|
 |
ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Aziza, Breaker, Russell and Strouse
By Seth Rudetsky
09 Jun 2008
After he graduated, he made money by accompanying singers and dance classes. Eventually he got a gig playing rehearsals for a show called Saratoga, and the stage manager said that he had an idea for a musical. The idea was about a new phenomenon called…teenagers. They went through five book writers (!) and eventually came up with the Elvis Presley character. The first song Charles wrote was one of my favorites, "An English Teacher." I asked him about the phrase at the beginning: "Albert, Albert, A-a-a-albert!" He said that phrase stems from his classical training. He feels a straight-up pop composer wouldn't necessarily think to put four notes on the same syllable (See "The Glory of the Lord" from The Messiah…which has thirty notes on the first syllable of the word, "glory"). I love Chita Rivera on that song, but turns out the role was not written for her. Rose was not supposed to Hispanic. All of the jokes originally were about her being Polish, and the role was written for Carol Haney! If you don't know, she's the original Gladys from The Pajama Game who did the film, and the one who broke her leg allowing Shirley MacLaine to go on. Unfortunately, Carol started having vocal problems and couldn't do it, so Charles recommended Chita, whom he had worked with on Shoestring Revue (her audition for director Gower Champion is detailed in Richard Seff's amazing book, "Supporting Player"). They kept all the songs they wrote for Carol and added one for Chita, "Spanish Rose" (which you can see her do on the Ed Sullivan Show if you go to Bluegobo.com).
I asked Charles about something that's always driven me crazy. Now, you all should know that I think Hair is a brilliant show and every song in it is phenomenal. But…I get annoyed when people say Hair was the first rock musical. Bye Bye Birdie was the first rock musical! It was the first show to have used actual rock music ("One Last Kiss," "Sincere") and an electric guitar. Charles thinks that because the show satirizes rock music, people don't credit it with being groundbreaking (my word). What's funny is that he said they couldn't get any backers for it because of the new-fangled score. The music was just too modern. Think about it, they started writing it in the mid-fifties when rock literally first began. It's like writing a musical in the style of (insert latest music trend here…I faded out on pop radio so long ago the last trend I know about is a young upstart named Tiffany).
Dick Van Dyke was not originally thought of for the lead role of Albert Peterson. They wanted Jack Lemmon or Steve Lawrence. It was Chita's agent again, Richard Seff, who was also Dick Van Dyke's agent, and kept pushing for them to see him again, even though the creative team thought he wasn't quite right. Then, when Dick finally got the role, his big number, "Put on a Happy Face," was bombing. Charles immediately set out to write a new song. But Marge Champion, who was married to the director (Gower), thought that the staging of the number wasn't right. It originally took place at the Ed Sullivan show while they were setting the lights, and she thought of the idea of setting it in Grand Central and making it about two young girls who were depressed. Sometimes, the wives have the great ideas. Other times, they have to do a concession speech while the husband looks on with a ruddy complexion.
Of course, I had to obsess about Annie. Martin Charnin asked Charles to write it because Charles had written It's a Bird . . . It's a Plane . . . It's Superman, and this was another musical based on a comic. Charles thought the idea was awful but liked Martin and Thomas Meehan, who was writing the book, so he went along with it. Charles said that when it began, the concept was for Annie to be played by…Bernadette Peters! All I can say is "what the-?" The first song he wrote was "It's a Hard Knock Life," which was also the only song in that show that had the lyrics come first. Charles said that the fun of writing a musical is not knowing what's gonna work and what isn't. There was a scene where Annie meets Sandy the dog for the first time and then Annie gets thrown back in the orphanage. There was a clever scene change with a sliding panel, but it needed time to get set up, so Charles wrote a song to cover it. When the change happened for the first time, the audience cheered, and Charles went to the back of the house to tell Martin that they really loved that clever scene change. He didn't realize until months later that the audience was actually loving the song he wrote to cover the change, "Tomorrow"! All these stories and more can be read in his memoir, "Put on A Happy Face," coming out July 1.
First of all, I read through my last column and decided I couldn't get certain line readings across, despite my use of italics and underlines, so I read it out loud and put it on a podcast you can listen to on my site (sww.SethRudetsky.com). Secondly, this week is bi-zay! Tonight (Monday) the amazing Marty Vidnovic (one of the best male Broadway voices ever!) is at the Metropolitan Room (212 306-0440), as well as the one-year anniversary fundraiser at the Vineyard Theater for the Jaradoa Theater Company that my friend Anika Larsen is one of the founders of. And, I'm finally wrapping up my "Broadway Nights" audio book. And, it's all leading up to the Tonys!!!! I cannot wait to see all those performances! As Patti LuPone ad-libbed at the end of the Tony opening number I wrote in 1998, "Go, Tony!!!"
*
(Seth Rudetsky is the host of "Seth's Big Fat Broadway" on SIRIUS Satellite Radio and the author of "The Q Guide to Broadway" and the novel "Broadway Nights." He has played piano in the orchestras of 15 Broadway musicals and hosts the BC/EFA benefit weekly interview show Seth's Broadway Chatterbox at Don't Tell Mama every Thursday at 6 PM. He can be contacted by visiting www.sethsbroadwaychatterbox.com.)
Contact Us | Advertise | Privacy Policy
Send questions and comments to the Webmaster
Copyright © 2008 Playbill, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
|
|