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Video: Gerard Alessandrini Breaks Down the Origins of FORBIDDEN BROADWAY
Sep 27, 2024
Gerard Alessandrini's beloved tradition is back this season with Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song, which opened just last week at THEATER555. In this video, he chats more about the Forbidden Broadway legacy and check out highlights from Merrily We Stole a Song!
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0:00
Forbidden Broadway, not on Broadway, will turn Tommy on a phonic and purified cabaret
0:13
We're gonna find out where Modern Broadway went right! Was it Matilda, or that singing King Kong
0:23
Wait, stop, Marty! That was a monster flop! I've been doing Forbidden Broadway for close to 43 years. We've done many editions over the years
0:32
We've done a few other shows in between, but I'm mostly known for doing Forbidden Broadway
0:37
Well, I sort of time-traveled in this production because we started Forbidden Broadway when
0:42
Merrily We Roll Along arrived on Broadway in 1981, and that didn't do so well then
0:49
But now we've gone on, and so did Merrily, and now it's considered a classic Sondheim show
0:56
and it had a tremendous run this season, and so now we're doing Merrily, we're still doing it
1:02
it's come full circle, and that way we sort of time-travel. But also, you know, Back to the Future is now running on Broadway, a musical version of that movie
1:13
and it's doing well, and I enjoyed it, and it was nice to incorporate that into Forbidden Broadway
1:18
because we do a little time-traveling ourselves. Not only are we doing parts of classic Broadway and classic stars like Padley LuPone, Bernard Peters
1:26
talking about Stephen Sondheim, but we're also doing all the new shows, all the shows that were up for Tonys
1:32
this year and won and didn't win, and we even got a little Hillary Clinton in there, she's a producer now
1:39
she produced stuff, so we're really running the gamut of the whole era and beyond
1:46
Well, when I was a young man, two or three years ago, I decided that I would like to do Nightclub Act
1:52
for myself and my good friend, talented friend, Norm A. Ling, and we would go to piano bars and sing
1:59
and I thought, well, everybody hears young actors in New York singing theater music with the real lyrics
2:06
I thought it would be different to hear it with parody lyrics, and I actually had a folder of parody lyrics
2:12
that I kept called Forbidden Broadway. Usually I'd sing them for friends, for a laugh, or for myself
2:18
and they made a very good vehicle for Norm A. Ling and myself and Fred Barton, who was the original pianist
2:24
musical director in the show, and is still the pianist-musical director in this version
2:28
What do I hope that audience will get out of this edition? I hope that they'll get a lot of joy
2:35
and joy from love of theater, and joy of the great music that we use, and they'll just feel happier
2:46
and that theater is a celebration, and that as theater-goers, they're part of that party
2:52
We're all part of it, and I want people to feel happy about that
2:56
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