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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. This is the third and final episode of a three-part program featuring noted composer Alan Menken. This program originally aired in 1982 before Menken won eight Oscars for his music in films like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Enchanted. Back in the 80s, we spoke primarily about two of Alan's theater shows, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Little Shop of Horrors.

[0:37] I want to talk a little bit about Real Life Funnies, which was a show you also wrote with Howard. Howard, as you said, came in a little late on. The funniest I had started out, I wrote music and lyrics to that. I had been working on that for a while, as a matter of fact, with a couple of people in an earlier incarnation. This is based on the Stan Mack strip in The Village Voice, right?

[1:08] Alan Menken: Yeah.

[1:09] Paul Lazarus: Which is a very odd idea for a musical, really, in a way. I don't know. I'm sure it was a challenge. I'm drawn to odd ideas, I think. A plant that sings, a Kurt Vonnegut novel.

[1:19] Alan Menken: Yeah, I'd have to agree with that.

[1:21] Paul Lazarus: This didn't come easy. I remember talking to you at the time. It was kind of rushed, as I remember.

[1:26] Alan Menken: Well, yeah. A lot of things... It was unexpected. I ended up doing two things at once, two productions at once. It's not what I intend to do. I was approached by Manhattan Theater Club about doing... Did I have anything? I said, well, I had some songs from this project I was working on. I played them the songs and they said, well, you have a slot. I said, well, let's talk about it. In the meantime, I battled the giants. The show I was doing with Michael Bennett, Michael was producing. We'd been meeting off and on with various directors. I finally settled on a director and went into production a month before Funny. There was two things at once. It was a difficult period. Everything was a little bit rushed.

[2:15] The critics, unfortunately, did not react very favorably to Real Life Funnies.

[2:20] Alan Menken: Some liked.

[2:21] Paul Lazarus: It was mixed. If you had that to go over again, if you had a little more time, is there anything you would have done differently? The style of the songs were woven through the sketches. I mean, Stan Mack's column is supposedly lines overheard verbatim from real life and he just puts them down exactly as he hears them. You found a way to sort of weave these little vignettes in throughout the songs. Would you do it again that way? If you had to do it again, period. Would you do it again?

[2:49] Alan Menken: Yeah. I had felt that we had pulled a rabbit out of a hat. I really thought we had accomplished fixing the show and audiences were enjoying it. There are some numbers I would change here and there. Basically, I think I would do it very much the way we did it. I felt pretty good about it. I thought that it did work and I think a lot of people agreed about that. It was a lot of fun in the theater. I mean, I enjoyed it. Luckily, I got you down to my house yesterday to quickly put down a few of the songs from the show because really, no recordings of it existed.

[3:26] Paul Lazarus: These are early versions of the lyrics, aren't they?

[3:32] Alan Menken: I sat down with the lead sheet and I was singing through Real Life Funnies, the title song, and I realized that, in fact, they were the wrong lyrics. Let me say there's a couple of places where the lyrics had been changed. Also, there's a counter melody. The second melody that comes in on that number is actually a counter melody and since I can't sing with myself, at least on my home recording system, yeah. This is three songs from Real Life Funnies. The title song, a song called People Collecting Things about the collector in all of us and then finally, Amen, a song I really like from the score a lot. I do have to disclaim this slightly. If you are offended by frank and honest language, you may want to tune away for a few minutes and rejoin us. Three songs from Real Life Funnies performed at the piano by my guest today on Anything Goes, Alan Menken.

[4:26] ♪ Musical number: "Real Life Funnies" — performed by Alan Menken ♪

[5:58] ♪ Musical number: "People Collecting Things" — performed by Alan Menken ♪

[8:44] ♪ Musical number: "Amen" — performed by Alan Menken ♪

[10:57] Alan Menken: Three songs from Real Life Funnies. Music and lyrics by Alan Menken. Boy, you can only look back, but they sound awfully good to me. Thanks.

[11:22] Paul Lazarus: They really do. I like that song a lot. Pam Blair did that originally?

[11:25] Alan Menken: Pam Blair did it in the show, and Janie Seldon, people collecting things. And the whole cast did Real Life Funnies. Yeah, I think that song might have significance for many of my listeners who are out there, who collect a lot of off-Broadway pirate tapes.

[11:41] Alan Menken: Another show, as you said, we were writing at the same time, really, is this was, well, the working title was Battle of the Giants, and I guess Stephen Brown, who wrote the lyrics in the book, called it Atina. Well, yeah, the actual title's Atina, Evil Queen of the Galaxy. And we played it for Michael Bennett.

[11:58] Paul Lazarus: He did it at his workshop space?

[12:01] Alan Menken: Yeah, we did it at the, I think we were the first show to use that space on. That was quite a crew involved in that show.

[12:07] Alan Menken: Toma Horgan as director. Toma Horgan directed. Robin Wagner produced along with, of course, Michael Bennett and Bob Avian. And, geez, what else was Bill?

[12:19] Alan Menken: Bill Stabile. Bill Stabile, and Randy Barstello, and the cast. Should I start mentioning members of the cast?

[12:26] Alan Menken: Well, it was Elena Reed, and who else? Camille. You know, it's funny, she was just Camille in those days. I never really learned her last name. Camille Saviola, who is now in Nine. Wonderful in Nine. Wonderful in whatever she does. And Elena Reed, and Steve Bogardas, and Ron Taylor, and I'm not going to forget people, I'm sure, and Judith Cohn. Wow, yeah, that's quite a workshop.

[12:48] Alan Menken: And Carl Hall. Tremendous people. You seem to be attracted to projects that allow you to indulge the rock side of your musical spectrum.

[12:57] Paul Lazarus: Oh, sure. Oh, I love that. Yeah, you really, because this is bordering on a kind of new wave sound in a way. Just describe, because this is a little difficult to get on the first hearing, just describe what the show is about, Al.

[13:11] Alan Menken: Simplest way to describe it is it's a sort of a trashy send-up of Flash Gordon, and Ming the Merciless, as Athena, Evil Queen of the Galaxy, whose mission is to have everyone uglier than she is. But destroyed, or something like that, or?

[13:28] Alan Menken: Oh, it was destroyed, or subjugated. And what else can I say without getting into the details? The characters are just the names of Athena, Evil Queen of the Galaxy, this princess nerd, Queen, can I say it? Queen Cunnilinga. And we had Flash Crab and Buster Gordon were the two astronauts who were sent out. So it's almost really a send-up of those old serials.

[13:51] Paul Lazarus: Oh, yeah.

[13:53] Alan Menken: This is the title song, lyrics by Stephen Brown, music by Alan Menken. The title of the workshop was Battle of the Giants, and the reason was I think when Michael heard the song Battle of the Giants, which was actually originally towards the end of the show, he said that's really the song that defines what the whole evening's about. So it became the working title of the workshop. And I guess the opening number.

[14:16] Paul Lazarus: You are listening to Anything Goes with composer Alan Menken. This is Alan Menken at the piano performing Battle of the Giants.

[14:27] ♪ Musical number: "Battle of the Giants" — performed by Alan Menken ♪

[17:04] Paul Lazarus: My guest today on Anything Goes, Alan Menken at the piano. Alan, as always, running out of time, but I do want to talk a little bit about one of your more recent efforts, which was with David Rogers, and this is a...

[17:19] Alan Menken: And June Walker-Rogers.

[17:20] Paul Lazarus: And June Walker-Rogers doing the book, David doing the lyrics. This is a contemporized version of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream set in New Orleans.

[17:28] Alan Menken: During the Mardi Gras.

[17:29] Paul Lazarus: Right, and called The Dream of Royal Street.

[17:31] Alan Menken: Dream on Royal Street.

[17:32] Paul Lazarus: Dream on Royal Street, excuse me. And you just went down to Texas to do it?

[17:36] Alan Menken: Yeah.

[17:37] Paul Lazarus: How did it work out?

[17:38] Alan Menken: Well, it was a wonderful experience. I'd never been to Dallas.

[17:43] Alan Menken: There I was in the middle of Texas doing this show. They audition talented students from across the country and bring them in. It's a summer program. And you spend basically 10 days, and you mount the show in 10 days with full costume and total production.

[18:04] Alan Menken: And then you take another week, rewrite it, and remount it.

[18:07] Paul Lazarus: What is this called? The what institute?

[18:09] Alan Menken: The Northwood Institute.

[18:10] Paul Lazarus: The Northwood Institute. And its purpose is strictly to foster new musical theater works?

[18:15] Alan Menken: Mm-hmm.

[18:16] Alan Menken: And it also gives the students who come a chance to work on something and go through that process.

[18:24] Alan Menken: This is one of the songs. You played me a bunch of songs from this score, and unfortunately we only have time really to feature one. But I was quite taken with your finding of this title and the setting of Not So Near, which I guess it must be Hermia and Lysander when they're lost in the woods and he sees this opportunity to get close to her, and she keeps him off, very much like the original Shakespeare. I thought it was an interesting idea to express in a song.

[18:56] Alan Menken: So this is a lyric by David Rogers, music by Alan Menken, and performed by Alan Menken, a song from The Dream on Royal Street entitled Not So Near.

[19:09] ♪ Musical number: "Not So Near" — performed by Alan Menken ♪

[21:56] Alan Menken: If you're sincere in this romantic spot, but not so near, from the score to "Dream on Royal Street." Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics by David Rogers. And that song performed by Alan, who's here with me today in the studio.

[22:47] Paul Lazarus: Alan, the making of the record to "Little Shop of Horrors" interests me because it's not done in your, I guess, the cliché way of making a cast album is to bring in the cast with the band or the orchestra and have them record simultaneously. Wham bam. One day and you're out. And this record, obviously, more care was taken than that in terms of the actual sound. And also pop recording techniques were employed. Do you want to just describe how you set this down?

[23:18] Alan Menken: Well, we aimed really to take two Mondays, two consecutive Mondays, and bring the whole cast and the band in and do the score on those two Mondays. And then in the days following that Monday in each week to repair, to add extra tracks.

[23:39] Paul Lazarus: You did add something to the band, too, for the record.

[23:41] Alan Menken: We added guitar.

[23:42] Paul Lazarus: Right.

[23:43] Alan Menken: We played with some synthesized effects and a new instrument called the emulator and Hammond organ. We did some double tracking of vocals just to give it a fuller sound.

[23:58] Paul Lazarus: Did the singers sing as the band laid it down or did the band lay down their tracks and then the singers came in?

[24:04] Alan Menken: There was, I think, only a couple of instances where the band actually laid down tracks separately from the singers. Everything else was done, singers and band, and then repairs were made.

[24:16] Paul Lazarus: How did they get what sounds like an immense amount of separation between the voices and the instruments? A lot of times the instruments bleed into the mics of the singers.

[24:25] Alan Menken: Oh, well, it's huge. We did it in A&R A1, which is a huge studio. So the band is all the way on one side and the singers are isolated in booths.

[24:34] Paul Lazarus: Oh, I see. Not much problem.

[24:36] Alan Menken: So you did use isolation booths.

[24:37] Paul Lazarus: Oh, of course. Because, well, sometimes I've seen, I've watched Tom Shepard at RCA. The singers are literally in the same space. I mean, they're not separated out.

[24:46] Alan Menken: That's usually with a large orchestra. This is only really four pieces.

[24:49] Paul Lazarus: Right.

[24:50] Alan Menken: And many of them are electronic, so they go direct instead of into the room.

[24:54] Paul Lazarus: Let's go back to the album, which we're going to end up with today. This is a song called "Suddenly Seymour," which most of the company takes part in. Is this the moment for you where Audrey, the part played by Alan Green, discovers she's in love with Seymour?

[25:12] Alan Menken: Yes.

[25:13] Paul Lazarus: Okay. I think that's enough setup. "Suddenly Seymour" from "Little Shop of Horrors."

[25:34] ♪ Musical number: "Suddenly Seymour" — performed by Alan Menken ♪

[32:28] Paul Lazarus: Alan, thanks for coming down. I really appreciate it. This is the final moment in "Little Shop of Horrors," which is currently running at the Orpheum Theater. And if you're in for a good time, get your bod down to see it. And this is the final message of warning. Don't feed the plants, the entire company of "Little Shop."