While New York’s Catskill Mountains were once home to famous vacation resorts for the well-off, as seen in Dirty Dancing and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, communal bungalow colonies there made summer leisure accessible to the urban Jewish working class.

Pamela Gray’s screenplay and stage script are informed by her personal colony experiences. Her bungalow era was “the happiest time for me,” she said, “from childhood through early adolescence.”

While getting fresh air, Gray was an eyewitness to history, including the landmark music festival that took place outside of Woodstock. “I literally saw the hippies walking into Woodstock past our bungalow colony.”

Andréa Burns, who plays Pearl’s eagle-eyed and practical mother-in-law, has memories too. “My grandfather actually owned a bungalow colony in the Catskills, so this is a full-circle coming to my roots,” she said.

As a child, Burns cherished the colony as “a place where the city went to exhale. I used to visit my grandma back up in the Catskills and pick blueberries. This is such a celebration of that heritage.”

Kaller has a connection that inspired her to see the movie decades ago. “I first saw it in the movie theatres because my in-laws belonged to Schwartz’s bungalow colony,” she said. “We all went to see it together long before I ever knew it was going to be a musical.”

“One cool thing is that we have an original movie cast member who is going to be voicing one of the characters in our show,” teased Talia Suskauer, who plays Pearl. “If you're a fan of the movie and just a Broadway, TV fan in general, you'll recognize this voice and you'll be very, very happy.”

In the 1999 movie, Tovah Feldshuh played Bubbe Lillian, a woman who never failed to speak her mind. Like when she questioned someone's treatment for a bee sting in the film: “Meat tenderizer? What is he, a pot roast?”

In the musical, Feldshuh's voice will be broadcast over the bungalow colony’s PA system as Mrs. Fogler.

AnnMarie Milazzo has extensive credits for vocal design and vocal arrangements on Broadway shows like If/Then, Almost Famous, and A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical.

Asked to share the inspirations for her score, Milazzo said she sought to reflect a combination of sounds, eras, and influences through the score. More traditional characters get more traditional music, while those involved in counterculture get more of a rock-and-roll edge.

“There are characters stuck in the ’50s,” Milazzo said. “They’re scared to move forward. There are characters fighting against that who want to go into the electric world. The inner monologue songs are theatre songs.”

Sam Gravitte, who plays the man who shakes up Pearl’s world, concurred. “AnnMarie Milazzo wrote incredible songs that pay tribute to artists of the ’60s,” he said. The cast said fans of artists ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Janis Joplin to Joni Mitchell would enjoy the sound of A Walk on the Moon. And speaking of which...

In 1969, Joni Mitchell was a major figure in the folk singer/songwriter scene. She pops up in the show in a couple of ways, per Sophie Pollono, who plays the progressive Alison.

“Alison’s music has a lot of Joni Mitchell influence, which I love,” said Pollono, adding that she’s “obsessed” with the legendary artist. “I feel so fortunate to get to sing something like that as a Joni fan myself.”

The Joni Mitchell references fit, especially when you consider that she’d go on to write “Woodstock,” one of the most famous songs tied to the festival even though she didn’t perform at the event.

“I walk in holding a Joni Mitchell Clouds [album],” Pollono continued. That LP, which featured “Both Sides Now,” came out in May 1969, and it's one of many vintage items to look out for, along with a Time magazine issue from July 2, 1969.

While the Woodstock Festival and its “Three Days of Peace and Love” represent counterculture, traditionalists have their events too. The tile-based game of mahjong was a staple activity among many women in bungalow colonies during their peak decades.

“We play a lot of mahjong in this show,” said Suskauer. “I and a couple other cast members went and actually took a lesson last night and learned how to play.”

The game may not be a critical plot device, but it speaks to the time and the culture in the musical. “The game was very popular back in the '60s,” said Suskauer. “When the men went off to work and the women were there during the week, they would play mahjong. That was a social activity for them, so a lot of the important conversations of the show do happen over that game.”

The actress is all for more mahjong off stage, too. “These Jewish women were constantly working their minds,” she said. “This game is about strategy. We need to bring it back, get off our phones, and get to those tiles!"

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Photo credit: The cast of A Walk on the Moon off Broadway. (Photos by Tricia Baron)