Da Doo
Da Doo - it means we're going to have Some Fun Now.
Barbara Cook
I don’t remember if it was Candide or Grass Harp or She Loves Me but one of those shows was my introduction to Barbara Cook. And I never looked back.
Who among us has?
I was so in love with The Grass ...
The Present of the Past
A rehearsal room in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, 1976 – I am beside myself with the glamour of this dirty little space whose windows look out over a street grimy with trash that the underfunded city can’t afford to clean.
A ...
First Responders
In the world of literature, writers have first readers. For playwrights and lyricists, the job is not so much to read as it is to listen and react. Instead of first readers, they have first responders.
I was but one of ...
Little Shop Director’s Cut
Saturday night, the New York Film Festival, bless their little filmic hearts, screened the director’s cut of Little Shop – complete with the original ending.
More on the film itself next week, but today I thought I’d tell you about the ...
Don’t Change The Word (Don’t Change That Word, Either)
I loved Michael Feinstein’s notes to the young singer who changed a word of a lyric and a note of the song on Broadway or Bust. The song was They Can’t Take That Away From Me and the word changed ...
Audition Lesson
Back when I was in college and Howard was in grad school, we had an audition-song conversation that, naturally enough with Howard around, turned into a lecture.
Howard’s audition piece at that time was I Believe In You from How To ...
An Oscar Nightmare
Here's a little summer game for you. I'm posting a lyric Howard (with music by Alan Menken) wrote on spec for an Academy Award program. Think Billy Crystal.
It wasn't used but I've always thought it was pretty funny.
The game is simple ...
Thirty Years Ago Today
Thirty years ago today, Little Shop of Horrors opened at the Orpheum Theater in New York's lower east side and horticulture has never been the same.
To celebrate, I thought I'd share a few favorite photos. In no particular order, we ...
Great Little Shop Interview With Howard
The other day I found this great interview with Howard. It was done when the Little Shop tour hit Baltimore. There's good stuff here and I like it especially because Howard talks a bit about his early life in our ...
Writing the words
Writing lyrics is really hard. Deceptively so, which I guess is why so many people think they can do it.
Composing music is no walk in the park either, but maybe because music is written in what to many of us ...