Found it.
A couple of years ago, after noticing that there was some grey in my hair, and that my agent did not call me back as lightining-fast as he used to, I began pondering my career mortality. Although I did not believe it was imminent, I knew the Showbiz Grim Reaper would eventually come for me, leaving me with dusty posters and boring stories. I didn’t fear this eventuality, but thought it might be a good idea to wring every last life experience I could out of my career while I was still here at the rodeo. That’s why when New Line called (flushed with “Hairspray” success) and asked for the the rights to develop “The Wedding Singer” as a Broadway musical (rights I didn’t know I had - thanks WGA!), I not only didn’t say no, I asked if I could help do it.
They were not thrilled, but I made it a condition of them getting the rights, and they finally agreed that I could co-write the book (the non-sung part). I’d only been to two Broadway shows in my life, the last almost 20 years before, so I went out and saw “Hairspray” and “The Producers”. I could do this, I thought.
They paired me with two young musical theatre writers, Chad Beguelin and Matt Sklar, who I accepted unquestioningly. I realize now that I got very lucky here - they were explosive talents and great guys. Then we interviewed three directors that the producers hand-picked for us. Two were complete assholes, so we went with Number Three, John Rando, who similarly turned out to be talented and great.
We worked on the script for over a year, which seemed like forever to me but I’m told is normal for theatre. To me, it seemed very similar to the early stages in the life of a film - pale ugly guys sitting around a computer trying to make each other laugh. But the tunes they’d walk in with, first played on a piano and then on CD, were fantastic and made me realize they were working about 5 times as hard as me.
Quick aside - The big negative of Broadway as compared to movies? Many times harder, much less money. Writers, directors, producers - everybody. Even actors - they have to not only act, but, sing and dance and do it 8 times a week for a year. And there is just not that much money in it. End of aside.
So we read and sang it for the producers a few times (us four playing all the parts) until they decided to workshop it. Then we needed to cast - the auditions were endless. When we finally got a cast, we had a week to rehearse and then put it on for a small audience of potential investors and New Line people. That went well, but frankly many of the investors there had tripled or quadrupled their money on “Hairspray” and were eager to invest in whatever New Line developed next.
We did two more workshops, tweaking the songs, the writing and the cast. Last December we assembled the final cast and did 3 weeks of rehearsal on 42nd Street. Then out to Seattle for 3 more weeks of rehearsal, a week of preview performances and then opening night in Seattle. Out-of-town tryouts are tricky - you’re there to experiment and make mistakes, but you’re also trying to impress the critics and get your show in fighting shape - it’s kind of like preseason in football.
We got back to NY. Kept the same cast, got rid of two songs, wrote one new one, and kept tweaking the book. A month of writing, then back into rehearsal, first back on 42nd Street, then at the theatre. Then, another month of previews, with more tweaking to everything - punch up that joke, cut that bar of music, add sax here, change that hat. From SNL, I was used to seeing something up on its feet for the first time at dress rehearsal, then having an hour to make changes before air. I saw Wedding Singer like 60 times before it opened on Broadway. If you love to tweak, it’s paradise.
Opening Night was a blast, but then it was kind of done for me. The creative team scatters in all directions (I haven’t seen many of them since that night), while the cast, musicians and stage managers continue performing the show (over 200 times since then).
In general, I’d say Broadway is the way I imagine movies used to be - a small community, much more risk-taking and making of decisions from the gut, often terribly inefficient but with creative people still, if not in charge, in positions of leadership.
