Atw's Working in The Theatre #417 The Anatomy of a Song

♪ [Theme Music] ♪ THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Hi, I'm Tom Schumacher, president and producer of Disney Theatrical. But I'm here today, for the American Theatre Wing. Our topic today, on Working in the Theatre, is "The Anatomy of a Song". We're gonna take a look at the notion of a song. What is it, where does it come from, how does it fit in a show? But we're gonna do that from a specific perspective. And that is, from the point of view of dear friend, and long-time colleague, Alan Menken. Now, although Alan is probably most associated with his work for Disney, and how people know him, his first breakout hit was actually an off Broadway show called, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," which he wrote in collaboration with Howard Ashman, his long-time collaborator, the late and legendary Howard Ashman. They went on then, to a huge hit, with "Little Shop of Horrors" that ran off Broadway for five years, was made into a film, and then subsequently came back to Broadway. Alan is the recipient -- I have to count these up -- of eight Oscars, eleven Grammys, seven Golden Globes, and yes, a Tony Award. He also won the coveted Razzie Award for the Worst Song of the Year in 1993. Time prevents me, really, from listing your entire oeuvre, which is extensive, but of course, our viewers know you from both stage and screen versions, in some cases, of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, A Christmas Carol, Hercules, Sister Act, Enchanted, My Beloved King David, Tangled, the long-lost Disney classic, Home on the Range, which meant the world... ALAN MENKEN: Oh, thank you. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: ...to both of us. And of course, your Tony Award winning hit musical Newsies based on the film of the same title, but somewhat lesser success. So, ladies and gentlemen, the remarkable Alan Menken. Play your own intro. It's tough to be your own band. So, you know, the thing -- obviously talking about where do songs come from, what are songs, one has to say, when did you start writing music? ALAN MENKEN: I started writing music when I was a kid, and I -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: How old were you? ALAN MENKEN: Oh god! THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause you played the violin and the piano? Which came first? ALAN MENKEN: Yes. I played piano an-- piano first, then violin. I hated to practice both of them. And so instead of practicing, I figured I'd fake it and just make up my own pieces. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Did you have a teacher that came over to the house? ALAN MENKEN: I had -- yes, I had Emily Harris and Editha Bram. Two wonderful teachers. Brilliant teachers. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: But you were a bad student? ALAN MENKEN: I was a terrible student. But I was a very good musician; they loved me, but I would just make up my own things. Like, I'd have a Beethoven Sonata- and my parents would leave the room, and I'd- and I'd play for the next hour. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And you'd riff on that. ALAN MENKEN: And I'd just riff on Beethoven, and then I'd come to my lesson, and the teacher would say, "Alan is not learning his pieces." THOMAS SCHUMACHER: But people liked to listen to you. ALAN MENKEN: "But he's playing for the hour. I don't understand." THOMAS SCHUMACHER: What was the first song you wrote, ever? A full, actual song? ALAN MENKEN: You wanna hear it? THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause I'm gonna ask you -- so you may wanna lie... ALAN MENKEN: No, this is funny. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: ...because I'm gonna ask you to play it. ALAN MENKEN: I'm gonna play it; it's okay, 'cause, um- it was on guitar. It went... "She's gone, and I wanna die...you know I'm living a lie. She'd have stayed if only I had asked, but I know I can't live in the past." I was about 11 years old then. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Was there a girl that broke your heart? ALAN MENKEN: So there wasn't a whole lot of past. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: There wasn't a lot of past; was there a girl that had broken your heart, or you were imagining there would be a girl who would break your heart? ALAN MENKEN: At 11, it was all-- you could imagine what I was imagining. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So, it came sort of natural to you just to start composing, right? ALAN MENKEN: Well, I was -- I'm sort of -- part of it is being a natural mimic. You know, probably mimicking Bob Dylan there. But, I love music, and I naturally want to play music, and then I don't really want to -- I didn't want to learn that music; I wanted to do my own version of that. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And what kind of songs were you most into, when you were -- 'Cause you were -- if you started writing as a kid, by the time you were a teenager, what were you listening to and what were you thinking about? ALAN MENKEN: Well, I grew up in a family that loved musical theatre. So I grew up with like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, "I'll buy you a star, not just any -- " and of course, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So the transition into the sort of Great American Songbook wasn't a big surprise. ALAN MENKEN: It started there. We had Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin, everything, right at the piano. My dad would play, and I would play the plucked melody, and at some point I pushed him over and I played the chords and he played the melody. And then, of course the early 60's happened. And it was, you know, the Beatles and the Stones -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And were you drawn to that sort of music? Or did you -- ALAN MENKEN: Oh, totally. Totally. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Yeah. And then what got you back to theatre music, then? ALAN MENKEN: Well, okay, when I was in college -- this is all just appeasing people. See, I like to please, so I- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: I've sensed that, low these 20-odd years we've worked together. ALAN MENKEN: But, I went to college, and I actually -- I wrote two musicals there. One was the Commedia Dell'Arte musical. Why am I so -- "Why am I so lonely? I wish I knew. My thoughts are so confused, I don't know what to do. If she'd give me only, one little clue..." THOMAS SCHUMACHER: You know what's nice? Is that you've gotten better. ALAN MENKEN: Thank you. It's one of those compliments you go, "okay." And then there was a show called Separate Ways -- but anyway, I was not a great student at NYU, either. And I did not want to go to graduate school. But I had joined this thing called the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Well, I wanted to ask you about that, because it's legendary. Lehman Engel, this thing. What was it, and what kind of stuff would you have been taught in there? ALAN MENKEN: Well Lehman taught -- Lehman was a great conductor, who was conducting shows in the 40's and 50's, and even into the 60's. And Porgy & Bess, I mean, the original Goddard Lieberson recording. And BMI -- there's ASCAP and BMI, the two -- they collect royalties. BMI started this first workshop for people that were songwriters, but not theatre songwriters. And Lehman had basically studied how musicals tick from the pit, you know, from watching from the pit. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Like really a structural point of view. ALAN MENKEN: Yeah, how a score functions -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Where songs fit, all that. Did he teach? ALAN MENKEN: Oh, absolutely he taught. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: I mean, he was actually teaching. ALAN MENKEN: Oh, he was in the front of the room, and giving us assignments, and talking about song placement, and talking about character, and talking about moving plot forward, and talking about your individual style, and your individual style; he was the most fantastic teacher. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Who else was that in class with you? ALAN MENKEN: Maury Yeston. First person I met, I walked in the first day, and there's Maury. In his Hush Puppies. He was a graduate student at Yale, and I was an undergraduate at NYU. Um...Ed Kleban. You know, he was two years ahead of us, but it was the legendary -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And so, did the whole -- was your whole class kinda people who went on to enormous success? Maury certainly, and Kleban -- ALAN MENKEN: No. No, no. There were just some that broke out. There was Maury, of course, Jack, Jack Feldman, was one of the people who was in the workshop. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Did you write a song in the workshop? ALAN MENKEN: Oh, yeah. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Just like, can you play one of them? Something you wrote in the workshop? ALAN MENKEN: Oh my God. Oh my God, now you're -- okay, I wrote a musical of a Midnight, which was a Billy Wilder film. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: He didn't have the rights, so you just did it as an exercise, right? ALAN MENKEN: Right. "Good night, perhaps your dreams will carry you far away. Sleep tight, just forget the words that we said today. It's alright. We have separate lives. We have separate dreams, so we are sleeping in separate rooms tonight." Been a long time since I played this song. I wrote -- those -- those are the wrong lyrics, but -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: But -- and did you write the lyrics? ALAN MENKEN: And I was writing these lyrics then, yes. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: At the same. Okay. I wanna transition to the first big thing that everyone knows of yours, because it's Little Shop. I mean, you know, it's performed everywhere, people know it so well. When you and Howard Ashman began writing Little Shop, what was the inspiration -- we know the film existed, right? The Roger Corman movie? ALAN MENKEN: Yeah, and Howard had always loved that. You -- in your intro, you mentioned Rosewater, so I'll just say -- you said "breakout", not really a breakout, although it got us a little bit of attention. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: It got you attention, yeah. I mean, and people noticed you. It actually ran. But this was -- your big hit, though, was Little Shop, right? ALAN MENKEN: Right. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And that big five-year success film, put you on the map. I'm curious about how you approached it as song writers, because what did it sound like in the beginning? 'Cause I'm told that you wrote it and then rethought it into the doo-***. ALAN MENKEN: Right. Initially, I remember watching the Corman film, and we -- we really went for the tone of Corman film, which was kind of...uh...how do you describe it? It was very skidrow and very sort of jazzy, and little and tinkley, and there was the plant saying "feed me, I'm hungry, feed me, I'm starving, feed me, I'm fading in fast. Feed me, you moron." Or there was a -- there was a song we wrote for -- in praise of Audrey II, that went, "when it's time to pick a pet flower, who's the shrub we love? Who's our potted plant of the hour? Who's our bush when push comes to shove? Who rakes in that cash, those kudos? Look ma, who came through. Not Audrey Hepburn or Audrey Wood, though both those ladies are well and good. They're dismal failures beside the wonderful Audrey II! And the pods would go Audrey! Audrey!" THOMAS SCHUMACHER: "Who's our bush when push comes to shove?" ALAN MENKEN: Who's our bush when push comes -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: That's delicious. Now, what made you switch, though, to the doo-*** thing? ALAN MENKEN: Well, nobody was getting it, to begin with. It was like -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: To cute? Or... ALAN MENKEN: Um...you know what? It didn't have a sty-- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Not fresh enough, or... ALAN MENKEN: Yeah, it didn't have a stylistic hook. And I've learned that -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause that's a big thing for you, the stylistic hook. ALAN MENKEN: It's a big thing, yeah. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So, give me a little bit of the doo-*** thing, so we know where that went, then. ALAN MENKEN: Well, the doo-***, obviously is, "little shop, little shop of horrors!" I mean, we're talking -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And you define the whole show with- ALAN MENKEN: We're talking about the end of the world, and a plant that eats people, and we're playing this totally light doo-*** rock and roll, and trying to -- basically we tie into the whole style of the period... THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And do you research that? Like, so do you- ALAN MENKEN: Well, Howard, you know, he would bring in records of the Shirelles, and say, "I want it to be like this," or, "I want it to be like that," and -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So when you take a stylistic point of view, and you know things that -- you know, we've done so many things together. But your work is so well known; you can play a melody from one of your shows, and people so know it. And this idea of a stylistic entry point, a motif that's gonna hold it together. And I'm just curious if you can do a little compare and contrast between Mermaid, Beauty, and Aladdin. These three films sort of stacked up. You know, Mermaid you've got these two things going: the sound of water, and the Caribbean thing. ALAN MENKEN: Yeah. Yeah, you do. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And is that the glue for the whole score? ALAN MENKEN: Well, it's not quite that simple. If you look at my ballads, they kind of form a pivot where all the shows could actually -- you could go from one to the other and see very much a line in my style. It's in some of the more specific moments, outside of something that's in the emotional interior, where -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: When -- for example, when you and Howard started on Mermaid... ALAN MENKEN: Yeah. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: ...did you have this idea -- ALAN MENKEN: Flowing water? Yes. Certainly that constant flow. "La la la la, la la la la. Wouldn't you think my collection's complete? Wouldn't you think I'm the girl, girl who has everything?" Also had the sea shanty, um..."Heave ho, heave ho." Very -- everything very style-driven. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Where does the Caribbean thing, then, come in? ALAN MENKEN: And the Caribbean thing. Well, that was when -- originally John Musker and Ron Clements wanted Sebastian to be a stuffy English crab, and Howard had the idea, "how about we make him a Caribbean crab?" Kind of a stuffy Trinidadian or something. And so then came, and it was more -- you know, Howard wanted a circular riff that could just go around and around. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And then Ursula is sort of this breck vile thing. ALAN MENKEN: Yeah. "I admit that in the past I've been a nasty. They weren't kidding when they called me, well, a witch. But you'll find that nowadays, I've mended all my ways..." Yeah, you wanna get that vamp quality -- well, first of all, she bounces. And part of it is also physicality. You wanna get her physicality. You also wanna get sort of the Dietrich quality in her. And that vamp quality. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Than as we go to Beauty, you know, the opening number of Beauty and the Beast, it so defines everything we're gonna see. That's a gigantically complicated song. ALAN MENKEN: "Every day, like the one -- " you know, by the end of the story, Howard didn't wanna send it on. We had written it, and he said, "who asked for a 7-minute opening number? They're gonna just -- they're gonna laugh at us. I'm not sending this! I can't send this!" I says, "I think it's good." Anyway -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And then what happened? ALAN MENKEN: We sent it. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And what happened then? ALAN MENKEN: People loved it. I knew they would. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: I mean, it's an extraordinary opening. It's very complicated; it's very theatrical. ALAN MENKEN: Yeah, it takes you through the entire town. It introduces, you know, Belle. "Little town, it's a quiet village. Every day, like the one before. Little town, full of little people, waking up to say bonjour, bonjour, bonjour. There goes the baker with his tray, like always. The same old bread and rolls to sell. Every morning just the same, since the morning that we came, to this poor provincial town. Good Morning, Belle!" THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And what else runs through Beauty? What other motif is going on? What are -- ALAN MENKEN: In Beauty? THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Yeah, 'cause you always want the stylistic points. ALAN MENKEN: Now, this, how did this come about? Well... THOMAS SCHUMACHER: This is vaguely Saint-Saens ALAN MENKEN: Vaguely. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: ...is the fourth movement, right? ALAN MENKEN: Yes, I mean, Jeffrey Katz-- Jeff-- he fell in love with it. And I understand; it was a great effective opening, but it was -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause we -- we attempt the movie -- ALAN MENKEN: With the Saint- Saens Carnival of the Animals. So...he said, "oh, we'll just leave that in," they go, "no!" So...which of course, in the Broadway show, actually found its way into being the theme that the Beast sings. So this is actually the opening of the movie. And then it goes into -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And the narration is over that, with David Ogden Stiers does that. ALAN MENKEN: And then goes into -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Yeah. ALAN MENKEN: "Little town, it's a quiet village..." THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And Aladdin. 'Cause Aladdin was actually written earlier. ALAN MENKEN: Yeah, Aladdin was actually written -- we started it before Beauty. And then it got shelved. And the -- you know, he starts right away with, "oh I come from a land, from a faraway place, where the caravan camels roam..." THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So here you've got this rhythm that we think of from that part of the world, right? The sound of that. And then you're taking that with Cabell Calloway, though. ALAN MENKEN: What? THOMAS SCHUMACHER: But then you're jamming that in with this sort of Cab Calloway jazz thing. ALAN MENKEN: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, first of all, part of that is in the nature of the Genie. The Genie was described as black, and he had an earring, and he basically was like a hipster. And so we wanted to go to that kind of a style. I mean, part of it is also my -- I grew up with, my dad used to always play Fats Waller, and, "old man Mose, oh yeah, I do believe, oh yeah!" and I love Fats Waller. I mean, so, you know, some of it is just -- it's the serendipity of allowing your influences in, but it's kind of what, from my gut, is going to be fun, unique. Really have a stylistic specificity to it, because I always believe that when people can hear a song, and early in go, "oh, I get what you're doing." You know, you're not just playing a pretty tune, or you're not just playing a poppy tune, but it actually has... THOMAS SCHUMACHER: A reference? ALAN MENKEN: ...roots that go into our culture, it just make it more fun for people to absorb the song and listen to it. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So, listen, we've talked a lot about Howard Ashman, who had a huge impact, certainly on you, certainly on me, anyone who grew up or worked at Disney Animation. 'Cause he -- with you, you guys set a course, of not doing film musicals, but actual stage musicals on film. I made a list of just some of your collaborators, which are pretty extraordinary, 'cause Howard Ashman, our beloved Sir Tim Rice, Stephen Schwartz, David Zippel, Glenn Slater, Lynn Ahrens, Chad Beguelin, and of course Jack Feldman from Newsies. Talk about partnerships, and what it means for you, because some composers have gone through their whole life with one or two, but you've had -- You've had many partners. And do you write differently with different partners? In the anatomy of a song, who goes first and how that works? ALAN MENKEN: Um...I have different relationships, obviously, with different people. In general- we get into a room, and we go, "what's our assignment? What do we need to do, to make this moment work?" I will say, that basically there's my collaboration with Howard, and then there's my collaboration with everybody else. In that, when I was working with Howard, he really did set the standard. And I learned an immense amount from working with him. He is an extremely demanding collaborator. He was pretty much the boss: he was a director, book writer, but he would have choreographed, he -- if -- you know, could choreograph, he probably would have written the music -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So he was a very dominant partner. ALAN MENKEN: Very. And brilliant. And so when Howard become ill, first of all, on Aladdin, I began to fill those shoes, which are hard shoes to fill. Very hard. First in producing the sessions, and then also in writing the songs. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Did you write -- 'cause Aladdin has two composers for the film version. ALAN MENKEN: Two lyricists. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Lyricists, rather. Because after Howard had passed, and we made all these story changes, then Tim Rice came in. So, "A Whole New World" was written with Tim. ALAN MENKEN: Yes, and Tim -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And they're different songs. I mean, do they feel different to -- ALAN MENKEN: Well, now it feels different, but "One Jump Ahead" was deliberately very much in style -- we had -- Howard and I had a song we had written called, "Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim," which is now in the theatrical -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: The stage version. ALAN MENKEN: Yeah. Um..."Four friends, none closer, heck mad? Heck no, sir! Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim. Wa wam, ba, ba, bap!" THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And that was, in a sense, replaced by "One Jump". ALAN MENKEN: By "One Jump". "One jump, ahead of the bread line, one swing, ahead of the sword..." THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So, a Tim Rice lyric, but with a Howard Ashman template. ALAN MENKEN: And what I actually did was -- yes. What I actually did was, I wrote a piece of music first, and I even wrote sort of a dummy lyric, just to say, "I think it'll be this kind of a pace of thing," and just blah, blah, blah, blah. And then Tim brilliantly put on a lyric that really did, I think, match Howard's style very closely. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Now, since we have Newsies on its feet right now, it would be useful to actually explore the relationship, and since we have one of your collaborators actually right here -- ALAN MENKEN: No! THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Let's bring in our pal Jack Feldman. You're a Tony winner, you're a Grammy winner, you -- you know, you've worked in every medium. You've worked in television, you've worked in film, you've written film opening songs and credit songs, that sort of thing. You've written for animated movies, including -- I just learned this morning -- you wrote songs for a Lion King 2. JACK FELDMAN: Yeah. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: What did you write in that? JACK FELDMAN: With Tom Snow. We wrote "We Are One," THOMAS SCHUMACHER: You wrote that? I didn't know that, actually. JACK FELDMAN: "One of Us"... THOMAS SCHUMACHER: But then you also have had enormous success with pop songs, obviously -- Yeah. Copacabana. Yeah, Co-- no, Copacabana, it's a thing, you know. And what's the other one that I really love? Oh, "I Made it Through the Rain". Right? Can you play "I Made it Through the Rain"? Do you know that one? How about you play the Jack Feldman oeuvre? ALAN MENKEN: Where's the cup? THOMAS SCHUMACHER: The tip jar? The tip jar? So, you've worked in lots of this stuff. I first wanna talk about the movie Newsies. How did you come together, and specifically, how'd you come together to write those songs? Who set the idea of what that music would sound like? Bob and -- Bob Tzudiker and Noni White, our friends, wrote this screenplay that wasn't to be a musical, and Disney buys it, says, "we'll make a musical out of it." What then happened? Did Kenny start suggesting music ideas? Did you do that on your own? ALAN MENKEN: No. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: What happened? ALAN MENKEN: We basically, um...looked at the story, and figured out the song moments. Jack and I had never worked together before. This was our first time working together. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So, you had known each other from BMI. But you hadn't worked together. ALAN MENKEN: No, I noticed -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Who-- you asked for him? ALAN MENKEN: I asked for Jack. Howard was, at that point, just frankly too ill. And I'd known and liked Jack a lot, as a writer, and I knew he was working as a lyricist. And I also heard the stuff that he had done. For instance, you did one of the songs for Oliver & Company, right? JACK FELDMAN: Yeah. ALAN MENKEN: Yeah. And I said, "oh, yeah. This is -- he's right in the tone there." What was -- I don't remember what song that was. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: "Perfect Isn't Easy". ALAN MENKEN: Yeah, yeah. And -- so I think this would be a good collaboration. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: What is the first song you wrote on Newsies? ALAN MENKEN: I think it was "Carrying the Banner," wasn't it? JACK FELDMAN: It was. We started it in my living room. ALAN MENKEN: Now, if you go into process of how did we come up with that... THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Yeah, 'cause what -- where does that -- ALAN MENKEN: That's the toughest one. I mean, it sort of -- sometimes you just sort of go to your gut and like, "blah," you know, what comes out. But you think, first of all, it is the era of ragtime. And you know it's gonna wanna break into something more energetic. Sort of -- it's a little bit sort of on the townish, the... and I think from there, it just -- you know, part of- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And you were sitting in Jack's apartment... JACK FELDMAN: You were. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And you're at Jack's piano, and you were saying, "what if it felt like..." Is that what happened? JACK FELDMAN: Actually -- well, I did a lot of research on the period, and on the expressions of the period, and that just seemed like a great expression to try to use. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Did you write lyric fragments down for him? JACK FELDMAN: No, not on that song, because it literally started with Alan... ALAN MENKEN: I think I probably gave you the riff. ALAN MENKEN: And which-- you know, is a little bit ragtimey and a little bit R&B. But, you know -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause you wanted to make it contemporary, right? ALAN MENKEN: Yes. I mean, some of it is -- look, a lot happens here. Well, some happens here. Whatever I've got left there. But most of it happens here. And what happens is, I will start playing, I'll give myself a territory to work in, and I have a pretty good barometer of, "that sucks, that sucks, that -- oh wait! That doesn't suck." THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So you just -- you're improvising, and an idea sticks. ALAN MENKEN: I'm trying to just let it flow -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And do you grab one? Do you say, "that sounds like something?" JACK FELDMAN: Well, yeah, sometimes, sure. But it's not even that it's, "that sucks." But for this, I think it was especially hard because to find a style that you wanted to stay in for an entire score, or most of the score, was not easy on this. 'Cause you didn't want it to be an entire ragtime score. So the fact that even in that one number, in those opening phrases, it goes from ragtime, and then it gets to a little Bernstein, and Gershwin, and then it gets contemporary, and it -- you never feel the seams. It's always seamless. And by the time the song is full-throttle, it's sometimes very contemporary. But you never -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Now, one of the other songs in the show -- and it's certainly popular, and we know -- what's surprise-- it's "Santa Fe". The song is "Santa Fe", it's this beautiful ballad." JACK FELDMAN: That we wrote in the first meeting we had. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: You wrote in the first meeting? JACK FELDMAN: It was my first time on Newsies, and we were out in California, and were sitting around a big conference table, and somebody was talking about how "Santa Fe" should be the "I want" song. And Alan said, "I got it, I got it, I got it." Da, da, dam...da, da, dam. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So you wrote that around the idea of saying "Santa Fe"? ALAN MENKEN: Apparently, I -- JACK FELDMAN: Not the whole song. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Just the words, "San-ta Fe". JACK FELDMAN: Not -- not in the- ALAN MENKEN: I thought we started with -- 'cause I wanted to get that feeling -- remember I talked about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and you know, "I'll buy you a star, not just any star, the best one in the sky." Just that kind of, "so that's what they call a family..." There's certain harmonies I identify with are -- it's sort of the 50's style of musical. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: But the big -- you know, the idea that he's singing, he's in this cramped, horrible space, and it's such a big gesture, that song. And when he gets to the "Santa Fe," and it soars -- or, it was intended to. And then you had this curious thing, by which you -- you have a -- Christian Bale, who's fantastic, but not a big singer. ALAN MENKEN: Right. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So it's really not until Broadway, when we ever got to really hear the song, sung. JACK FELDMAN: And the context was different. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Totally different than the Broadway show. So I wanna talk about our friend Harvey Fierstein. Because we three and others were in the room for a very long time, trying to figure out, "could Newsies make it to the stage?" It seemed like a natural, and yet years, and years, and years, we toiled in that field and couldn't get there. And then, it was really the introduction of Harvey that re-lit it up. But Harvey -- did Harvey bring in the idea of introducing a genuine, spunky love interest for Jack? ALAN MENKEN: Yeah, I mean, we -- we had not -- we all knew that we needed something like that. But Harvey really honed it into her being a reporter. We actually had a character named Denton, who was the reporter -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: In the movie. ALAN MENKEN: In the movie. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: The Bill Pullman character. ALAN MENKEN: Correct. And so, in a way, Katherine took that role on, and -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And it took us a while to get -- 'cause what I wanna get to is, I do wanna listen to the song from the show. 'Cause I think it's a really surprising song. You wrote a song for her ahead of time. Can you play a li-- this was the first Katherine song that we had. And I'm gonna -- we're gonna -- do you know it at all? Do you remember it? A guy named Alan Menken wrote it with this smart guy named Jack Feldman. JACK FELDMAN: You don't -- even reading it, it doesn't sound familiar? ALAN MENKEN: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, "any fool can see, you're a num-- you're outnumbered, you're -- you're...you are untested, and you're bound to lose." JACK FELDMAN: "Any fool but me... ALAN MENKEN: "This is not just a break. This is front page, headline, money in the bank. This is...David and Goliath on the battlefield, and I'm praying for the record -- praying off the record David wins, but no matter how it goes, even a cob reporter knows, that this is the story of my life. The day my life begins-" Essentially, 'cause I-- It was unpolished. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And we cut that. That's interesting to hear, because then we -- then we asked for another song. ALAN MENKEN: Yes, you know what? It wasn't specific. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Wasn't specific. Meaning what? ALAN MENKEN: When you get to the moment, and you go -- well, it's not special enough; let's put it that way. It's about her, it's about what she wants, but you go, "okay, she's at the typewriter," and there's a -- there's a beat to that, that I think, first of all, became the essence of- JACK FELDMAN: No. I'll tell you what- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Okay, what was it? What is Jack's version of that? ALAN MENKEN: What is now the music for Katherine's song, was originally written for the character of Les, the little boy, who we wanted to give a song to in the second scene of Act 2. And it was pretty much exactly the song, musically, that you hear on stage. But we realized no kid would be able to sing it. So we just sort of shelved it. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Because this song -- ALAN MENKEN: I have a vague recollection of that. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And actually, let's hear this song. ALAN MENKEN: But what makes the song, I think, tick, is the fact that you're starting with this -- It starts from the very beginning. That's the building blocks... THOMAS SCHUMACHER: The metronome idea going. ALAN MENKEN: ...the very simple, and just building up, you know, all the things, and then finally when it opens up, in terms of, "oh my God, this is what could happen." It -- that felt right. JACK FELDMAN: It's also the only time you get to hear what she's really feeling. It's the only time she's on stage alone. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: But the -- there's the thing. We're gonna-- Kara -- Kara Lindsay, come on in. This is Kara Lindsay, of course, who plays Katherine in our -- KARA LINDSAY: Hi. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: In our show. This is Kara's Broadway debut... KARA LINDSAY: It is. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: ...although we met when you were on the national tour of Little House on the Prairie, which Disney was-- KARA LINDSAY: Yes, playing a 12-year-old. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Playing a 12-year-old -- involved with. And then -- but you're a Carnegie kid, so you have real training, and now we have you. So this song, I want us to play it down once, so you -- and Alan, you're actually going to accompany, which is not something you specialize in, but you're gonna do it. ALAN MENKEN: I'm gonna do it. KARA LINDSAY: Oh, he's fantastic. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And let's here the song, and then I wanna dissect it a bit. KARA LINDSAY: Okay. KARA LINDSAY: [singing] Write what you know so they say, all I know is I don't know what to write or the right way to write it. This is big, lady, don't screw it up, This is not some little vaudeville I'm reviewing. Poor little kids versus rich greedy sour pusses. Ha! It's a cinch! It could practically write itself-- And let's pray it does, cause as I may have mentioned, I have no clue what I'm doing. Am I insane? This is what I've been waiting for. Well that, plus the screaming of ten angry editors. A girl? It's a girl! How the hell? Is that even legal? Look, just go and get her! Not only that, there's a story behind the story: Thousands of children, exploited, invisible. Speak up, take a stand, and there's someone to write about it. That's how things get better. Give life's little guys some ink, and when it dries just watch what happens. Those kids will live and breathe right on the page and once they're center stage, you watch what happens. And who's there with her camera and her pen as boys turn into men they'll storm the gates and then just watch what happens when they do. Picture a handsome, heroically charismatic, plain spoken, know-nothing, skirt-chasing, cocky little son of a -- lie down with dogs and you wake up with a raise and a promotion. So, he's a flirt, a complete ego maniac. The fact is he's also the face of the strike - What a face - face the fact, that's a face that could save us all from sinking in the ocean. Like someone said, "Power tends to corrupt" and absolute power, wait, wait corrupts? Absolutely, that is genius! But give me some time, I'll be twice as good as that six months from never. Just look around at the world we're inheriting and think of the one we'll create. Their mistake is they got old, that is not a mistake we'll be making. No sir, we'll stay young forever! Give those kids and me the brand new century and watch what happens. It's David and Goliath do or die the fight is on and I can't watch what happens. But all I know is nothing happens if you just give in. It can't be any worse than how it's been. And it just so happens that we just might win, so whatever happens! Let's begin! Yes! That was so fast and so awesome. ALAN MENKEN: I'm sorry. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Was that a little faster than it is in the show? KARA LINDSAY: No, it's a patter song; it's so great. That's how it's supposed to be. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Now, what's the hardest part of that song for you to sing? KARA LINDSAY: Breathing. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: The breathing part. Because -- because it's just -- it's a lot of information. Was it hard to learn? KARA LINDSAY: Um...I mean, kind of, but I mean, like Jack said and Alan said, this is the one time we see who she is, and this is a really big moment for her, and it's like -- it's a brainstorm, out loud. So, you know, all these thoughts go through your head, when you're writing an essay or writing a report, but these are all out loud. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause what I find fascinating about this song -- and also, your performance with it has grown. KARA LINDSAY: Oh, thank you. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: It was very challenging when we were in the original out-of-town production at Paper Mill, because it's a big space and the sound is complicated, and so the audience can't stay with it as easily as you can at the Nederlander, which is so intimate and so fantastic, and they're right there with you for the whole song. Is it -- it is a brainstorm; that's what you wrote, right? But in this -- JACK FELDMAN: It's a stream of consciousness. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Yeah, stream of consciousness. In this lyric, you're constantly changing your mind, or rethinking. ALAN MENKEN: Right. 'Cause you're catching not only information, but also the emotional information of what's going on and how you feel what she's going through. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: I love the way Kara does it, 'cause what you created was this character who's really, really smart, at a time when she wouldn't have r-- it's historically a little anachronistic, right? What you've all created, and what Harvey created, is a character that probably wouldn't have been so outspoken. So, in that stream of consciousness, you're demonstrating her own -- her fears, right? Her -- JACK FELDMAN: Mm-hmm. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So tell me, where did it come from? 'Cause you had the -- if you had the Les melody -- which some of us don't remember that that was Les' line -- ALAN MENKEN: Apparently, but -- JACK FELDMAN: Well, it never got out of the studio. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Yeah. But the -- you had the melody. Did you just start thinking, this lyric first? What'd you do? JACK FELDMAN: Harvey -- I was on the phone with Harvey, complaining about... THOMAS SCHUMACHER: You were complaining to Harvey Fierstein? JACK FELDMAN: -how I couldn't -- could not... ALAN MENKEN: Could you believe Jack complaining? JACK FELDMAN: ...find this song-- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: You couldn't find this song. JACK FELDMAN: And he said, "what about that number that we wrote for, uh, the kid? I said, "oh, you can't use that. It's like a patter number." And he said, "look at it." And I did. And from -- that's where I got the idea of doing a real stream of consciousness and the double idea that we can really get to see her insecurities, how -- how needy she really is. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Do you think that way? In that lyric, do you -- when you're writing, are you thinking, "oops, that's not me. Oop-- and -- " 'cause, you know, I was looking through the lyric; it's just so extraordinary, the density of it. And yet, I think -- and it's why I wanted to point this song out and have you guys talk about it, because also I'm curious when we do this for the first time in a foreign language -- which will happen-- that we're gonna hear someone sing this, and I think I will feel the same thing, because the music -- ALAN MENKEN: Well, that's -- yeah, you should always -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: The music is -- okay, so explain that to me. Because I feel -- you feel it open up, and then it compresses and it pulls back, and it jumps forward and it pulls back, and it jumps forward. Expl-- what are you doing there? ALAN MENKEN: Well, first of all, music should at least take you a 50% of the way towards knowing what the moment is, even before you hear a lyric. Just by the nature of the choice. So look, you started with a basic building block What's happening? You could see justification going -- I'm actually basing it on Chopsticks. Ta ta ta ta ta THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Simple. ALAN MENKEN: And it builds, and then it builds, and -- na na na. And then it opens on and that's like fireworks. "Oh my God, yes! Oh my God, yes." So you're going from, "what's gonna happen? What's gonna happen?" and shooop! THOMAS SCHUMACHER: But then it pulls back again. ALAN MENKEN: Yes. Because -- well, I -- JACK FELDMAN: 'Cause she has to get back to the typewriter, and so the same fears come out, and the same insecurities. The other thing about it was that The Story of my Life, in it's own way -- Alan said it wasn't specific, and he's right, it was another anthem of a kind. It was just from her -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And the movie was a little anthem-heavy. JACK FELDMAN: Yeah. ALAN MENKEN: I was -- when we were doing -- now I remember. We were doing Story of my Life; I was thinking Once Was a Man, from Pajama Game. But there wasn't enough in their relationship to fuel it. 'Cause I was thinking, "okay, it's David and Goliath," and we're seeing her attraction to him, but you know, it's something -- it's too early to be getting into what they're feeling for each other. It's more about what she's going through herself, and then there was a struggle of, "do we care enough about this character to wanna hear her spend three minutes thinking about what's going on inside of her?" Well, yes, if it's tied to a very specific assignment, a very specific process, a very specific thing she's going through. And let's -- and also, if you look at what the staging does, brilliantly, there she is, on the stage, you know, at the typewriter, and above her you see -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: What she's writing, yeah. ALAN MENKEN: And you see the-- you know, and she pulls the paper out, and -- so it's a very specific moment. JACK FELDMAN: And looking back on it, I think it's a really significant moment. Because it's that place in the first act, which if you're not really careful, or lucky, can really dip. And a solo by this character that you don't know that well, if it isn't -- like Alan was saying -- special, I think it can bring -- you know, bring it down. And -- and this didn't. This brought it up. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause I -- I adore the song. This idea I wanna introduce now is this idea of rewriting. You know, it's always said musicals are not written; they're rewritten. ALAN MENKEN: Of course. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And there's a dual thing happening in the case of Newsies, because you had a piece of material, and you know, 20 years later...you know. ALAN MENKEN: Well, and-- and we came in -- you know, we did a first attempt, that really kind of fell flat. We didn't get it the first time around. It was the second time around, when Harvey came aboard we really nailed it. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: But this idea of rewriting; you had to go back into all your original songs, and rewrite them. Is that hard to do, or not so? ALAN MENKEN: Well, Jack was an unstoppable rewriter when it came to the lyrics. There was times, "you don't have to rewrite that!" and Jack rewrote the whole thing. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So give me an example of an original so-- 'cause Santa Fe is totally different. ALAN MENKEN: Totally different. Well, it's a different moment -- JACK FELDMAN: Well, Santa Fe had to be. 'Cause Santa Fe wasn't -- you know, wasn't gratuitous, because the two places that it's used in the show, are both completely different from the one place it's used in the movie. But, even songs-- ALAN MENKEN: Carrying the Banner... JACK FELDMAN: Yeah, songs like Carrying the Banner, Seize the Day.. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Why did you rewrite Carrying the Banner? Can you just play, so we know what that song is? Just a tint of it. ALAN MENKEN: "We'll be out there carrying the banner..." THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Why did you have to rewrite that? JACK FELDMAN: Well, we were -- ALAN MENKEN: Lyrically. It was lyrical. JACK FELDMAN: Yeah. Oh yeah. Alan's music was -- you know, didn't need a note changed. It was -- first of all, we didn't have a lot of time, to say the least, to write the movie score. And I just felt that everything could be a little sharper, and a little bit more specific, and just improved. I really felt like the movie, for me, was almost like a first draft. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And what about rewriting, in the case when the song just isn't landing? You have to keep trying a new song all together. Like the ballad, right? With the love ballad. ALAN MENKEN: Right. Right, right. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: What's that like, for the two of you together? ALAN MENKEN: Well, there was, that moment on the rooftop, and we first wrote a song called "I See You Again". "Most people da da da da...da da da da da da da, and I see you again. Da da da da da da. Da da da, da da da!" And it was very kind of -- I guess Westside-ish. I was thinking One Hand, One Heart. And I just -- first of all -- let's face it, we sit in an audience, and you go, "this is not doing it". THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So you're reading the audience. ALAN MENKEN: I'm looking at the -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: You know your own instinct, but you're also reading it. ALAN MENKEN: I know that the number is too talky. It's too recetativish. JACK FELDMAN: It's too cerebral. ALAN MENKEN: It's cerebral. JACK FELDMAN: It's not emotional. ALAN MENKEN: So, I really said, "let's go -- let's go for a Gestalt." We all had that-- remember, we were the whole night in the conference room together, discussing the kind of number it should be. You were even nervous before I wrote this number. Before I wrote...what's it called? JACK FELDMAN: Something To Believe In. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: It is fascinating though, when you've rewritten something so many times, that you actually -- you -- I mean, at least we come back -- You did say two nights ago. So, tell me, though. 'Cause this is something that I think people always ask me. 'Cause this came up over this particular ballad, 'cause someone said, "you're rewri-- is Alan rewriting it?" I said, "yes." And they said, "is it hard to tell -- ask Alan to rewrite?" And I said, "Alan Menken is the easiest person I've ever been -- "We've had so many people around. You're the easiest person to ask to rewrite something. Because either you'll agree, and you'll say, "of course I'll rewrite it, 'cause it's not working," or you'll say, "no, you're not hearing it right yet; let me work on the song, and I'll bring it back to you." ALAN MENKEN: And also my attitude is, "fine, I'll rewrite it, and either you will see that I was right, or I will see that -- I'll see that you are right." I mean, I have -- I've thrown out so many songs in my -- I mean, look at like "Proud of Your Boy" from Aladdin or whatever. The songs that get thrown out are as good as the songs that remain; it's just a matter of whether that's the right song. You know -- JACK FELDMAN: Alan has, for a ballad, has almost an unerring temperature in terms of taking its temperature to know when something... THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Is working? JACK FELDMAN: ...is right or is not right. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So that-- ALAN MENKEN: Oh, thanks Jack. I don't -- I do have the -- I do throw out with ease. And that makes it easier, 'cause it's a very-- becomes a very -- you know, it's sort of like a spin the wheel, it goes -- so this -- "okay, we'll do this -- do once this way, do it this way," and eventually you find that right thing, and then you gotta get the right lyric, and then you gotta get the right arrangement. You know, Koz, also when I wrote -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: "Koz" meaning Michael Kosarin, your- ALAN MENKEN: Sorry. Thank you. Michael Kosarin, did a -- an arrangement on the piano of -- of this song. And -- and that improved it immensely. It's -- and then, you know, you put it into the hands of Kara and Jeremy Jordan, and that improved it. So it's -- you know, it's -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So now I wanna try something. There's a -- there's a moment that -- not a moment, an experience that happens in Newsies. Our beloved Andrew Keenan-Bolger plays this char-- much-beloved character, Crutchie. He's the only newsboy who doesn't really dance. ALAN MENKEN: Right. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And, you know, he's got this disability, which makes him very vulnerable, and also it ties him to our hero, Jack Kelly, who is like a big brother to him, and helps him, and it makes Jack heroic, because he helps Crutchie; he's a very valuable character. And of course -- and Andrew plays it beautifully. But the nature of our story is, at the end of Act One, there's a big brawl, and Crutchie gets essentially arrested, taken to the child's refuge, and he's beaten -- He's beaten up really badly, and carried away. And he becomes-- he's an important motor for the rest of the show, because we're worried about Crutchie, what happened to Crutchie -- what happened to Crutchie could happen to others. So it's an important thing. But we lose Crutchie for the entire second act. So since I have you both here, and Newsies will, with any luck, be around in various forms for a long time, if we were to want a new song, I thought it would be fun -- and I've talked about this with you each separately, but you haven't done this together. If there were a moment for Crutchie, what would it be, and could you write a song while we're sitting here in this show? ALAN MENKEN: Well, okay, but first of -- I think I would do, is I'd look at what happened, for instance, with Beauty and the Beast. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: We added Toni Braxton- ALAN MENKEN: So let's say, okay, this -- this star's gonna come in to -- not -- and Andrew's fantastic, but let's say a star's gonna come in to play Crutchie, and we need to find a moment for that character. Okay, he says, not -- it's not really dramatically, intrinsically necessary, but if we were -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: To create a song. ALAN MENKEN: And God knows people do that all the time, what would that moment be? And you and I have not discussed this, particularly. JACK FELDMAN: No. I mean, Tom asked me to just sort of think a little bit about -- you know, sketch an idea out of a hypothetical. One thing I thought was, he's in the refuge... ALAN MENKEN: Right. JACK FELDMAN: ...he's severely beaten up, but he's a character with tremendous dignity. No self-pity. And the last thing you wanna do is write a self-pitying, "woe is me, what am I gonna do?" song, because you're not gonna get any sympathy from the audience if the character is telling you to cry for him. And, so I thought -- and Jack, as you said, is definitely his main connection. Um...so I had the idea, what if he wrote a letter? Or had somebody write a letter down for him. "To Jack" ALAN MENKEN: Nice idea! JACK FELDMAN: And using his sort of mixed-up ideas of what a letter would be. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause he's never written a letter. JACK FELDMAN: 'Cause he's never written a letter. So, the form of that song, I thought, might be AA, BA. And I mapped out -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: A classic 32-bar... JACK FELDMAN: Yes, a 32-bar, with a bridge in the middle, and three sections that are the same. ALAN MENKEN: An intimate number. JACK FELDMAN: An intimate number. ALAN MENKEN: Intimate, and quiet. JACK FELDMAN: Right. And that he would start -- I remember when I was in camp. I was 6 years old, and I was writing home. And I would say, you know, "Dear Mommy and Daddy, how are you? I am fine." That's the kind of thing -- the kind of thing that Crutchie might...write. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Pretend he was fine. JACK FELDMAN: Right. Yes. Exactly. ALAN MENKEN: Does anybody have a tape recorder here? Oh, I -- I had to turn my phone off. JACK FELDMAN: And in the -- throughout the song, he reassures Jack that he's fine. He says that he wants to get out of there, and then in the bridge, where musically it opens up, he maybe could sing about, "and when we do, let's get the heck out of here, and go to Santa Fe, and just like you said, I know that my leg will feel better from the sunshine and the fresh air," and then, as he starts to close the letter -- because he's almost out of paper, he finishes by saying to him, "tell the guys to soak 'em for Crutchie. Tell them they could even use the sign I made, if they want to." And it's always nice if before you write, you have the last line. It doesn't always work out that way. But I thought maybe he would write, "your friend"- ALAN MENKEN: Your friend... JACK FELDMAN: ...and then cross it out, "your best friend," and then cross it out, and say, "your brother," ALAN MENKEN: Your brother... JACK FELDMAN: Crutchie. And this was literally like 10 or 15 minutes. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So this is what you would do. ALAN MENKEN: I would -- basically, I would get the feeling of the moment, I would -- as Jack -- I was thinking along the similar lines as Jack was, in terms of reflecting back to that first moment on the roof, when they're talking about being in Santa Fe. 'Cause that's their moment of connection. It's a beautiful idea, Jack. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Do you have any lyric here? I wanna hear something said against- JACK FELDMAN: It's just dummy lines. ALAN MENKEN: Let me see the dummy lines. "How are you?" What does that say? JACK FELDMAN: "How are you? I am fine." ALAN MENKEN: "I am fine..." JACK FELDMAN: "Well, except for the leg... ALAN MENKEN: "Well, except for the leg... THOMAS SCHUMACHER: ...which they busted up pretty bad." ALAN MENKEN: ...which they busted up -- busted up pretty -- bad." You would -- you would probably stay in a -- JACK FELDMAN: Maybe not even rhymed. Maybe no rhymes. ALAN MENKEN: How are you? I am fine. JACK FELDMAN: Because he's improvising, and it's a letter-- ALAN MENKEN: And the trick of this would be, you wanna avoid certainly anything that's going to be like -- as if a -- it's sort of a romantic connection. There's a connection that's more childlike than that, on his -- you know, it's more- a kid, you know, writing to the parents that aren't there, in a way. JACK FELDMAN: True. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And if you were gonna take this to the next step, would you then write this lyric all the way out, or would you go back and forth like this together? ALAN MENKEN: I'd call my agent, and have the agent call and see if -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Would you literally just sit there in Alan's studio, or your apartment, and -- JACK FELDMAN: If I came to him with this idea, what more often than not we would do is we would be together, and he would form a basis for the music. A vamp, a major theme in the music. And then very often, I would ask him to finish the music. Because -- ALAN MENKEN: Yeah, I would generally -- I'll write a piece of music. I work at a keyboard that's a MIDI keyboard, so I can give them a demo, run it off-- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: What does that mean? What does "MIDI keyboard" mean? ALAN MENKEN: It's a digital technology, where basically -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: It's -- it's writing down what you play? ALAN MENKEN: It's -- it's basically recording it, but I can record various sounds onto it, so he can distinguish the melody from the piano, whatever. Maybe I'll add -- JACK FELDMAN: You can orchestrate. ALAN MENKEN: A little orchestration on it. Sometimes a vocal onto it. Immediately make an mp3 and put it -- send it to him. Probably -- what occurs to me about this moment, actually, would be -- 'cause one of the things that also would -- could be helpful, um, in a way, that moment where Pulitzer-- uh, where Pulitzer. Where Snyder comes out, and Crutchie sort of, you know, handcuffs him, and -- I feel like, maybe it's a little unearned. Maybe we cou-- we should see, somehow, maybe, someone in that refuge should come in, and sma-- smack him a couple of times in the middle of the song. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Okay, 'cause you -- 'cause this is one idea. Would you normally take one all the way through, or would you then kick out another idea? JACK FELDMAN: Well, I was just gonna say. I could very easily have come in, or I could come to Alan's and he could sit down and play me something, and one or the other of us would say, "yeah." ALAN MENKEN: We could say, look, maybe he's thinking about, you know, that Palomino, I could ride in style. And maybe it's a song about a Palomino. Maybe it's got a Western feel to it, and -- JACK FELDMAN: But assuming that we have enough faith in it to give it a shot, I would generally -- you know, it would be one session where -- generally within one session, Alan will work out the skeleton of a song. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Are you ever wrong when you are thinking, "I'm gonna throw this out, give it up, I don't wanna do it"? And then you come back to it later? ALAN MENKEN: Yeah. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And say, "I ignored the wrong thing."? ALAN MENKEN: Let me think about examples of that. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Where you just clearly just -- you dismiss it, and then you realize that actually is worth doing? JACK FELDMAN: Well, in Once and For All, the melody that we threw out -- ALAN MENKEN: "Let's hear it for once and for all..." Yeah, I said, "listen, it's -- I think that really added a lot to it. We had written that -- initially, the very first time we wrote Once And For All was "let's hear it- " and I was actually thinking of almost like a drinking song, when you get to the chorus, "let's hear it for once and for all, da da da da da, da da da da da da da..." and they're all, you know, together at like a Jacoby's, for instance. JACK FELDMAN: I played it for him, just on a tape recorder one day, and said, "remember this?" And he said, "what is that?" THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And you had kept it for 20 years. ALAN MENKEN: No, I remembered -- I did remember it. JACK FELDMAN: No, no, no; yes. Of course you -- ALAN MENKEN: 'Cause I remember -- I remember thinking -- I was actually thinking Salt of the Earth. The Rolling Stones on Salt of the Earth. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: You use references a lot. Just to give you inspiration? ALAN MENKEN: I -- first -- yeah, I do, for a number of reasons. One is, I'm a fan. And so in my mind -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: A fan of other composers, other... ALAN MENKEN: Yes, absolutely. And music is -- is a vocab-- music does not happen, you know, just out of ether. Music is a vocabulary. And it's a vocabulary that people understand, and people respond to. Even when they can't identify, "what is it I'm hearing?" It will hit a spot in them that goes, "it was something in my childhood; I remember hearing that," and it was like a little bit of rock and roll energy. Because definitely Newsies is a show that fuels itself on a rock and roll energy, actually. At no point does it actually go to rock and roll. But it's got that kind of rebel energy running through it in its best moments, filtered through the story. And some of that is in just the references or the kind of connotation you have with a piece of music, and then there's a sweetness to the lyric that cuts against that. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Do you think -- is there such a thing as an "Alan Menken chord," when you're writing? Is there a sound when your hand's at the piano? I'm asking this, 'cause then I'll tell you an anecdote about it. ALAN MENKEN: I'm sure others could say it more easily. I do a lot of -- you know, if you look at. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Building like that, you mean? ALAN MENKEN: The-- the minor second. JACK FELDMAN: That's the joint minor third. ALAN MENKEN: The -- a lot of shifting tonalities. JACK FELDMAN: The same melody, a minor third up. ALAN MENKEN: Yes, yes. I do a lot of dot modulation. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: That's a lot of you? ALAN MENKEN: Huh? THOMAS SCHUMACHER: That's a lot of you doing that? You do that a lot? ALAN MENKEN: I do that a lot. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause I sat at the piano with -- we were doing a music video, for -- back in the olden days, working on the movie The Lion King. And I sat at the piano, at a rec-- we were making a music video of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight". And I was sitting at the piano with Elton, keeping him there, 'cause of course he wanted to leave, 'cause nobody likes making their own music videos. And I asked him how he writes, and he showed me his hands. And his hands are small, and he said, "I play church lady chords." He said -- so, can you play a church lady chord? He said, "my hands fit there, and so I have church lady sound." ALAN MENKEN: "Holy Moses, I have been moved." THOMAS SCHUMACHER: And then he said, "but this is how your friend Alan Menken plays. And he stretched his hands out, and he used to hands, he said -- and he said, "this is an Alan Menken chord." And, do you know what means? ALAN MENKEN: Yeah, he's recognizing the kind of tonalities that I use. Well, you -- by the way, you do know that El-- that -- the moment I reflect back to was, I wrote the theme song for Rocky V and Phil Ramone and I went over to London, and Elton recorded it. And while we were in the studio, he was asking me about Little Mermaid. And he was really fascinated with animation, and wow, and I-- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: What year was that? ALAN MENKEN: It was after Mermaid, so probably...'92? THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Oh. ALAN MENKEN: And I thought, "yeah, it's great that he's interested in animation," but little did I imagine that later -- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: 'Cause that's right around the time I -- I asked him to write -- yeah. ALAN MENKEN: Li-- li-- li-- li-- li-- li-- Lion King? THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Yeah, I know. It's awkward. ALAN MENKEN: Not awkward at all; he did a great job. JACK FELDMAN: Well, too bad. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: No, it's -- what do you get complimented for mostly, that you didn't write. Alan gets constantly complimented for... ALAN MENKEN: The Lion King. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: ...The Lion King. JACK FELDMAN: That I didn't write? "I Write the Songs". THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Oh, 'cause you're friends with Barry Manilow, they think you wrote that? JACK FELDMAN: Yeah, in the pa-- yeah, 'cause so many years that I've worked with him... ALAN MENKEN: That was Johnston, right? What's his name? JACK FELDMAN: Yeah. It wasn't Barry. ALAN MENKEN: Bruce Johnston from who was actually in the Beach Boys, yeah. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So, you get to pick among my favorites, to play us out. ALAN MENKEN: Okay. THOMAS SCHUMACHER: So, If I Can't Love Her, or Wherever The Trail May Lead, from the nobody-ever-saw-it cow movie we did. But -- you know -- ALAN MENKEN: How about-- Will The Sun Ever Shine Again- THOMAS SCHUMACHER: Because that's a song -- Will The Sun Ever Shine Again. This is from our extraordinary Home on the Range. I'm gonna do the tag; I have to say some nice words, and then you'll close us out with the song. Thank you for joining us. These programs are brought to you in partnership with our friends at CUNY TV. On behalf of the American Theatre Wing, I'm Tom Schumacher. Thanks for joining us for another edition of Working in the Theatre. ALAN MENKEN: Rain is pourin' down like the Heavens are hurtin'. Seems like it's been dark since The devil knows when. How do you go on, never knowin' For certain, Will the sun ever shine? Wish I could say. Send me a sign: One little ray. Lord, if you're list'nin', how long until then? Will the sun ever shine again? ♪ [Theme Music] ♪