Talking not too long ago with leisure journalist Frank DiLella, legendary stage and display lyricist and composer Stephen Schwartz mentioned the beginning of his landmark musical Depraved, the fifth longest-running present on Broadway.
Stephen Schwartz, composer of the musicals “Godspell” and “Depraved”, is seen in Santa Barbara, … [+]
Schwartz, who spoke with DiLella at 92Y in New York, mentioned that whereas he was on a snorkeling trip in Hawaii within the late 1990’s, a buddy instructed him a couple of novel by Gregory Maguire, Depraved: The Life and Instances of the Depraved Witch of the West, which he referred to as “so me in so some ways.” This grew to become the inspiration for the musical, which debuted in 2003 and remains to be working at this time.
Schwartz additionally mentioned he would write one new tune for the movie of Depraved, which John Chu—director of Within the Heights and Loopy Wealthy Asians—will direct, and which is able to star Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda. In keeping with current press stories, manufacturing of the movie will start within the U.Okay. subsequent summer season.
Schwartz mentioned he had had no expectation that Depraved would turn out to be such a phenomenon. “It has to do with timing, it’s a narrative about two girls, and folks had been prepared for that,” he mentioned, noting he had composed 46 songs for the musical, solely 16 of which stay.
Requested by DiLella what phrase he related together with his musical Godspell, Schwartz mentioned “pleasure. It’s a really joyous present and it was a really joyous expertise.”
He additionally recalled that he started engaged on one other early musical, Pippin, when he was an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon College, the place he yearly co-wrote a present for the Scotch and Soda Theatre, a scholar group. He referred to as this expertise “the very best coaching to do a musical from scratch—you study out of your errors.”
When Pippin opened on Broadway six years later, he mentioned “there was nothing in it from the school present.” It was directed by Bob Fosse, who Schwartz mentioned was “coping with his personal demons. Bob was tough. I want I had had some perception into what was happening with him. There was stress between Bob and me within the present—if both of us had gotten our manner totally, it wouldn’t have been pretty much as good because it was. . .Someplace Bob is trying up and laughing.”
Schwartz mentioned he and Allen Menken—with whom he wrote songs for the movies Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Enchanted—had been socially pleasant earlier than they started to collaborate, and that their first tune collectively, Pocahontas’ “Colours of the Wind,” was an “simple collaboration since we had the same esthetic and method.” This tune and the movie’s rating each gained Oscars in 1995.
Schwartz mentioned he “fell in love with musical theater” when he was 9, rising up subsequent door to the composer George Kleinsinger, who wrote the rating for the opera Archy and Mehitabel, a couple of cockroach who falls in love with an alley cat, and its sequel, Shinbone Alley.