Photograph courtesy of Ponturo Management Group, LLC
When Lombardi, a new play about legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, debuts on Broadway this fall, one small detail will help facilitate the illusion of theater—lead actor Dan Lauria has a gap between his front teeth just like the coach did.
The play’s co-producer, Tony Ponturo, volunteers: “I think he is somehow widening the gap to get it exact. I didn’t even want to ask.”
All eyes will be on Lauria’s expressive face and Ponturo’s bold gambit when Lombardi opens at NYC’s Circle in the Square theater next month. The play is the first big project Ponturo has tackled (pun intended) since he collected the 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical as co-producer of Memphis—and because Lombardi is the first Broadway production with the official backing of the National Football League.
It was a no-brainer for Ponturo, who spent 26 years as head of sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch, working on “team sponsorships, like the Cards, the Yankees, the Dodgers; and also the NFL, NASCAR, the Olympics, the World Cup; and even the Oscars, the Grammys, and the Tonys—we facilitated the sponsorship by A-B, and arranged for commercials during those events,” he explains.
Ponturo, with his insider’s view of big-ticket sports and theater, imagined a way to combine the two. “The way we spend our entertainment lifestyle is really just a mixture of sports and the arts, in different percentages, depending on the individual,” he says. “If you’re a die-hard Cards, Rams, or Blues fan, you still might go to The Muny, the Fox, concerts, et cetera.” Lombardi penetrates the aura around the man whose Green Bay Packers won five NFL championships in seven years, who left us with that oft-quoted chestnut, “Winning isn’t everything—it’s the only thing.” Lauria is the coach; Judith Light (Who’s the Boss?) is his long-suffering wife, Marie. Other roles include the part of Paul Hornung, the famously versatile Hall of Fame halfback, quarterback, and kicker.
The Lombardi mystique consists of a mixture of no-nonsense bluntness, competitive fire, inspirational pep talks, and the sort of emotional connection with players that would offer precedent for former Rams head coach Dick Vermeil’s frequent burst-into-tears moments, decades later.
The great man’s flaws reportedly included a workaholic’s neglect of his family. “God, family, and the Packers—but not necessarily in that order,” Lombardi is supposed to have said. “He devoted 90 percent of his time to the Packers,” says Ponturo. “The women who come to the show are going to relate to Marie Lombardi, because there’s compromise in any relationship. We felt it was important to meet two levels of expectation—the normal theatergoer, who is typically a woman, and then also the guy who’s never gone to a play or musical.”
Will Lombardi, the tale of a man who worshiped victory, snag a third Tony for Ponturo? When he spoke to us in early July, he was waiting for them to finish engraving his name on the Tony for Memphis, and planning where to place it.
“I think there’s a good spot for it in our living room,” he says. “I think it’ll look nice on the piano.”
For more information about the play and the premiere, go to lombardibroadway.com.
