gifts.”

Fans know Vosk for playing Elphaba in Wicked, and in Beaches, she plays another edgy woman, a singer hungry for fame. Opposite Cee Cee is the more calm, cool, and collected lawyer Bertie, played by Kelli Barrett, who “gives as much as she gets,” Dart said.

Barrett is “funny, she’s gorgeous, and she’s very hardworking and always asking questions,” Dart said. “She’s very smart — she teaches women how to play poker! — and she’s given me ideas about the show and character.”

Dart feels right at home returning to Broadway, where she also sees Beaches as a natural fit.

“It’s so obviously a musical because the lead character is a singer, but you know what they say about musicals: When the emotion gets too high to speak, the character should sing — and there's a lot of emotion in this piece,” she said.

Those big emotions of love and loss carried the novel decades back, and they remain the engine for the heartfelt story today. But perhaps the biggest emotion of all is Dart's gratitude. With the show on its feet, she can now “pull back a little,” she said, and watch her creation take on another life of its own.

“I said to my husband, when we were at the rehearsal for the 18-piece orchestra, I said, ‘I’m glad this is happening for me now,'" she said. "I think at 82 I appreciate every bit of it so much more.”

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Photo credit: Iris Rainer Dart, also pictured with Mike Stoller. (Photos by Jenny Anderson)
Beaches photo credit: Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barret in Beaches at Theatre Calgary. (Photo by Trudie Lee)