Talking ‘shop’
How the seed was planted for the campy ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ which has taken root on stages all around the world
‘LITTLE Shop of Horrors” may be the most adorably creepy — and enduring — musical of all time. It opened in 1982 at the small WPA Theatre in Chelsea, then moved to the Orpheum on Second Avenue, where it ran five years and inspired a 1986 movie starring Rick Moranis, with terrific turns by Steve Martin as a sadistic dentist and Bill Murray as his masochistic patient.
Now, after playing around the world (and on Broadway in 2003), it’s opening at the Westside Theatre on Oct. 17 with Jonathan Groff and Christian Borle.
So who’s responsible for this multimillion-dollar franchise? Alan Menken credits Maury Yeston, the Tony-winning songwriter of “Nine” and “Titanic.”
“Maury called me one day and said, ‘Alan. It’s Maury,’ ” says Menken. “There’s this guy. Howard Ashman. He’s a director and a playwright. Wants to be a lyricist. He’s doing Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.’ Needs a composer. You should meet.”
Menken, who thought of himself as both a composer and a lyricist, agreed to a meeting. He was scratching out a living at the time, playing piano in clubs around town. He and his wife lived in subsidized housing in Manhattan Plaza for $132 a month. The doorbell rang, and in walked the man who would change his life.
“Howard was wearing a bomber jacket, brown with a fur collar, and a wifebeater T-shirt underneath,” Menken says. “It was very West Village, and he chainsmoked. And I remember thinking, ‘He wants to write lyrics, but I write lyrics, so I can help him out with that.’ ”
As they began to talk, Menken realized Ashman was more than someone who just wanted to write lyrics. He had ideas for shows. He had ideas for songs. He had ideas for sets. He could even build the sets, he said. He was “a full conceptual artist,” says Menken. The only thing he couldn’t do was write music. “And that’s where I came in.”
The two wrote “Rosewater,” and Menken learned that as good as he thought he was with lyrics, “Nobody was better than Howard.”
“Rosewater” was a bit of a hit at the WPA, but Times critic Walter Kerr gave it a tepid review, and that was the end. (It’s a fun show, with a terrific score. Check it out on YouTube.)
Ashman was beaten but determined. He and Menken tried to write a show about Babe Ruth, but decided that Roger Corman’s 1960 movie “The Little Shop of Horrors” was a better project.
The show was a hit the moment it played its first preview. “People went nuts,” Menken recalls. David Geffen and the Shubert Organization moved it to the Orpheum and it became, as Gerry Schoenfeld, then president of the Shubert theaters, once said, “A nice little moneymaker for us.”
Peter Schneider was the company manager for “Little Shop.” Years later, he became the head of animation for Walt Disney. He hired Menken and Ashman to write “The Little Mermaid,” which revitalized Disney’s animation department and led to “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” “Aladdin” and, eventually, “Frozen.”
As they were accepting their Oscar for Best Score for “The Little Mermaid,” Ashman told Menken he had AIDS. He died in 1991 at 40. Menken went on to work with other lyricists, including Tim Rice. But Ashman is never far away. “I think about him all the time,” says Menken. “I even have dreams we’re working on a new show together. He hovers over everything that I do.”
ASgood as Michelle Williams was as Gwen Verdon in “Fosse/Verdon” — and she was good enough to win an Emmy — there’s no substitute for the real thing.
You can get a delicious dose of Verdon, perhaps Broadway’s greatest dancer of all time, in the new documentary “Merely Marvelous: The Dancing Genius of Gwen Verdon,” now streaming on Amazon. Written and directed by Chris Johnson and Ken Bloom, it features seldom-seen footage of Verdon performing in “Can-Can,” “Damn Yankees,” “Sweet Charity” and “Chicago.”
“Fosse/Verdon” concentrates on Verdon’s turbulent relationship with Bob Fosse. “Merely Marvelous” gives the full picture. Verdon came from a hardscrabble background. She was stricken with rickets in childhood and pregnant at 16. But her drive was intense, her talent enormous. She persevered, winning four Tony Awards in just six years.
Stream and enjoy!