So suddenly my ultimate dream of working with Bette Midler happened right as I moved to New York.
“We immediately fell into a kind of brother-sister relationship, with all the good and bad that brings.
We fight like brother and sister and we love each other like brother and sister.”
Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman accepting their Grammy for the original Broadway cast recording of ‘Hairspray’.M. Caulfield/WireImage
“We go on vacations together and she’s one of the great laughs.
To get a laugh out of her is one of the great joys in life.”
He plays everything, but he doesn’t play piano and he’s not Jewish.
Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster in ‘The Music Man’.Theo Wargo/Getty Images
“Marty would make me push the piano out to make me look desperate.
And then he would sit on top of it and it would be these great Hollywood parties.”
“We wrote an entire score that was all jokes,” Wittman says ofFame.
‘Some Like It Hot,’ ‘First Wives Club,’ ‘Sister Act,’ ‘Hairspray’.Shutterstock / Getty Images / Everett Collection
“And that’s hard.”
Well, reinterprets songs thatsoundlike girl-group songs.
“So they told me, ‘Okay, Marc, help us choose new songs.
But it can’t be anything from 1963 on.’
I was like, ‘It’s about ’60s girl groups.
What are you talking about?!'”
What he developed was a musical lineup of biblical proportions.
It never came," he adds with a laugh.
“Someone brought her to a party and she said, ‘I feel like singing.’
So I said, ‘Okay.’
And she said, ‘Well, everyone says you should do a show for me.’
I said, ‘Okay.’
And so we started getting together and she would come to the house and sing.
And then before I knew it, the show was at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood.
“It’s a long relationship, and a great fun one.
I’ve never had one bad moment with her my entire life.”
I remember saying to him, ‘Maybe just release it right away and be done with it.’
He suggested Wittman as his co-lyricist and the duo set out to write a few songs as an audition.
“For ‘Good Morning Baltimore,’ I said to Marc, ‘I think it should open likeOklahoma.
Like, ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin,’ only it’s Baltimore.
Everything was to make John laugh in a way.”
We really thought it was so in the pocket for us.
“We just all thought, ‘My God, we did it!’
And we were just so high on the mountaintop,” Shaiman recalls of the early feedback.
That’s Sondheim territory.’
So I was like, ‘What if it’s about Marilyn Monroe?’
Let’s do that.'”
So when they started the project, they wanted it to be all original music.
“They didn’t want any hangover from the film,” he explains.
At least at first.
“And so we felt like Fredo.
Once that is in the story, your score starts to dissipate.
But I really loved working with Sam and I have a friendship with him to this day.”
“Broadway was another story,” says Wittman.
“But London, I enjoyed.”
I honestly don’t know what would’ve become of me."
“Bette Midler was, to me, like Mary Poppins.
Bette Midler and her albums became everything to me.
She replacedMary Poppinson my little turntable in my little room.
“Better than the Oscar,” muses Wittman.
“I wouldn’t mind the Oscar,” Shaiman quickly replies.
And they’re long.
“But I’m an opera fan, so I just looked at it like I was watching Wagner.
It took a while, but I got into them.
“I thought, ‘Is this a practical joke?
Did Lou call someone?’
“It wasn’t like they said we should rewrite ‘Till There Was You,'” adds Wittman.
“The song is date-rapey,” Shaiman says of “Shipoopi.”
Someday we’ll print those.”
In fact, the duo even use a song fromSmashseason 1 to open act 2 of the new musical.
And it had to have the politics of today involved.
“It was an important story to tell.”
As for the 13 Tony nominations the production received?
“The morning to the Tony nominations, that was a wonderful day.
It’s like someone patting you on the head and saying, ‘Good job,'” Shaiman explains.
“We can’t be blase about that.
“The reception of the audience every night is pretty amazing too,” adds Wittman.
“So it’s fun to go there at the end.
It’s nice to have that feeling.”
Want more movie news?
