Seth's Broadway Diary, Volume 1: Part 1 (38 page)

The terrible part of the Howard and Alan story is that Howard started acting very hostile during the writing of the movie. Alan couldn't understand why Howard was so difficult to be around. Finally, after they won two Oscars for
The Little Mermaid
, Howard told Alan the news... he had AIDS. Alan realized that was why Howard had been so upset and angry and hard to work with. Howard didn't want anyone to know because he was afraid he'd be discriminated against (have projects taken away from him, be blackballed, etc…), so Alan kept it mum and they continued to work on
Beauty and the Beast
. It was hard to keep it secret, though. Alan remembers going to rehearse with a singer for the film with Howard and David Friedman (the conductor, now brilliant composer/lyricist). Alan got to the singer’s apartment and started walking up the five-flight walk-up. He suddenly realized how difficult this would be for Howard, and when he looked downstairs he saw Howard slowly making his way up. But Howard did it and Alan didn't tell anyone what was going on.

One of my favorite stories Alan told me was that Howard wanted to write a big song for all the objects in the castle, so Alan said he'd record a silly little melody in the style of what the song should be, Howard could write the lyrics and then Alan would write the real song. Howard wrote the lyrics, and Alan started writing the real song. Well, after listening to both versions, they realized that the dummy melody Alan thought up super quick worked the best, and thus was born "Be Our Guest"!

Sadly, Howard died six months before the movie came out. Alan is so appreciative of Howard for many reasons… one is because Howard told Alan to score
The Little Mermaid
. That means to write all the underscoring throughout the film. Howard told Alan to do it because he knew how upsetting it was during
Little Shop of Horrors
because, as Alan related, Miles Goodman wrote around nine minutes of underscoring for the film, which really just consisted of adaptations of Alan's songs. When the Golden Globes came out, the "Best Score" nomination for
Little Shop
went to Miles Goodman!

Howard and Alan wrote a lot of songs for
Aladdin
, but Disney changed the story (cutting characters, like Aladdin's mother), and suddenly all the songs didn't fit except for one. So the rest were written with Tim Rice. When Alan first wrote the song he wanted to become the pop hit from the movie, he wrote the lyrics for the hook "the world at my feet." Actually, the way it was sung was "the world at my Fe-e-e-e-e-e-e-t!" Feet is the word he decided should be held? Showstopper! No, literally, the show has to stop because the audience is gone. Thankfully, Tim Rice changed it to "a whole New wo-o-o-o-o-o-o-orld."

Alan has written so many great things that I barely had time to cover his other work:
Pocahontas
,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
,
A Christmas Carol
and the new musical
Sister Act
. Alan’s next project is a musical version of the Steve Martin film "Faith Healer" called
Leap of Faith
, and it will star Raúl Esparza in the upcoming reading! Also, for you fans of that early ‘90s musical film, there may soon be a stage version of
Newsies
! How cool would that be!
It would wind up winning him his first Tony Award!

All right, the next time I write you will be after my half-cruise and after I film the final episode of the
Legally Blonde
reality show. One event I will give you tons of details about… the other I will continue to honor my "cease and desist" order from MTV. All will be revealed when the episodes start airing. As to the exact date of when that will be… I must cease and desist. Bon voyage!

Mermaid Boggess' Tales; Cruising With Creel

March 24, 2008

I'm back on dry land. The sixth R Family cruise has ended and I'm in my typical post-vacation depression. Let me cheer myself up by describing
everything
.

First of all, I need to tell you about the
Chatterbox
I did with the star of
The Little Mermaid
, Sierra Boggess, before I left. Turns out, Sierra grew up in Denver and spent her childhood training as an ice skater! It sounded so fun, and I began to regret that I didn't spend my childhood doing it until she told me that she didn't train
after
school, she trained
before
… at 5 AM. What the-? The only reason I'd have gotten up that early as a child would be if Patti LuPone had rung my doorbell. And even then I would have made her wait in the living room while I made my coffee.

Sierra said that she did competitions as an ice skater but never came in first place. I mock-judged her for not winning, and she hauled out this hilarious self-hating quote: "Second-place is the first loser." It's so negative, I love it! Sierra moved to New York after college and came very close to getting a Broadway show…
Good Vibrations.
Suffice it to say, she's not devastated she wasn't cast. Her first big break was getting the national tour of
Les Miz
as the "hair hag." I started singing, "Come here, my dear. Let's see this trinket you wear…" and she immediately corrected me by saying, "That's the locket crone." Hmm. Why does the character name Hair Hag have alliteration and the Locket Crone doesn't? Why not the Locket Lady? Or the Necklace Nag? She then gave me more insight into the
Les Miz
character track world by telling me that the Hair Hag role is known as the "Snack Track" because it has so little to sing. In "At the End of the Day" she only sings "…and in a bed." Then after her hair hag section she has no other solo ‘til Act Two during "Turning" when she sings "…nothing ever will." She said one time the woman soloing before her forgot to stop and sang the first and second part: "Nothing changes… nothing ever will." Poor Sierra heard "Nothing Changes" and started to sing "Nothing e-" and watched as the last two syllables of the precious five she got to sing in Act Two were sung by another. Of course, the rest of the song was spent trying to hold in laughter. She said that "Turning" is the big church laughter song because all the women have just been off-stage chitty-chatting but suddenly they're onstage, looking each other in the eye solemnly and singing a sad song. Sierra said the juxtaposition of worlds is too much and there wasn't one performance where someone didn't have to turn upstage to suppress their laughter. Luckily, they had the turntable constantly rotating.

Besides the Hair Hag/Snack Track, she also got to understudy Cosette and the first time she went on happened to coincide with her parents seeing her in the show for the first time. She didn't tell them she was playing Cosette that night, and they found out when they opened their programs and saw "At this performance…" How exciting for them... and how terrifying for her!

While doing
Les Miz
in DC, she took a train to NYC to try out for the Vegas production of
Phantom
. After her audition, she said she got on the train back to DC with plenty of time but her train was delayed because someone had committed suicide on the tracks! I remarked that her consternation reminded me of Tracy in
Hairspray
apologizing for being late ("Stupid bus crash"). She had never called out of a show before and was mortified because she wasn’t really allowed to go another city for an audition. Her friend told her she had to tell the truth and she called the stage manager and ‘fessed up. He was super nice and, even though she got there
incredibly
late, she was still able to go on as a hag at the end of act one because
Les Miz
is French for "5 hour show."

She wound up getting a callback for
Phantom
and thinks of
that
as her Broadway debut because it was onstage at the Ambassador Theater. In the audience were Hal Prince, Gillian Lynne and Andrew Lloyd Webber! Her callback was at 9:30 in the morning and by 11 AM, she had gotten the call from her agent that she got Christine!

While on vacation in New York during her Vegas run, she got the audition to play the Little Mermaid. Unfortunately, the night before her audition she got food poisoning and wound up in the hospital! Still, she was determined to get the role and dragged herself to the audition that afternoon and sang the next day. She didn't hear anything until months later right after a Bikram yoga class — the kind where they heat the room to 100 degrees. I asked her why she would take something like that in Vegas, and she said she loves hothouse yoga because it's so difficult that you sometimes feel like you're going to die… but then the class ends and you get the good feeling of knowing you're still alive. That makes perfect sense. Unless you actually think about any of the words she said.

Anyhoo, right after yoga she got a call from her agent saying that they wanted to see her again for Ariel. She had to fly herselfand it cost her $700! I couldn't believe she had to pay for it and told her to submit Disney the receipt (which she still has)
.
She still hasn’t
.
The callback was around five hours long and I asked her if it was all about working the Heelys they have to wear to look like they're swimming
.
Remember? Those sneakers that have wheels on the heel so you can flex yourfoot and roll around
.
Turns out, that part of the audition was only ten minutes at the very end. She had spent hours in Vegas in her garage (which was all cement) spinning around on Heelys that she borrowed from her dresser. Why a grown woman would have Heelys readily available to lend to someone is a question that remains unanswered.

Sierra had to wait a full three days, as opposed to the one hour she had to wait for
Phantom
. She was driving in her car and her agent called. When Sierra answered, her agent said, "Ariel?" Of course, Sierra began crying and then drove around with the top down, blasting "Yentl." Brava! That is
exactly
how I’d react if I got a lead in a Broadway show!

Sierra was so happy, but the more she thought about it, the more she didn't believe it because it seemed too amazing to be true. She thought she misheard so she didn't tell anybody (even her parents!) and finally, after two days, she got the guts to call her agent to make sure that she really had the part. The answer was a definite yes, and now she's playing Ariel eight times a week! I asked her what the hardest part was and she said she thinks it's the kind of role she'll look back and think, "Wow, that show was hard." She has to deal with manipulating her tail, being half-naked and working those Heelys. Then, when she first thought about the show, she figured, "Ah… I lose my voice at the end of Act One, so I can rest it all during the second act." No. Turns out, Ariel spends Act Two "singing her thoughts."
And
in the scenes where she can't sing, she has to get her point across by wildly gesticulating. So, all in all, Ariel ain't the "snack track."

All right, now the cruise. I finished filming the
Legally Blonde
reality show for MTV, which was super fun. I got so emotional during the finale seeing my girls sing with the orchestra that I totally teared up. Of course I was thinking, "I'm so proud of these girls," mixed with, "My reaction will make great TV. Those cameras better be catching this." I've watched enough
Top Model
and/or
Chef
to know what works. Right after the finale, I hightailed it to the airport to catch a plane to Puerto Vallarta to meet the Rosie cruise halfway through their trip. Well, my plane was supposed to make a stop in Dallas, but because of tornadoes down there, they cancelled the flight! Not delayed it,
cancelled it
. I was devastated (stupid bus crash) but they got me another flight that flew into Mexico City and would allow me to connect to Puerto Vallarta. It was great being back on an R Family Vacation and seeing so many people I've seen for the past six cruises. The first night, Jack Plotnick and I did our show called
Mortification Theater
, where we re-enact and reclaim devastating moments from our childhoods. I showed my signature: a video of me jazz dancing to the disco version of "I Am What I Am" wearing purple plastic jazz pants, leg warmers and white Capezios (I thought white was better to show my line).

The next night, I played for Gavin Creel, who did an act in the piano bar. As usual, his voice sounded glorious. Gavin said he's planning on playing Jesus on Broadway in
Godspell
, and he asked the audience to leave a note backstage if they're seeing the show. I sassily said that it was to remind him not to mark that night. He laughed and said he normally gives 40 percent but if he knew that a friend was in the audience he would give a full 100 percent… of 46 percent. Brava
!
P.S! Scandal! That was the GODSPELL that was slated for Broadway and one week before rehearsals began the whole thing was cancelled. Nachtmare! And Gavin turned down auditioning for Tony in WEST SIDE STORY because he thought he already had a gig.