"If showbiz puts you on a pedestal on Tuesday, it’s only to have a better shot at your balls on Thursday," writes Tony-winning composer Marc Shaiman in his new memoir Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner. That quote aptly sums up the book, which details both the highs and lows of a life in show business.
Shaiman's career includes composing for films such as When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, winning a Tony Award for Hairspray, and being longtime friends with Bette Midler. Granted, for every triumph, there were also humbling experiences—such as the time he upset Barbra Streisand, to him making Stephen Sondheim faint, to how working on Smash was like being on Game of Thrones: "dark, bleak, and mired in carnage." And Shaiman recalls it all with humor, affection, and a touch of self-deprecation.
Never Mind the Happy will be released January 27 from Simon & Schuster. On January 25, Shaiman will host a public event with friend Nathan Lane at the 92nd Street Y in New York as part of his book tour (Lane was part of an early reading of Hairspray, where he played Edna Turnblad—the role eventually went to Harvey Fierstein).
Below, Shaiman has provided an excerpt from Never Mind the Happy to Playbill, detailing the early days of Hairspray and how he and his creative partner Scott Wittman refused to cut the show's 11 o'clock number, "I Know Where I've Been"—despite skepticism from producers.
After each of our four readings, Margo [Lion], her co-producers, and the dramaturg, Jack Viertel, would say to us, “Guys, it’s great, but do we really need that ‘I Know Where I’ve Been’ song? Isn’t it a bit of a drag for a musical comedy? Won’t it stop the show dead in its tracks, and shouldn’t Tracy have the eleven o’clock number?”
Scott and I always fought back saying we believed in the song, and that without it, the show would be soulless. And cutting it would diminish the meaning of the final triumph, when the bigots are defeated and The Corny Collins Show becomes integrated. Besides, what would be more like Tracy Turnblad than for her to acknowledge the eleven o’clock spot belongs to the Black community she loves? And so, the producers would stop bringing it up…for a while.
Then, sometime after the third reading, we got the call none of us was expecting. It was Rob Marshall saying Miramax had greenlit Chicago—he was about to start pre-production and hoped we would wait for him for a year. Having by now worked in Hollywood for over a decade, I knew better, and that, in reality, it would be at least two years before the director/choreographer of a movie musical would be finished.
It was a tough decision, but we all agreed there was too much momentum to let it go. To stop now would be like an obstetrician telling a woman in the delivery room, “Stop pushing! Stop pushing!” Hairspray was “crowning.” And so, we reluctantly parted company and began the search for a new choreographer and director.
Choreographer Jerry Mitchell had been a friend of ours for years and had even appeared in a few of Scott’s late-night extravaganzas in the ’80s. He was then having great success working with director Jack O'Brien on the stage musical of The Full Monty, so we sent our demos and met with them. Jerry and Jack loved the show and were bursting with ideas; we all fell in love and they quickly signed on as choreographer and director, respectively.
Our fourth and final reading featured our future Broadway cast, many of who would go on to award-winning careers. Potential investor Harvey Weinstein left without writing a check, saying, “Who wants to see a musical about a little fat girl?” No problem, the entire budget was raised that afternoon.
But then the other Harvey, Fierstein, spoke up and said there were elements of the book he felt could be improved upon. With the blessing of Mark O’Donnell and Tom Meehan, Harvey made a deal with our producers and started contributing scenes and ideas—like giving Edna the dream of becoming a designer, so that when she comes out at the end in her own dress, we feel her triumph. And it was also Harvey who adjusted scenes to make it clear Tracy got on The Corny Collins Show by learning a dance from Seaweed J. Stubbs, a young Black character. These were not small things, and they really elevated the show.
When the time came to go into rehearsal for Broadway, it was a joy every day. The mood in the room was ebullient, with everyone feeling we were working on something that just, well, worked! There were a few bumps along the road, but, in Hairspray fashion, many of them ended up being blessings in disguise.
For instance, the talented and sexy-as-hell James Carpinello was hired to play teen heartthrob Link Larkin, as he had at all the readings. I remember rehearsing with him at the first reading and he was wearing a white T-shirt that kept creeping up, exposing his toned stomach. As I played for James, I looked over and, unbeknownst to each other, Scott, Harvey, and Mark O’Donnell, sitting in a row, were all staring at his rippling midriff.
Partway through rehearsals, however, James got a movie offer he felt was too big an opportunity to pass up, so he quit the show overnight. Suddenly we were back casting, and Bernie brought in a few other people, but we also asked an actor in the ensemble who had been Link’s understudy to audition. He got the part, and Hairspray became just the first of many successes Matthew Morrison has had in theater and on television, including his signature role as Mr. Schue, the teacher on Glee.
But there was still one other stumbling block that just wouldn’t go away.
The producers came to Scott and me again after the fourth reading and insisted “I Know Where I’ve Been” was too slow and serious an anthem; that it would stop the show in the wrong way. And after four readings, they finally beat us down enough that Scott and I decided it would be professional to take the note and try to write a new, more energetic song for the spot. So, we wrote “Lift Him Up,” in which Motormouth teaches that if you climb the ladder you must turn around and help the person behind you. It was a nice thought, and I set it to a gospel groove with lots of harmony. One day during Broadway rehearsals, I pulled aside Kamilah Martin (now Marshall), who had been in the previous readings and knew “I Know Where I’ve Been.”
“Kamilah,” I asked, “pardon me for acting like you represent an entire race of people, but what does the Black cast think of the new song?”
Kamilah said, “Well, it’s a great groove and the vocals are fun…” She then took a breath and added, “It is a little ‘cotton-pickin’…”
Oh my God. My heart hit the floor.
Thank goodness she was so honest. I told Scott what Kamilah had said, and then we called our longtime friend and lawyer, Mark Sendroff, who informed us the Dramatists Guild has a clause saying writers must be allowed to see their work performed before it can be cut. So we told the powers-that-be—who were not happy—we were taking a stand and putting “I Know Where I’ve Been” back into the show.
And then off to our out-of-town tryout in Seattle we went. Our venue was the 5th Avenue Theatre, a gorgeous downtown landmark which opened in 1926. Its interiors were inspired by traditional Chinese wooden temples, although the execution is more fanciful than faithful. It’s mainly red, with a bit of green, and a whole lot of gold. No one could miss the chandelier in the auditorium, which is a golden dragon’s head embedded in the ceiling, holding in its mouth a red Chinese lantern whose centerpiece is a single, huge, electric-globe “pearl.” The place has more gilt than a Jewish family reunion.
Inside this jewel of a theater, the technical rehearsals for our show went well. It was great finally seeing David Rockwell’s spectacular set, William Ivey Long’s costumes, and Kenneth Posner’s lighting, all working seamlessly together. And before I knew it, it was time for our first preview.
Up until this point, I think Scott and I imagined the audience would basically be people just like us, with similar backgrounds, interests, and sensibilities. After all, that’s what it was like when we were working with and for our fellow freaks at Club 57. When we write, we write to please ourselves—and hope that anyone who shows up will like it too. So imagine our shock when we peeked from behind the curtain and the entire Seattle first-night audience looked like they had just arrived from a George and Martha Washington look-alike contest. The only thing whiter than that enormous dragon’s pearl was the sea of white hair and white faces seated beneath. Oh my Lord, we worried—was the excitement we’d been feeling for all these months about to come crashing down around us?
Thankfully, all the Georges and Marthas loved the show. (We had prejudged them unfairly—had the lessons of Hairspray taught us nothing?!) From the second it started, it was clear the tryout was a hit.
But I enjoyed no moment more than when Mary Bond Davis as Motormouth started singing “I Know Where I’ve Been.” I was sitting a few rows behind our producers and could see their shoulders go up as the song began. But when Mary Bond and the cast reached the thrilling last notes, the audience erupted, and I watched the body language of each producer go from resistance to acceptance and finally appreciation. The fact we had to fight for that particular song spoke to the very issues of representation that Hairspray is about, and so the victory of having it back in the show was all the sweeter.
*
*Our mensch of a dramaturg, Jack Viertel, tells this story in his book The Secret Life of the American Musical. “I fought like a dog to keep [the song] out of the show,” he writes, before admitting, “That the authors actually won was a lucky outcome, and, in hindsight, I was fortunate to be wrong.”
Click here to purchase Never Mind the Happy.
The Broadway cast of Hairspray
