Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 2 (20 page)

I'm not saying I'm the first Jew that ever set foot inside here, but suffice it to say I'm not in my comfort zone. Speaking of comfort, I planted myself in the gorgeous living room and was immediately kindly told to take my shoes off the furniture. Busted! But then I thought to myself, my feet were on a settee. Isn't that was it's for? Of course, it probably
was
for that… when it was originally upholstered by Betsy Ross. The good news is, everyone is super-nice, and the place is gorgeous and literally overlooks the Delaware River. The bad news, there was just a tornado warning. Excellent.

I got to be on NY1's
On Stage
last weekend as part of a roundtable discussion on the upcoming theatre season. They had asked me last year to do it, but we were in the middle of tech for
The Ritz
. Since this year I'm not in any Broadway show, I'm completely free. Wow. That was devastating to write. Regardless, filming it was super fun, except they didn't have a make-up person, so by the end of the segment, my forehead could have been Tony-nominated for the revival of
Grease
.

Also, this week school started for Juli, so I'm back to my early morning wake-up schedule. It's a tad devastating, but nothing has been worse than when I worked on
The Rosie O'Donnell Show
. I had to be at work by 7:30. In the morning. I know some of you people who work are thinking, "That's nothing! I have to be at my desk by 7!" But when I first got the gig, I was still playing piano for
Grease!
So, I'd work during the day and then play the show at night. Every night I got about as much sleep as I get when I go watch an opera (Three hours. Four, if there's a long intermission). We had to have three jokes ready every morning by 8 AM to "pitch" to Rosie.

a)
  
Is it fun to try to get a laugh from someone at 8 AM?

b) Did Rosie ever use any of our jokes? 


ANSWERS


a) No

b) No

The most amazing thing about working on that show was doing "stings." There were six writers and not that much to write on the show, so we'd occupy ourselves by pulling pranks on each other, AKA stings. One day, everyone was throwing a small ball around the office and, by accident, one of the writers named Linda dropped it out the window. We were located in 30 Rock (down the hall from
SNL
) on the 16th floor. Well, Alan (one of the other writers) left the room and told the security guard his scheme. Twenty minutes later, the security guard comes in the room and asked if anyone dropped a ball out of the window. Of course, Linda avoided eye contact. He then went on to say that the ball picked up velocity as it fell, hit a pedestrian and caused a serious injury. He kept up his terrifying ruse for a while before admitting it was a joke. We all
loved
it, but I think it caused Linda early onset menopause.

This week, I interviewed the unbelievably talented Marvin Hamlisch at the
Chatterbox
. He was on a path to become a classical pianist (he was a child taking lessons at Juilliard) until he saw
The Pajama Game
on Broadway. After that, bye-bye classical, hello obsession with popular music. When he was a teenager, not only did he get his first hit on the pop charts ("Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows"), but he became good friends with Liza Minnelli! She invited him to a Christmas party at her mother's house. If any of Juli's classmates are reading, Liza's mother was Judy Garland. If you're older than seven and don't know that, why are you reading this book? He went and accompanied Liza on some songs he had written for her. Then Judy asked him to play for
her
! He literally got to play piano for Judy Garland when he was a teenager! When
I
was a teenager, I was singing baritone in my high school chorus' medley from
Fame
. Comparable? You decide.

A few years later, he got a job as a rehearsal pianist for
Funny Girl
.
Yes!
He played for Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland
and
Barbra Streisand! I guess the next part of his story should read, "He then went back in time and had coffee with Mozart." He recalled that Barbra would change the melodies of songs, but Jule Styne didn’t mind because he thought that she made them better. For instance, Marvin said that Barbra probably came up with the high note in the last verse of "People" that goes, "But first be a person who needs people… PEEEOOO-ple who need people…" At one point, Barbra's melody change in "Sadie, Sadie" didn't work with the harmony that Marvin wrote for the ensemble. He went to her dressing room and told her that her new melody clashed with his vocal arrangement. She asked him, quite clearly, "Marvin. Are people coming to hear your harmony or to hear me sing?" He promptly changed the harmony.

Speaking of Barbra, turns out, she and Marvin are both very similar. They both want things to be
perfect
, and then once they're done, they're done. He said that he would be the worst pit piano player because he'd have a breakdown having to play the same thing every night. I actually enjoy doing the same things over and over again (see my stand-up act for the last ten years. Perhaps it's time to retire those Janet Reno jokes?). Here’s a perfect example: he wrote the theme to
The Way We Were
and was watching a run of the film with a test audience and was mortified to see that there was no crying from the audience in the last scene. He, being Jewish, blamed himself. He knew if the music was right, the tears would flow. Marvin had underscored the moment when Barbra brushes away the hair on the forehead of Robert Redford with the secondary music theme of the movie, not the title song. Perhaps, he thought to himself, he was wrong? He discussed it with his orchestrator. Marvin said he limited playing the main theme throughout the film, because he didn't want the audience to hear the same theme 30 times in the same movie because it could seem tacky. The orchestrator explained that it may play 30 times, but the audience would hear it around three times. Only the composer is that honed into the music in the background throughout the whole film to really notice. Marvin decided to re-record that moment and bring in the main theme from
The Way We Were
. However, the movie studio said, "No way!" They weren't going to pay for more musicians to come in and do any more playing. So… Marvin paid for it himself! That's a lot of moolah… it was a 55-piece orchestra! He re-recorded it, had it put in the movie and went back to another screening. He watched Barbra touch Redford's forehead… he heard the music play… and one woman sniffled. Then another. Then a bunch. Finally, Marvin heard the crying he was looking for! P.S. If he wanted so badly to hear crying in the mid-‘70s, he needed only to visit my house every afternoon when I returned home from school.

That same year, Marvin became an international celebrity because of the Oscars. He won Best Musical Adaptation for
The Sting
, Best Score for
The Way We Were
and Best Song for
The Way We Were
. That's right, he won
three
Oscars in one night! P.S. Speaking of
The Sting
, for those of us that grew up as pianists, that was Marvin actually playing "The Entertainer" that we all listened to on that recording and tried to emulate. I asked him if he cheated and recorded each hand separately to make it easier… and he said he
did
! Aha! But not on "The Entertainer" — only on one of the rags because, he said, it was a really hard stride left hand and busy right hand and there were other musicians playing with him. Marvin knew that if he made even one mistake, everyone would have to start the whole piece over from the top, and he wanted to save them all the annoyance of having to do that.

Right after he won the three Oscars, Michael Bennett contacted him. Marvin was an incredible fan of his. When he met Michael years earlier, he told him that he wasn't going to file Michael's phone number in his address book under B for Bennett but under G for Genius. Michael called and asked him to fly to New York because he had an idea for a show. Of course, Marvin's agents were completely irritated. He was the only composer that was being booked on national talk shows… he could have any high-paying gig he wanted. But instead, Marvin wanted to work in theatre. He went to Michael's apartment and saw that it was all black. Marvin realized it was because Michael had special lights on all of his awards, and the black really made them stand out and glimmer! He met with Michael and was incredibly excited to hear the idea. Michael sat him down and told him: (pause)… "It's about chorus kids." Marvin sat and waited for the beginning, middle and end. Silence. Marvin went home, and even though it was not the way he was used to working, he knew he had to say yes. Marvin thinks that one of the reasons Bennett hired him instead of one of the Broadway greats of the time is that Marvin was a Broadway newcomer and Michael knew that he could have more control that way. Tricky! And it worked!

When they first workshopped it, the show was five hours long! After they did a run-through, Michael asked Marvin his opinion and Marvin said he could only comment on the first two hours. Brava. Marvin said that he really didn't "get" the show for a long time as he was working on it… until Michael drew the line on the floor and said it was about people "on the line." Then it became clear to him. Marvin also said that if you're composing a show, you shouldn't work very hard on the opening number. The original opening number for
A Chorus Line
was called "Résumé." The only thing that remains in the opening we all know now is the melody of "I really need this job" and the cast holding their 8x10s in front of their faces. Marvin said that composer/lyricists should essentially just write a dummy version of an opening because it's going to change later on. He said that you have to write the bulk of the show and then you'll be able to really see what the show is about. That's when you write the opening. He said that "Tradition" from
Fiddler on the Roof
and "Comedy Tonight" from
Forum
were both written
after
the bulk of the show was done. He and Ed Kleban wrote all of
A Chorus Line
and then went back and wrote the opening.

In the late ‘70s, he was living in California with the lyricist Carole Bayer Sager. Their next-door neighbor was Neil Simon (how amazing is that?) and Marvin was working with him on turning
The Gingerbread Lady
into a musical. While they would work, Marvin would chitty-chat with him about the ups and downs of living with a woman who was also in the songwriting business. One day, Marvin opened his front door and saw a package. It was a script from Neil Simon that he wanted to turn into a musical. Neil had taken the conversations with Marvin about living with Carole and turned them into the characters Vernon and Sonia in
They're Playing Our Song
. Hopefully, Neil won't take my private conversations with him and turn them into
The Man Who Was Co-dependent with His Mother
. Marvin said that one day, Neil wrote a scene where Vernon and Sonia are dancing at a discotheque (old-school ‘70s word). Marvin complained that the scene wasn't realistic because a) he doesn't dance well and b) he'd feel annoyed dancing to someone else's music! However, Marvin said, if one of
his
songs started playing he'd be like (and then he ran to the piano): "Oh ho they're playing my song/ Oh, yeah, they're playing my song!" And that's how the song was written!

Marvin told us that he adores Broadway and that's why he lives in New York. And the reason he does what he does has two answers; one day, he was going to rehearse for a Pittsburgh Symphony date with Bernadette Peters. The limo driver asked him, if Marvin originally trained at Juilliard, why did he leave classical music for popular music? Marvin gave him what he thought was a very thorough and proper answer. He talked about the freedom popular music has in form and style and how it can reach so many people, etc… He arrived at the concert and met Bernadette Peters onstage. He said that she was in a pair of tight jeans,
and
she had just showered so her hair was still wet, or as he described the whole package, "Everything I've ever wanted… and more." As he gave her a hug, saw her stunning face and felt her wet hair, he told us that he realized, "
This
is why I'm in popular music." Or as I translate it, no one wants to hug a Wagnerian soprano in a valkyrie helmet.

I'm now back in New York and I must write about the final performance of
Rent
. The cast was
amazing
. Special shout-outs to my friend Michael McElroy, who played Collins and sounded
gorgeous
on the reprise of "I'll Cover You." And Will Chase, who went to my alma mater Oberlin (as a percussion major!), had
great
star quality… and vibratoed all the top notes! And brava Eden Espinosa and Tracie Thoms for the fact that it was the eighth show of the week, yet they both added
ca-razy
high notes to "Take Me Or Leave Me." And I'm obsessed with Renée Elise Goldsberry! I saw her in
Two Gentlemen of Verona
and thought she was fantastic. She not only sounded great as Mimi, but she's beautiful and
fun-nee
! Get that lady a brilliant comedic lead ASAP!