Howard Ashman has been gone for 16 years, but Alan Menken still communes with his late writing partner.
“Oh, an incredible amount,” Menken said of the man with whom he composed the music for “The Little Mermaid,” the 1989 film that has been credited not only with launching Disney into its second era of classic animation, but also with revitalizing a long-dormant genre. There hadn’t been a huge animated hit since “The Jungle Book” in 1967. Without “Mermaid,” which grossed $222 million worldwide, there may have been no “Beauty and the Beast,” no “Pocahontas,” no “Shrek” 1, 2 or the Third – or even computer-animated giant Pixar.
So Menken, 57, stays close to the memory of the man with whom he restarted it all.
“I commune with Howard in ways that I still scratch my head and don’t really understand,” said Menken. “I talk to him. He shows up in my dreams all the time.”
The pair wrote seven songs for the 62-minute film, including “Under the Sea.” That score is the building block for a new stage adaptation of “Mermaid” that launches in Denver July 26 for a high-stakes pre-Broadway workshop run.
Their songwriting collaboration, which began with “Little Shop of Horrors” in 1982 and included “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin,” ended with Ashman’s death from AIDS in 1991.
“I am still living out the career that he would have lived out,” said Menken, whose eight Academy Awards in 15 nominations make for one of the best success ratios in Oscar history.
“He was the most talented musical theater voice of our generation,” said Menken. “The saddest strain that runs through my life are those moments when I think what might have been; what Howard didn’t get to experience. I want him to know how much I deeply, deeply appreciate where he left my life when he left it.”
Disney asked Menken to revisit “Mermaid” as a stage adaptation more than five years ago. You might think the request natural but at the same time unthinkable. But it was not the first time Menken had been asked, as he puts it, “to protect Howard’s legacy while simultaneously moving on from it.” Tim Rice was brought in to help him complete the “Aladdin” film and the “Beauty and the Beast” stage adaptation.
The “Mermaid” assignment was gratifying, he said, “but it was deep breaths, because you know it’s going to be a big job with big expectations.”
By then, Menken’s new lyricist was Glenn Slater, whom he calls “a fantastic match for Howard’s style.” They have added 12 songs to the score. “And I honestly think if you didn’t know the original songs, you wouldn’t know where Howard’s work leaves off and Glenn’s begins,” Menken said. “It’s seamless.”
“Arrived” with review
“Little Shop” established Ashman and Menken as a songwriting team, but they had not yet been “anointed” – that came when the New York Times’ Janet Maslin reviewed “Mermaid.” And to think, when Disney first proposed an animated take on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about a little girl coming of age and finding her voice, Menken had never even heard of it. “What can I say,” he said. “I’m a boy.”
At that time, Disney animation was so in the dumps, “Mermaid” was put together in a warehouse far off the “real” Disney lot. The songwriters toiled at Menken’s Pennsylvania farm. When they brought Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg demos, the then-new Disney executive team, pardon the pun, flipped.
“We knew it was good, but we had no idea it would hit the zeitgeist,” Menken said. “I remember calling film scorers I knew for advice and they would just say, ‘Man, just take a powder – nobody takes animated films seriously.”‘
Instead, it proved the tipping point – for Disney animation and the songwriters. Ashman lived just long enough to see the film win Academy Awards for best score and best song (“Under the Sea”).
“When we were at the Oscars, Howard said, ‘We really need to talk when we get back to New York,’ and I had no idea what it was about, because I had completely blocked out the possibility that he was HIV-positive,” Menken said. “Back then that diagnosis was a total, complete death sentence. There was nothing ambiguous about it.”
If Ashman had lived, Menken imagines he might be directing the stage version that will bow at Denver’s Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The project meant collaborating not only with Slater on new songs but with book writer Doug Wright, who won a Tony for penning “I Am My Own Wife” and was just nominated for “Grey Gardens.”
Menken felt no trepidation in fleshing out beloved characters like Ursula, King Triton, Flotsam, Jetsam and Scuttle with a man best known for writing the true stories of a German transvestite in World War II, and relatives of Jackie Kennedy who had turned from socialites into recluses living in squalor.
“He’s a total craftsman, an open and creative collaborator and a wonderful person,” Menken said. Wright was inversely impressed.
“I think ‘Mermaid’ boasts one of the most tuneful, exuberant Broadway scores in recent memory,” Wright said. “It only just happens that the score was written for an animated film.”
That score is among the most highly anticipated in Broadway history. Wright describes the new material as “a deft mix of showbiz savvy and genuine heart.” Menken’s guiding principles: “Draw on the undertone of the movie. This is new music, not a new story. Familiar songs are entwined with new ones.
“That’s why I don’t think it will be too jarring for people.”
The opening number, “Fathoms Below,” blends into the new, “The World Above,” sung by Eric. “Daughters of Triton” leads into a new song for the seagull Scuttle (“Human Stuff”). Menken has added a pining song for Eric (“Her Voice”) and a comic “tour-de-force” for nemesis Ursula, who reminisces “about the good times when she had the power to completely dominate and ruin peoples lives,” Menken said.
And then there is Ariel, who will be played by Denver native Sierra Boggess. “She is so talented and so sweet … and so young,” Menken said. “You can tell she’s wide-eyed, but she’s so thoroughly professional. You are really going to get both the excitement of a Broadway debut, and yet you are going to see a performer who is very in control.”
While Menken is thrilled with his new score, there’s no telling how audiences will respond. Where there were once few expectations, now, Menken admits, “Disney is a big target,” with four concurrent Broadway spectacles. “The landscape has changed in every possible way,” he said.
“It’s such a love hate thing. There are people who love the movie, and people who hate the movie. There are people who will be looking for us to step away from the movie and create something that is its own entity in every respect. And there will be those who will say, ‘How can they change it?
“Honestly, I am as curious as you are as to what the reaction is going to be.”
The one thing he is sure of is that Ashman’s presence will be with him in Denver.
“Absolutely,” Menken said. “I will definitely be talking to Howard on opening night.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
An unofficial, speculative song list
Note: “The Little Mermaid” song list could change several times during its pre-Broadway workshop run in Denver. Some songs may be added, some may be cut. Here’s a complete guess as to who’s singing what and when, for now, based on a Disney demo released last October, today’s Menken interview, other press reports and internet speculation:
Fathoms Below (Ariel)
The World Above (Prince Eric)
Daughters of Triton (Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Atina, Adela, Alana)
Human Stuff (Scuttle, Gulls)
I Want the Good Times Back (Ursula)
The World Above, reprise (Ariel)
That Ought to Show Her (Triton, Sebastian)
Wasting Away (Ursula, Flotsam, Jetsam)
That Oughta Show Her, reprise (Triton, Sebastian)
Part of Your World (Ariel)
The Storm (Orchestra)
Part of Your World, reprise (Ariel)
Song for Triton
She’s in Love (Flounder, Mermaids)
Under The Sea (Sebastian, Ensemble)
Positoovity (Scuttle, Gulls) (start of Act 2)
Sweet Child (Flotsam, Jetsam, Ariel)
Her Voice (Eric)
Poor Unfortunate Souls (Ursula, Ariel)
Beyond My Wildest Dream (Ariel)
Les Poissons (Chef Louie)
If Only/Her Voice (Eric, Ariel)
If Only, reprise (Sebastian)
Poor Unfortunate Souls, reprise (Ursula)
Kiss the Girl (Sebastian, Ensemble)
All Good Things Must End (Ursula)
Finale (If Only/Part of Your World reprises)
“The Little Mermaid” ticket info
MUSICAL | Presented by Disney | JULY 26-SEPT. 9 | At the Ellie Caulkins Opera House | $20-$77 | 303-893-4100 (800-641-1222 outside Denver) or denvercenter.org.
