Making His Marc

Marc Shaiman has worked with many of the entertainment world’s biggest and brightest stars, including Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Harry Connick Jr., and Barbra Streisand. He is the proud owner of an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony, and was an Academy Award nominee for the now-infamous “Blame Canada” (from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut). Heck, Shaiman has even survived being a writer — and sometimes performer — on the craziest set in TV history: Saturday Night Live. So absolutely nothing should faze him.

Nothing except working on a daily basis with Martin Short. Being a co-author and co-star of Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me –which arrives at Chicago’s LaSalle Bank Theatre today in the middle of its pre-Broadway tour — is a whole other experience. “The exhaustion factor is really something else. I’m thinking of a putting a roofie in his champagne some night. After every show, he’s ready to sit down and do a post-mortem,” he notes. “But we’re about to be a full-fledged Broadway musical, which means that if a change affects even two lights, we’re going to have to call in a union crew.”

Tired as he may be, Shaiman is basically a very happy camper. “I have to say, this is the kind of material I love to work on. And I’m living out my fantasy of being on the road and writing lyrics on the bed of a nice hotel room. Writing music is something I take for granted, but writing a great lyric really requires a lot of craft and structure. I like to give my collaborators [who include Short and Scott Wittman, the show’s director and Shaiman’s former romantic partner] a lot of ideas for songs. But we’re also encouraging other people to speak up because it’s healthy to hear from people outside of our bizarre circle.”

And is the prospect of being on a Broadway stage — even with one notorious butt-baring scene — a fantasy come true as well? “This whole show grew out of these Christmas parties where I used to play piano and Marty would be on top like Judy Garland. So I have no regrets — except that I would love to have my understudy go on once so I could see what the show looks like from the house,” he says. Shaiman has noticed that while the overall reaction has been positive, audiences have so far responded differently on a nightly basis. “That’s true of everything I’ve ever worked on. I’ve seen Hairspray play through the roof in Nashville and just be okay in Florida. Who knew Hairspray would even play in Nashville?”

While the Broadway version of Hairspray is going strong, Shaiman wasn’t totally shocked when the show folded up shop in Las Vegas last month. “Most people come there for two nights and they want to see an event. Even I wanted to see O when I was there,” he says. “But the audiences that did come loved it.”

Meanwhile, Shaiman is busy re-writing the score of Hairspray for its upcoming film version, which will star John Travolta as Edna, Queen Latifah as Motormouth Maybelle, Amanda Bynes as Penny, Zac Efron as Link, and newcomer Nicole Blonsky as Tracy. “We’ve written a new ballad for Tracy to show off her voice and a new number for Link where ‘It Takes Two’ was. We were really hoping to change Link’s name to Oscar, so we could write something called ‘I Want Oscar,” he jokes, referring to his desire to add an Academy Award to his mantle. We’re even written a new song for Velma. I know a lot of people didn’t love ‘Miss Baltimore Crabs,’ but if they heard me do the uncut version, they’d change their mind. We also wrote a second song for her, kind of like Streisand’s ‘Gotta Move,’ but the producers didn’t get it. Maybe I’ll sing out as a bonus track on the cast album.”

While Shaiman admits to being devastated that Harvey Fierstein won’t get to re-create his Tony winning turn as Edna on film, he has no qualms about the casting of Travolta in the role. “He sings well and dances great, and he’s totally game for it. And I think not only that he’s back in a musical, but also that he’s playing a woman guarantees curiosity, which should bring people in.”

Shaiman is also busy working on the new musical Catch Me If You Can, based on the successful 2002 film starring Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Christopher Walken. The show will have a workshop in New York in August, shortly after Fame Becomes Me begins its Broadway run, starring Nathan Lane. “It’s been a real problem getting everyone’s schedule together, and if we didn’t do it then, we’d have to wait another six months for [director] Jack O’Brien and [choreographer] Jerry Mitchell,” he says. Shaiman is relishing working on a show where the three main characters are men. “After Hairspray, we were asked to write a few ‘girly’ shows, but I wasn’t sure we had that much girliness left in us,” he says. “I do own a pair of testicles and it’s nice that I get to pull them out once in a while.”