This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Marc Tumminelli: Hello, little me listeners, and happy holidays. It's your buddy Marc Tumminelli. It's during these insane times that I like to think of some of my favorite things. What gift could I give you this holiday season? And then I figured it out. I'll talk to you about my favorite musical flop, Smile. You might be saying, "Marc, this sounds like a gift for you." Well, a gift for me is a gift for everyone. In another very special crossover episode, I had the privilege of being a guest host of one of my favorite podcasts, Flop of the Heap, with John Bow and Marla Alpert. I stepped in for Marla and chatted about Smile: The Musical. I love this misguided musical about a 1980s beauty pageant so much. I think the score is beyond amazing, and the story of getting the show to Broadway is also pretty incredible.

So while you do those holiday dishes and tune out your family, turn up the volume on my vocal damage with the brilliant, hilarious John Bow as we talk all things Broadway super flop, Smile. Also, check out Flop of the Heap, especially if you love musicals. They kill it every time, and I know you will love this podcast as much as I do. On a side note, thank you for joining me for these past 59 episodes. I love hearing from you, and I'm very thankful that you're tuning in week after week. More to come in 2022. And remember to go over and leave me a five-star review and tell your friends. Alright. Happy holidays. Please stay safe. Keep wearing those masks, wash your hands. I'm wishing you the greatest new year. I will be back in a couple of weeks with all new stories of child stardom. But for now, enjoy my episode of Flop of the Heap.

[1:44] John Bow: Critics agree the new beauty pageant musical Smile is sporadically amusing, schizoid in tone, and lacks creative vitality. The contestants are given so little individuality that only a parent could care who wins. An empty smile greets Broadway this season. You won't want to miss Smile with special guest host Marc Tumminelli. Next on Flop of the Heap.

[2:09] John Bow: Flop of the Heap's mission is not to bash, rip, pan, grill, or flambe the Broadway productions we explore. Nor are we here to put performers and other artists down. More importantly, we also recognize that part of the creative process is failure, and believe facing those failures with a critical but genial attitude should be the norm. There can be no success without failure. After all, you can't spell hopeful without flaw.

[2:41] John Bow: And what I have writing is, I guess it's called Pride. This show sings. This is a musical. This is begging to be a musical. If we don't do it right, we made a mistake.

[2:52] John Bow: Um, hi everyone. It's me, John Bow. I don't know, I've never known how to start these things. Um, Marla cannot be with us this week, folks. Um, she is on sabbatical. Um, but we have an amazing guest host this week, the famous Mr. Marc Tumminelli. Let's start out by introducing you. Is that okay with you? Can we add applause once you had said my name?

[3:20] Marc Tumminelli: I'm gonna add applause every time we say your name throughout the entire episode.

[3:24] John Bow: I don't think you're gonna say my name that many times.

[3:26] Marc Tumminelli: Oh no, I'm planning on saying it often.

[3:29] John Bow: Hi, John Bow!

[3:30] Marc Tumminelli: Hi, how are you, John?

[3:31] John Bow: Good, I'm so thrilled to be here.

[3:33] Marc Tumminelli: Good. I'm glad that you're one of our podcast's biggest fans.

[3:38] John Bow: I really am. I'm legitimately am. I listen to every episode.

[3:42] Marc Tumminelli: That makes me really happy. You're killing it.

[3:44] John Bow: Thanks. For those of you that don't know, Marc Tumminelli is the founder and director of the Broadway Workshop. Most recently served as the acting and dialect coach on the feature film Better Nate Than Ever, starring Lisa Kudrow for Walt Disney Studios. Marc has adapted the book, music, and lyrics for the student versions of We Will Rock You, The Addams Family, Zombie Prom, Spamalot, Head Over Heels, and many others. He's directed dozens of plays and musicals all over the country. And he really has just an incredible array of classes that he offers through the Broadway Workshop. Coachings, showcases, performance opportunities for kids of all ages. Really an incredible program. And that's been going on for what? Almost 15 years now, right?

[4:26] Marc Tumminelli: 14 years.

[4:29] John Bow: Right? This month. That's incredible. Some of his workshops are taught by the likes of Broadway legends, Ben Platt, Sierra Boggess, Laura Benanti, Jeremy Jordan, Cynthia Erivo, and Sutton Freaking Foster.

[4:43] Marc Tumminelli: Oh yeah.

[4:43] John Bow: He's also the host of another podcast that you might want to listen to. It's called LITTLE ME: Growing Up Broadway, which is on the Broadway Podcast Network, and he conducts interviews with literally every kid that's ever been in a Broadway show. In fact, I just listened to your episode about Lea Michele, which was great.

[5:00] Marc Tumminelli: Yes, People magazine covered by People Magazine.

[5:04] John Bow: The people. And last but not least, as an actor, Marc has portrayed one of the most charming iterations of Eugene Morris Jerome in the Neil Simon trilogy the world has ever known. Besides just being an all-around fun guy. Now tell me something before we, well, first of all, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Marc Tumminelli.

[5:37] John Bow: Great words. Tell me something. When are you gonna adapt the junior version of Hello, Dolly?

[5:41] Marc Tumminelli: Uh, that I don't think is coming my way anytime soon.

[5:45] John Bow: Just like this staircase is just two steps. Cut Dolly's intro down to one bar.

[5:55] Marc Tumminelli: That's it. Your podcast is amazing. Uh, LITTLE ME.

[5:57] John Bow: Thank you.

[5:59] Marc Tumminelli: If this goes well today, I will release this episode on my podcast feed as well.

[6:03] John Bow: Well, if this doesn't go well, we'll just put it in the archive and never speak of it again.

[6:09] Marc Tumminelli: Um, I also just listened to your appearance on the Burnt podcast where you talked about um that crazy dude who murdered two people and then went on to play Guido in Nine at his local community.

[6:20] John Bow: Dan Wozniak murdered two people and then did the evening performance of Nine at the community theater in California in Orange County, California. Could you imagine?

[6:30] Marc Tumminelli: I imagined it throughout the entire time I was listening. Shocking. But yeah, check out me on the Burnt Podcast. Basically, check out me on everyone's podcast.

[6:57] John Bow: Now, today we're talking about the musical Smile. Uh, now, why are you here?

[7:05] Marc Tumminelli: I feel like it's because you're an unofficial expert on the musical Smile, but maybe it's an official capacity.

[7:13] John Bow: No, I'm an unofficial expert of the musical Smile. I've loved it. I probably first found it when I was in 10th grade. So that's the 90s, like maybe 1995. And one of my best, very best girlfriends, Randy Melnick Cohen, um, she was doing a production in our high school, and I was like, what? And then she gave me the demo cast recording that all the students had gotten, and I taped it from tape to tape. Oh my god, and I learned every word of it. I was very obsessed with Smile, and ever since I've sort of done everything I could do to get my hands on Smile information and talk to people who were in Smile, and I don't know why it is, but maybe we'll uncover why I love the show so much.

[7:55] Marc Tumminelli: I really hope so. I mean, this isn't only a dissection of the musical, but a dissection of your psyche.

[8:02] John Bow: I'll be back next week to talk about Sideshow.

[8:05] Marc Tumminelli: Can't wait. Now you know that this is a podcast dedicated to Broadway disasters, so it sounds like you have sort of a love in your heart for this.

[8:14] John Bow: Oh, this is definitely a disaster by all of you.

[8:17] Marc Tumminelli: I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page.

[8:19] John Bow: Oh yeah, it did not go up. It did not go the way there.

[8:24] Marc Tumminelli: Well, let's get down to it. The first thing we do, as you probably know, is we're gonna Google all night.

[8:29] John Bow: You want to sing a little bit of it?

[8:31] Marc Tumminelli: I could have Googled all night.

[8:33] John Bow: Now you sing.

[8:34] Marc Tumminelli: I'm not a great vocalist. I have vocal nodules from like from the top to the bottom.

[8:40] John Bow: That's what makes you so charming.

[8:42] Marc Tumminelli: It does. It also is I think it has something to do with like trying to do like a Matthew Broderick impression for like a decade.

[8:48] John Bow: Yeah, that probably had something to do with it. Alright, so uh John, Google All Night. Let's do it.

[8:54] John Bow: Opening date.

[8:55] Marc Tumminelli: Opening date was November 24th, 1986.

[9:00] John Bow: Closing date.

[9:01] Marc Tumminelli: January 3rd, 87.

[9:03] John Bow: Ooh, it's a turkey.

[9:04] Marc Tumminelli: Number of previews.

[9:05] John Bow: There were 11 previews and 48 performances.

[9:09] Marc Tumminelli: Now, I mean, not the worst run.

[9:12] John Bow: Nope. You know. Could have been much worse. Um, it sounds like you they needed 48 previews.

[9:17] Marc Tumminelli: Probably, yeah. Didn't quite get it right.

[9:19] John Bow: Alright. Do you know what the budget and loss was?

[9:22] Marc Tumminelli: Um, it was a little hard to find. I the number that I saw was four million.

[9:26] John Bow: It's four million, yeah. And they spent 250,000 just producing the workshop, which is not part of that four million.

[9:35] Marc Tumminelli: Wow.

[9:35] John Bow: Theater history and the venue. Uh, it played at the Lunt-Fontanne. Uh, named, of course, for Broadway wedded darlings, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.

[9:45] Marc Tumminelli: Um, I'm a huge fan of.

[9:47] John Bow: I mean, we better be. Now, the Lunt-Fontanne is known for a couple of things. Uh, The Sound of Music was there until it moved to the Mark Hellinger, The Wiz was at the Lunt. Um, the original No, No, Nanette was there in 1925, but actually it's the home of a lot of flops, all of which are on the list of shows that are upcoming. Come Summer with Ray Bolger, Her First Roman, which just the title sounds like a disaster. How Now Dow Jones, Walking Happy, Bajor, Ben Franklin in Paris, Skyscraper, Goldilocks.

[10:21] Marc Tumminelli: It, yeah, a lot of flops.

[10:23] John Bow: Legendary flop Rex, uh legendary Charles Strouse flop, a Broadway musical, and then in the 90s, the Lunt had sort of a resurgence and it was the longtime home of Disney's Beauty and the Beast after it transferred from the Palace.

[10:37] Marc Tumminelli: Well, Titanic really put the Lunt back on the map.

[10:40] John Bow: Sure, yes, Titanic. Uh, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I think cemented it in the annals of Broadway history.

[10:48] Marc Tumminelli: The Donna Summer musical brought it right back down again.

[10:52] John Bow: Um now, 1986. This was um, uh my youth.

[10:56] Marc Tumminelli: Now what other shows were running at the time?

[10:58] John Bow: Cats obviously was running. What else was like new? Les Mis was this season, Me and My Girl, Starlight Express, and the hit musical, Rags.

[11:08] Marc Tumminelli: Oh yes, Rags. Lest we forget Raggedy Ann was running at the same time.

[11:12] John Bow: Correct. And this was also the year of La Cage, I believe.

[11:16] Marc Tumminelli: Uh yeah, it was definitely running.

[11:17] John Bow: I don't think it was this year. I think it opened up.

[11:19] Marc Tumminelli: Did it open the year prior, yeah, that's right.

[11:21] John Bow: Yeah. Here's something I learned just the other day. There was a musical that opened the year prior called Into the Light.

[11:28] Marc Tumminelli: Do you have ever heard of that?

[11:29] John Bow: I can't say I just added it to the list. It was a flop starring Dean Jones that centers around the debate about the legitimacy of the Shroud of Turin.

[11:39] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god. A musical?

[11:41] John Bow: Like who wrote it?

[11:42] Marc Tumminelli: The musical. It lasted six performances.

[11:45] John Bow: But enough about that. So we're talking about Smile.

[11:47] Marc Tumminelli: Who did the music?

[11:49] John Bow: Marvin Hamlisch, who, you know, was a very big deal at the time. Talking Oscars, Chorus Line, the longest running musical on Broadway at the time. Um, and then also They're Playing Our Song, like huge, uh, very, very go-to composer for Broadway.

[12:04] Marc Tumminelli: Absolutely.

[12:05] John Bow: Uh, and then so book, lyrics, and direction by uh Mr. Howard Ashman, maybe too much for one person to do.

[12:12] Marc Tumminelli: Perhaps he put a little bit too much on his plate.

[12:14] John Bow: Howard Ashman, known primarily, of course, with his uh writing partnership with Alan Mencken. They created Little Shop of Horrors together, and then the scores for Disney's Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin before um Ashman died in ninety-one.

[12:30] Marc Tumminelli: Now the source material is uh it's based on a movie, correct?

[12:34] John Bow: 1975 film uh called Smile by Michael Ritchie um with a screenplay by Jerry Belson, and um it's a really bad movie.

[12:44] Marc Tumminelli: The movie starred Barbara Feldon, who I was in love with when I was a kid because she played—what do you know Barbara Feldon for?

[12:50] John Bow: She played Agent 99 on the 1960s sitcom Get Smart, which played on Nick at Night, and I thought she was—

[12:50] Marc Tumminelli: Were you born in the 50s?

[13:02] John Bow: I was born in 81.

[13:04] Marc Tumminelli: What? Nick at Night?

[13:05] John Bow: It was the—no, I remember it. I wasn't into Get Smart, but I liked that other one. I liked Car 54, Where Are You?

[13:09] Marc Tumminelli: Okay.

[13:09] John Bow: Nick at Night.

[13:10] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[13:10] John Bow: Because I was like, that's Herman Munster.

[13:12] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[13:12] John Bow: That's why I like that show.

[13:14] Marc Tumminelli: Um now the show is most known for being the beauty pageant musical, I would say, just in a nutshell. The uh anyone else that we need to know?

[13:23] John Bow: Like, were there any other notable, I don't know, people involved with the production producers.

[13:28] Marc Tumminelli: Um, well, pre the pre Broadway, which I don't know when we get into this in this format, but like there's there was essentially three versions of Smile before the Broadway version.

[13:38] John Bow: Okay.

[13:38] Marc Tumminelli: And the original lyricist was K uh Carolyn Lee.

[13:41] John Bow: Oh, I didn't know that.

[13:42] Marc Tumminelli: Who had had written LITTLE ME and Peter Pan, and Tom Mehan was the librettist.

[13:47] John Bow: Wow.

[13:48] Marc Tumminelli: Um, and then he was they were very rarely both both of them just disappear.

[13:55] John Bow: Well, Carolyn died, and Thomas got fired.

[13:58] Marc Tumminelli: So that'll do it.

[13:59] John Bow: So maybe let's just mention about a few of the people that were in the Broadway production.

[14:03] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god, and and how?

[14:04] John Bow: Yeah.

[14:05] Marc Tumminelli: Um, we have Jody Benson, who of course became Ariel and Little Mermaid and never needed to work again.

[14:10] John Bow: Correct.

[14:11] Marc Tumminelli: Because she was just printing money at home after that.

[14:14] John Bow: The voice of Ariel was all she ever needed to do.

[14:16] Marc Tumminelli: And well, then she did Crazy for You on Broadway.

[14:19] John Bow: She did, yes.

[14:19] Marc Tumminelli: She played Polly in Crazy for You for a few years, and she was nominated for a Tony for that.

[14:23] John Bow: Oh, well Clook.

[14:25] Marc Tumminelli: Um, V Ann Cox, who I love very much, played a very small role.

[14:28] John Bow: God, she's wonderful.

[14:29] Marc Tumminelli: Um, Jeff McCarthy, who many people know from multiple Broadway shows um was one of the principals.

[14:35] John Bow: Ruth Williamson, do you know where Ruth Williamson is?

[14:37] Marc Tumminelli: She's like always plays the uh, you know, at not what's the pick a little lady, the the mayor's wife, you lale McEnishin.

[14:44] John Bow: Right in in the Music Man movie, like not the movie movie, but the the Matthew Broderick movie, and she's been in lots of Broadway shows.

[14:51] Marc Tumminelli: I think she also played that part in the Broadway revival with Rebecca Lucre.

[14:54] John Bow: Oh, amazing.

[14:55] Marc Tumminelli: Um, she's amazing.

[14:57] John Bow: Um, Anne Marie Bobby was the other star of the show who was an 18-year-old girl who had been in four Broadway shows before, but um, this was her first role as like an adult on Broadway at 18.

[15:08] Marc Tumminelli: And uh that's really like I don't know, the the big the big guns.

[15:13] John Bow: Yeah, not a lot of cast notables.

[15:15] Marc Tumminelli: Well, Jody Benson, I mean, she I I mean she became a notable, she became a notable.

[15:19] John Bow: I mean, in her partnership with uh Howard Ashman, working with Howard Ashman, and then he would go on to work for Disney.

[15:24] Marc Tumminelli: And I think he was already contracted to write Mermaid when he was working on this.

[15:28] John Bow: And I believe uh legend says that he was willing uh uh to audition all of the young contestants for the voice of Ariel and all of the girls auditioned.

[15:40] Marc Tumminelli: Well, some of the girls.

[15:41] John Bow: It seems like from some of my research that there were girls who were obsessed with Howard and girls who are obsessed with Marvin, and they were very uh different.

[15:51] Marc Tumminelli: Uh these two gentlemen behave very differently with the the young women in the show, and they did not get along very well.

[15:59] John Bow: Yeah.

[15:59] Marc Tumminelli: And so there was like team A and team B.

[16:02] John Bow: I I felt I'm feeling a little bit from from some of the the people I've chatted with.

[16:06] Marc Tumminelli: I definitely got that impression too, just in sort of reading some of the reviews.

[16:10] John Bow: Will V Will I V Long was the costume designer as well, which is uh Yeah, absolutely.

[16:15] Marc Tumminelli: And uh Paul Geminiani was the musical director.

[16:15] John Bow: Musical director.

[16:19] Marc Tumminelli: It's crazy.

[16:20] John Bow: Um there's no official cast recording of the show, correct?

[16:26] Marc Tumminelli: Correct.

[16:27] John Bow: But there is like a demo, is that right?

[16:30] Marc Tumminelli: So what happened is after the show you know, famously flopped on Broadway.

[16:34] John Bow: Um Marvin Hamish just like white wiped his hands clean of the whole thing.

[16:37] Marc Tumminelli: He wanted nothing to do it, but Howard still felt like there was something there, and he wanted to preserve something.

[16:43] John Bow: He rewrote another rewrite of the book and uh made some edits, and that is what was recorded for future licensing, and it's just a demo recording they did in one day with about 25% of the cast, and they all sort of gathered around the Casio and made a recording, and that was just to be used as a demo, it was never supposed to be released, and it's never been released.

[17:06] Marc Tumminelli: And the way people got that was by trying to license the show or attempting to license the show, they would give you a cassette of the music so you could hear what the song sounded like.

[17:17] John Bow: Stop showing that is the only thing that exists.

[17:19] Marc Tumminelli: Amory Bobby's on it, and uh also Jody Benson.

[17:22] John Bow: Um Howard Ashman sings a lot of the male parts.

[17:25] Marc Tumminelli: Um Jeff McCarthy was not available that day, so he sings Big Bob, he sings The Sun, he sings a bunch of different roles.

[17:31] John Bow: Uh-huh.

[17:31] Marc Tumminelli: And and and of course, there the orchestra is not available to record on this day, and so they the music is sort of this like 1980s Epcot center ambient music, which is there's no budget, you know, it's like I'm sure Howard paid for it himself.

[17:46] John Bow: Sure, sure.

[17:47] Marc Tumminelli: Like gave the girls like a meal ticket, and they're like, um, I will buy you one sandwich if you come and record this one.

[17:54] John Bow: Now there's um uh a couple songs that I think pe uh theater people know.

[17:58] Marc Tumminelli: There's that song Disneyland, which is done serving cabaret quite a bit, and it was on that unsung musicals album.

[18:06] John Bow: Yeah.

[18:06] Marc Tumminelli: Um and then Smile, I think some people know.

[18:09] John Bow: Um now there's never been a revival of the show, obviously, but there was there an off-Broadway production.

[18:16] Marc Tumminelli: There's been like a couple of like big workshops that have happened over the last couple years or last like 10 years, and then there was musical tonight did it um at Theater Row, maybe I saw that production.

[18:28] John Bow: Maybe that was like 10 years ago or eight years ago.

[18:30] Marc Tumminelli: Wow, and um, you know, that's a very scaled down, they rehearse it in a week.

[18:34] John Bow: Um, this show seems like it's dying for an encore's presentation.

[18:38] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, maybe that's just my own selfishness, but there has never really been a big large-scale revival.

[18:43] John Bow: Now, the the show when it did run on Broadway, it was not had did a couple nominations, right?

[18:48] Marc Tumminelli: I think it's only best book of a musical.

[18:50] John Bow: I think it's the only Tony Nomin.

[18:52] Marc Tumminelli: That's right.

[18:52] John Bow: And then uh there was a drama desk nomination for Michael O'Gorman, I think.

[18:56] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[18:56] John Bow: I think costumes too.

[18:58] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, and they um, you know, when you close that early in the season, if you're closed in January, it's like the last thing anyone's thinking about in May is this show that opened and closed that no one liked.

[19:08] John Bow: Yeah.

[19:09] Marc Tumminelli: Um all right, so where should we go next?

[19:12] John Bow: Shall we just shall we give a rundown of the plot of this wacky musical?

[19:16] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, take it away, John.

[19:18] John Bow: What's smile about?

[19:19] Marc Tumminelli: Oh god, I have to do it.

[19:21] John Bow: I mean, I could do it.

[19:22] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, so well, let me give my synopsis and you jump in and correct me when I make a mistake.

[19:28] John Bow: Okay.

[19:28] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, so the story centers around the contestants of this completely made up California young American Miss Beauty pageant.

[19:36] John Bow: And uh of course the backstage drama that unfolds.

[19:40] Marc Tumminelli: So we're introduced to two main characters, Robin and Doria.

[19:45] John Bow: Jody Benson is Doria.

[19:47] Marc Tumminelli: And the two, and who's Robin?

[19:49] John Bow: Sorry.

[19:50] John Bow: Um that's Anne Marie Bobby.

[19:51] Marc Tumminelli: Okay.

[19:52] John Bow: And they're two uh participants in the pageant who are roommates and become friends.

[19:56] Marc Tumminelli: Then we're introduced to Maria and Sean, who are another set of roommates and friends.

[20:00] John Bow: Can you just stop and tell people who Maria is?

[20:04] Marc Tumminelli: Maria is a Mexican American contestant who is just a walking offensive stereotype.

[20:10] John Bow: And her talent in the competition when they get to talent night, do you know what that is, John?

[20:15] Marc Tumminelli: Is it making flautas?

[20:17] John Bow: She makes guacamole as her talent in the talent evening portion.

[20:24] Marc Tumminelli: Doria does a striptease about reading books.

[20:29] John Bow: I mean, the show is so campy, like there's a Vantrillicus number.

[20:32] Marc Tumminelli: Um, you know, but uh Maria Gonzalez's talent is making guacamole in a microwave.

[20:40] John Bow: What that's why this show this is why I love it.

[20:46] Marc Tumminelli: Does it get more 1980s than the microwave being used for everything?

[20:54] John Bow: Wow, wow, wow.

[20:56] Marc Tumminelli: Um now that soun is jealous of Maria.

[21:02] John Bow: Um, and that's like a plot point we need to know about.

[21:05] Marc Tumminelli: Also, ever as I listened to that demo recording, every step of the way, all I could think about was Drop Dead Gorgeous.

[21:11] John Bow: It really does feel like it.

[21:13] Marc Tumminelli: Like, and obviously Drop Dead Gorgeous came way after this.

[21:15] John Bow: Yes.

[21:16] Marc Tumminelli: But it does feel like it's very similar.

[21:19] John Bow: There's a lot of very uh very strong similarities between the two properties.

[21:24] Marc Tumminelli: Um and the smile movie, if you watch the smile movie and you watch Drop Dead Gorgeous, it's very clear that they're there's it's some sort of version of this.

[21:30] John Bow: It's an updated version.

[21:32] Marc Tumminelli: Because it's supposed to be satirical, it's supposed to be a send up of the pageant thing.

[21:37] John Bow: Yes.

[21:38] Marc Tumminelli: Um what what maybe this audience doesn't know, and then uh John, I I'm curious to know what your thoughts are, but uh beauty pageants were appointment television when I was a kid.

[21:48] John Bow: Oh, yes.

[21:49] Marc Tumminelli: And it was more than people talked about the Super Bowl, more than people talked about the Academy Awards.

[21:54] John Bow: It was like the next day after that Sunday night live from Atlantic City, people talked about, you know, the beauty pageant, Miss America was a very big deal.

[22:01] John Bow: Miss USA, Miss America, Miss World.

[22:03] Marc Tumminelli: These were like big nights on television.

[22:06] John Bow: Yeah, and it it seems as though the beauty pageant phenomenon, the bigness of the American beauty and the world beauty pageants would fade pretty quickly after this show didn't work.

[22:19] Marc Tumminelli: Wouldn't you say?

[22:21] John Bow: I would say it it started to happen, I would imagine if I really remember watching it, then I would say it was probably like in the beginning of the nineties, where beauty pageants really were less and less of a thing every year.

[22:32] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[22:32] John Bow: Um I feel like it was pretty big through the 80s.

[22:35] Marc Tumminelli: The Vanessa Williams scandal probably started that downward trajectory, I would think, because that was

[22:35] John Bow: Which comes up it's like referenced in this musical.

[22:43] Marc Tumminelli: Oh, is it like one there's one sentence about it.

[22:46] John Bow: Because Vanessa Williams was uh eighty-three, and she, if you don't know, she was forced to relinquish her crown two months from the end of her reign when nude photos of her surfaced in Penthouse magazine.

[22:59] Marc Tumminelli: Um, Vanessa Williams would survive that scandal, but it seems as though beauty pageants sort of would not.

[23:08] John Bow: Yeah.

[23:08] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[23:09] John Bow: Okay, so a couple of other characters you need to know about.

[23:11] Marc Tumminelli: Uh Brenda DiCarlo Freelander is a former runner up who's organizing this year's pageant with her husband Big Bob, an RV salesman who is the pageant's head judge.

[23:25] John Bow: Just what?

[23:26] Marc Tumminelli: Okay.

[23:27] John Bow: There's also

[23:27] Marc Tumminelli: Which is exactly Drop Ty Gorgeous.

[23:30] John Bow: Like, yes, oh, yes.

[23:31] Marc Tumminelli: Yes, exactly the same.

[23:33] John Bow: There's also Little Bob, who's Brenda and Bob's son, who has a raging boner for all the contestants and formulates a plan to sneak into the building with his pervert buddy Freddie to take photos of the women and sell them.

[23:48] Marc Tumminelli: Oof.

[23:49] John Bow: Now this is not only cringy, but extra cringy because all of the contestants of the show are under 18.

[23:59] Marc Tumminelli: Like just like what?

[24:01] John Bow: There's lots of mention about horny old guys who like just like to look at girls.

[24:05] Marc Tumminelli: Like they're throughout the musical.

[24:07] John Bow: Doria has like a section that's not on that demo about how she was in a competition the year before with uh a horny um uh dermatologist who just wanted to look at everyone's books.

[24:19] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god.

[24:20] John Bow: And it's like we're we're laughing because it's hilarious and ridiculous, but after like since that time, a lot of really scandalous, awful shit has come out with these topics.

[24:34] Marc Tumminelli: Young women being abused and sexualized in all sorts of awful ways by creepy old men.

[24:40] John Bow: So I that sort of like cute nod in this musical doesn't really work anymore.

[24:46] Marc Tumminelli: I you know.

[24:47] John Bow: Well, it's a period piece.

[24:48] Marc Tumminelli: It is, it really truly is.

[24:51] John Bow: So let's see, what else?

[24:52] Marc Tumminelli: Uh Tommy French is another character.

[24:54] John Bow: He's sort of the the pageant choreographer.

[24:58] Marc Tumminelli: Um case stereotype here he called yeah, sort of the the curmudgeonly choreographer that's jaded and and all that.

[25:07] John Bow: So the day after he teaches them their sort of intense dance scene.

[25:12] Marc Tumminelli: I don't know.

[25:12] John Bow: I feel like I'm skipping important things.

[25:14] Marc Tumminelli: There's a whole drama with a ramp.

[25:17] John Bow: Like I mean, it's so unnecessary.

[25:19] Marc Tumminelli: The ramp is so unnecessary.

[25:20] John Bow: It's just like to just show that Brenda is the boss and she is running things, and she's not gonna let this.

[25:27] Marc Tumminelli: There's a lot riding on this competition being a wild success for Brenda.

[25:32] John Bow: There's a lot of money involved in it.

[25:34] Marc Tumminelli: How much the golden circle tickets cost.

[25:36] John Bow: Like, there's a lot of stuff with the adults, which just became less and less and less as the show got redeveloped and redeveloped.

[25:44] Marc Tumminelli: The movie is really focused on the adult storyline.

[25:46] John Bow: Uh-huh.

[25:47] Marc Tumminelli: And the musical is really focused on the 16 girls.

[25:50] John Bow: Yes.

[25:50] Marc Tumminelli: And Brenda.

[25:52] John Bow: And so I there's just like a lot of little things, but nothing really amounts to anything.

[25:56] Marc Tumminelli: You know, it's like the big important thing that is necessary to cover is that those naked photos that little Bob takes, because that is what's gonna spin the whole thing out in act two.

[26:06] John Bow: Right.

[26:06] Marc Tumminelli: I I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the ramp is not a thrilling plot point.

[26:12] John Bow: Not except for like a girl falls and like guards her ankle.

[26:16] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, but it it establishes the the tension between Tommy French, the choreographer, and the the woman who's running the pageant.

[26:24] John Bow: And so, but there's but there's no budget for the ramp or whatever, and then he offers to pay for it himself.

[26:28] Marc Tumminelli: Take the money out of his check, which she does.

[26:30] John Bow: Yes.

[26:31] Marc Tumminelli: Now, the day after they put the big dance scene together, the girls are all complaining about the conditions and the bad food.

[26:37] John Bow: And this all reminds me of Drop Dead Gorgeous when they all eat bad shellfish at the seafood buffet.

[26:53] John Bow: The scene is so funny with all these gorgeous girls like throwing up in potted palms.

[26:58] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[26:59] John Bow: Um okay, so the preliminaries.

[27:02] John Bow: Maria wins in the creative talent category.

[27:05] John Bow: Her song is "Young and American."

[27:07] John Bow: Robin wins in the scholastic achievement category.

[27:11] John Bow: Then Sean catches the two little pervert boys taking pictures of her in the shower, but instead of ratting them out, she connives with them a plot of pornographic sabotage.

[27:21] Marc Tumminelli: Is that right?

[27:22] John Bow: That that's exactly correct.

[27:24] John Bow: That's basically how the first act ends. And you're And then we also Doria is out. Like Doria does not place after talent.

[27:30] John Bow: So this girl that sang the I Want song that we are rooting for as an audience. The person who lives and breathes and eats pageants knows every winner, every year. She is basically the chances of her winning or placing is very low after preliminary night.

[27:46] Marc Tumminelli: Right.

[27:47] John Bow: So we go into the end of Act One thinking that Robin has a chance, and Doria decides, well, I'm gonna make you my project, a la Glinda and Alphaba. And she's like, I'm gonna teach you, you can win. I have no chance now, so let me help you. Robin is sort of the sweet um we root for her character. Robin's like there for scholarship money. Um, she is like not very good at any of this, she doesn't understand it. She has a dad who's passed away when for in a car accident when she was a little kid.

[28:13] John Bow: Which she which she refuses to tell anyone for fear that she will be taking advantage of quote unquote orphan points.

[28:13] Marc Tumminelli: Orphan points.

[28:22] John Bow: But Robin, you can get orphan points. And she goes, I don't want them.

[28:26] John Bow: I don't want them. The book is really funny. Um, but I i it's hard to say whether we're supposed to take these things seriously or not.

[28:35] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, the the overall feel of the show is not quite satire, but is, and that's a very hard thing to play, and it's very hard to play satire for two and a half hours and get an audience to care about anybody.

[28:48] John Bow: And so I think that the tone of this show is a little off. Like it either needs to be much campier or less campier.

[28:56] John Bow: But right now it kind of sits like in the campground, confused about what it's supposed to be.

[29:01] Marc Tumminelli: It's in the campground, not sure which camp it's in.

[29:04] John Bow: Correct. And I we'll we'll talk about this more when we talk about the score and and some of our favorite lyrics, but um it's like the dialogue, the big bob dialogue, Mark, is so awful.

[29:17] John Bow: It's just bad. And then the end of the show, this guy is like, Don't you realize to Bob? He's like, You're Miss Teen Prince, like you are the you are the real Miss American teen. Like, whatever.

[29:27] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[29:27] John Bow: Um, you are the reality. You are the heart and soul. Big Bob.

[29:30] John Bow: Big Bob. I'm like, well, that doesn't work.

[29:33] John Bow: Okay, so quickly we're gonna let's get through act two. The pageant begins with the song "Smile," and there's like a slideshow of contestants, which to everyone's shock and horror includes this nude picture of Maria, who is of course mortified and runs away.

[29:46] John Bow: But Brenda did wants her to stay and finish it, but then one of the pageant people is like, no, she has to leave. She's disqualified. And so it becomes this whole big thing while they're singing, like this beautiful group number while all the girls are like holding a candle and singing about the future.

[30:00] John Bow: Backstage, this like poor girl is running around with her luggage and crying because she's just been seen naked in front of a full audience.

[30:07] John Bow: Okay, so the the plot goes into like she's removed from the pageant. No, we want her back in the pageant. No, there uh the judges don't want to pick a winner at all because of the the nudie photo scandal. And then Brenda Brenda fires Bob.

[30:22] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[30:23] John Bow: Um, and she sort of takes over, but Brenda has this great moment where she kind of comes back on stage and gets everybody to get back together and say, this was an unfortunate thing that happened, but let's focus on these women and their stories and female empowerment, and she gets the whole audience back on her side, um, kind of proving that she really is the young American miss.

[30:43] John Bow: Um, that she never was when she was a younger girl.

[30:46] Marc Tumminelli: Like she she's coming to her own in this moment.

[30:49] John Bow: Well, I I yeah I feel like without having sit sat and watched the show, she does seem like the villain, sort of.

[30:57] John Bow: But maybe given that second act speech, she isn't really.

[31:01] John Bow: No, I think that she becomes like she does a great job to like get it back on the track. I mean, ultimately, she she wants this thing to go really well, and it just completely falls apart, and it's all on her.

[31:13] John Bow: And so, and literally, I'm reading stage directions in the middle of her monologue. She goes, uh, the stage directions is she's on a roll now and she and she knows it. There's a little Ava Perrone in her as she continues her impassioned oratorical vein.

[31:30] Marc Tumminelli: So I mean, she's a monster, but a monster for the greater good.

[31:34] John Bow: Okay, alright.

[31:35] John Bow: Yes. So the show uh Robin eventually reveals that she's fatherless, so she gets those orphan points, I guess. Bob finds out that it was his son that took the pervert picture, and then Sandra Kay ends up winning, who wasn't really.

[31:50] John Bow: We barely like know about her.

[31:53] John Bow: The Ancox.

[31:54] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, and Doria is first runner up.

[31:56] John Bow: Yes. Doria like moves up out of nowhere.

[31:59] Marc Tumminelli: I okay, alright.

[32:00] John Bow: So what what else what else happens in the second act that I missed? Anything?

[32:04] John Bow: That's really it. This the show falls apart in the second act, sadly.

[32:07] John Bow: And that is literally what every review we'll get to that in a minute, but um they just don't they'd never get the second act right.

[32:14] John Bow: And act one is like a really tight, fun musical number extravaganza after musical number extravaganza, and act two just doesn't quite get there.

[32:22] Marc Tumminelli: And despite the underage nude photos, it does build it up in a way where you do want to come back for the second act to see what happens.

[32:30] John Bow: Well, there's a great end of act one number called "Until Tomorrow Night," which is truly thrilling.

[32:35] John Bow: It's a great song.

[32:36] John Bow: That is a great number. It really builds that tension.

[32:39] John Bow: What do they want from me? God knows I'm trying. They say relax and be yourself, but they're lying.

[32:44] John Bow: So I've been gonna fame. I cannot take this up and say I need a choice, I need a family, someone get me out of here.

[32:49] John Bow: It's also much in someone, someone lost my equilibrium. I feel so bad, I feel so dumb.

[32:54] John Bow: I need to know the end will come inside.

[32:57] John Bow: Oh god, it will alright tomorrow.

[33:01] Marc Tumminelli: Now now generally I really like the score. I I was really anticipating a bunch of floppy, schlocky songs, but it it bops.

[33:09] John Bow: There's some cute numbers, the lyrics are clever. Howard Ashman is just so freaking good, and I mean, Marvin Hamlisch's melodies are they're great, you know?

[33:18] John Bow: It really is good. The the issue with this the score, and I d uh obviously I'm obsessed with the score, that's the reason why I love the show.

[33:24] John Bow: Yeah, is that there everything is a sequence. There is very few songs. "Disneyland" is a song, it has a beginning, middle, and end song applause, but everything is a sequence.

[33:34] John Bow: So you never feel like you get to hear a song. Uh-huh. It almost all feels like each number is "Hello 12" um over and over again.

[33:41] John Bow: Yes, connecting material. You need one of those, maybe in each act, but it's a lot of those.

[33:47] John Bow: And so it it just doesn't ever really do what it needs to do because you're as an audience, you want to applaud in a way that feels like I just heard a song.

[33:56] John Bow: I heard a character tell me something about themselves that I don't know, and we don't get that because we're getting so much information about what's going on in the story over getting information about the people.

[34:07] John Bow: And if you use "Chorus Line" as an example, which obviously the parallels are very obvious, is that you learn about each of these people on the line over the course of this, you know, two hours, and you don't ever really learn about anyone other than Doria and um Robin, you know, as far as the everyone else is very like one-dimensional as far as who they are, and you don't ever find that out through music.

[34:31] John Bow: Maria doesn't have a song about my I'm so embarrassed or my life is ruined now. Like we never get in to anyone.

[34:36] John Bow: So that is the issue with the score, but uh it's really very tuneful, and it's not like a bunch of clunkers.

[34:44] John Bow: They're like great songs, and they're there's a lot of up tempos. We are not sitting on a lot of ballads.

[34:48] John Bow: Like the show really moves almost to a fault. There, it's it's relentless as far as musical numbers are concerned.

[34:55] John Bow: Yeah, you have like "Young and American" and "Shine" like back to back, and they're these two huge production numbers.

[35:00] John Bow: Um, and it's they're I think it's too much. I think it's just all too much.

[35:04] John Bow: Um, the the song "Disneyland," uh you know, there's a weird irony to Jody Benson singing "Disneyland" in that it's three years before she becomes like the mermaid.

[35:15] John Bow: Queen of Disneyland. Like the voice of a generation. And it's also funny to hear her speak and sing in a southern accent before she plays Polly in "Crazy for You."

[35:26] John Bow: Um, it's just very strange to me.

[35:28] John Bow: Um, now the song "Shine," that that was where it was like, oh, this is so a "Chorus Line."

[35:34] John Bow: It's even like you're if is if it's even possible to rip off your own material, but you know, it's like five, six, seven, eight, gotta shine, shine, you know.

[35:42] Marc Tumminelli: Now you what you you're now right now. I'm I'm watching Mark like sort through his files, and you've got a script in hand, and also I have the I have the licensable script, like what you get if you want to do the show.

[35:56] John Bow: And I also have the Broadway script.

[35:58] Marc Tumminelli: And where did you get your hands on that?

[36:00] John Bow: This story is very wild.

[36:01] John Bow: Okay. I was once hired to clean a man's apartment out, and he had died, and he had everything.

[36:10] John Bow: And I took two Barbara Streisand records and this smile and this smile script, everything else was donated.

[36:16] John Bow: Anyone anyone else cleaning the apartment wouldn't know what they had in their hand. But somehow.

[36:22] John Bow: And I was like, um, and so I took those things, and uh everything else was donated to uh the library, I think at Harvard, but I have that's why I have this score.

[36:35] John Bow: So now the the script and score that you have is uh of the Broadway production, but it has been it was changed before they licensed it.

[36:44] John Bow: And who who is it licensed through?

[36:45] John Bow: So that's uh Sam French now Concord licensed the show.

[36:48] John Bow: This Broadway version is not licensable. The only version that's licensable is Howard's rewrite, which matches the demo recording where there was a lot more narration from Robin um in the original Broadway.

[37:02] John Bow: Um there is uh the opening number is drastically different. The parents are involved in the opening of the licensable version but not really it's just on the girls um in the original Broadway version.

[37:14] John Bow: There's a there's like lots of little Do you think it's do you do you think it fixes the show? Do you think the changes that they made make the show stronger?

[37:23] John Bow: God no I don't think they're any better.

[37:32] John Bow: I just think a little bit were they were rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

[37:37] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[37:37] John Bow: Um now Hamlish and Ashman never teamed up on any other project besides this, did they?

[37:43] John Bow: Well a couple things. They didn't like each other. Um Howard went to do the Disney movies which brought him unfortunately to his death so in those like not that many years after this, you know, he was completely devoted to living in Hollywood and working on his own projects with Alan Mankin and that that team seemed to be a mag that was like magic in a bottle right lightning in a bottle those two.

[38:07] Marc Tumminelli: And so did you go back to someone they didn't like.

[38:10] John Bow: Yeah well sure that that's true.

[38:12] John Bow: But even did you see the Howard Ashman documentary on Yeah and I actually rewatched it last night.

[38:17] John Bow: Um yeah it uh my God you really did do your research.

[38:20] John Bow: Yeah yeah it seemed like an amateur well his his character uh uh he seemed to be a very exacting person as a lot of director writer artist types can be you know and uh but it it seemed to be uh mesh more well with uh Mencken than it ever did with Hamlish.

[38:36] Marc Tumminelli: But I was just saying, like they they really were a good songwriting team.

[38:39] John Bow: I mean, Hamlish writes so show tunally, and Ashman is such a great storyteller. I really thought that some of the material was solid.

[38:47] John Bow: Um it's it's it's really a shame that the book didn't work, didn't come together.

[38:51] John Bow: And I mean, and they and they they're certainly tried. There, it's not like they were like, this is the show. You know, they kept reworking and kept jumping back in.

[38:58] John Bow: That's why there is legitimately to the licensed version, there's four totally different smiles. Um, some of them with different teams. Marvin Hamlisch always involved.

[39:08] John Bow: It was his idea, and um, they just kept sort of moving the needle and never quite could get it exactly right.

[39:15] Marc Tumminelli: Do you have any um favorite lyrics that you've written?

[39:19] John Bow: I have I have two. Are you ready?

[39:21] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[39:22] John Bow: Okay. Uh how have I done so far? I wish I looked like Terry Gar. I wonder what my chances are. It's so bizarre until tomorrow night. Is my favorite lyric in the whole show.

[39:25] John Bow: I wish I looked like Terry Garr. Is there any other musical reference Terry Garr?

[39:37] Marc Tumminelli: I don't think so.

[39:37] John Bow: And then I have one other. You say O I M degenerized. We've all been through it. I say you can be Bruce Generized.

[39:46] John Bow: Here's how to do it.

[39:47] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god, how did I miss that lyric?

[39:51] John Bow: It does go very fast, so I'm not, yeah.

[39:54] John Bow: Um there's so many topical references in the show, which is why when we get to the end of this and we talk about can it be redone now? it it this is a time capsule of 1980.

[40:05] John Bow: Just that single year.

[40:07] John Bow: All right, and then the other lyric that I have to point out is in "Young Young and American," Maria sings, "serve a beef enchilada full of carne picata."

[40:16] Marc Tumminelli: He'll say, "Thank you, Donata."

[40:20] John Bow: Make sure there's a lot of fried beans on the side.

[40:26] Marc Tumminelli: So good.

[40:28] John Bow: So ridiculous.

[40:29] Marc Tumminelli: Oh, yeah.

[40:30] John Bow: I mean, every lyric we just gave you is full camp.

[40:33] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[40:33] John Bow: Nothing is from the heart.

[40:35] Marc Tumminelli: I mean, "Disneyland" is a great song.

[40:37] John Bow: It is.

[40:37] Marc Tumminelli: And the reason why we're not referencing it is because it's not funny, it's just a great song.

[40:41] John Bow: But it is, I mean, the point of the song is that, you know, even though you go to Disneyland and you know it's all fake and there's speakers in the trees and everything's flat and two-dimensional, it's the illusion of the magic that she likes, and there's something to be said for that, I guess.

[40:58] John Bow: But isn't that kind of what a pageant is?

[41:01] Marc Tumminelli: It's all just, you know, it's the smoke and mirrors.

[41:04] John Bow: Vaseline on the teeth and smoking mirrors, and just, you know, I don't know.

[41:09] Marc Tumminelli: Is this what we should be worshipping as Americans?

[41:12] John Bow: This sort of false...

[41:13] Marc Tumminelli: Well, it's also like the weirdest time because Ronald Reagan was in office, and so the world got very Republican for a minute, and yeah, the ideals of women's rights and things were shifting in a... and after going through the 60s and 70s, these 80s times is like a very strange time for women and gay people and rights, and obviously, you know, this show kind of tries to comment on that, but isn't unsuccessful at making an impact.

[41:42] John Bow: Okay, so from the beginning of the whole sordid tale, now you said Hamlisch was really the brains behind starting this whole project, yes?

[41:54] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, and then Carolyn Lee died.

[41:56] John Bow: Uh, the other... Okay, let me try to go through this just because it will make it easier.

[42:00] Marc Tumminelli: So, Hamlisch called the Baltimore tryout "Smile" three because they had already been through multiple... so "Smile" one Hamlisch brought in Carolyn Lee, "LITTLE ME," Peter Pan, Tom Meehan wrote the book, but after a run-through for potential investors at Sartes, the whole draft was scrapped.

[42:18] John Bow: At that point, Jack Hefner came on.

[42:22] Marc Tumminelli: This is "Smile" version two, and he was to replace Tom Meehan.

[42:26] John Bow: He had written "Vanities" off-Broadway, and Graziella Del Danielle was brought in to direct and choreograph, and a $300,000 workshop production was staged in Michael Bennett's studio, but again, the response was negative.

[42:39] Marc Tumminelli: And then all those producers left it, and then Carolyn Lee died.

[42:44] John Bow: So the only song that exists from that original version is "Smile," the titular song.

[42:51] Marc Tumminelli: So Marvin wrote that song.

[42:52] John Bow: All the lyrics were rewritten by Howard Ashman, but that was the only song that existed from the first version to the Broadway version.

[43:00] Marc Tumminelli: Did this show really start from scratch over again twice?

[43:03] John Bow: Yes.

[43:03] Marc Tumminelli: Wow.

[43:04] John Bow: Because when Howard came on, he said, "I want to do this, but I don't want to fix anyone else's. I want to start from scratch with you, and I want to build these songs with you."

[43:13] Marc Tumminelli: And they decided to keep "Smile" as the only song, which the lyrics were scrapped, so it's not like, you know, Carolyn Lee gets any credit for that.

[43:21] John Bow: Bob Fosse had a very long meeting about directing it, and he wanted to do something very different with the show, and there's these amazing transcripts that I read a long time ago, which I did not reread for this, but sort of what he wanted to do with the show.

[43:36] Marc Tumminelli: They decided that was not a fit.

[43:37] John Bow: So Fosse passed on working on it, and then they brought in the...

[43:41] Marc Tumminelli: What was his concept?

[43:43] John Bow: I can't remember. I think it was like a very dark situation, and he really wanted to only focus on the adults.

[43:49] Marc Tumminelli: And then Howard Ashman was brought in.

[43:52] John Bow: He had interviewed and was not hired to do it a couple times ago, and so they brought him in and he became the book writer, the lyricist, and the director, and then they brought in the Schubert organization, and they did another really big workshop, and this one was like the big one.

[44:08] Marc Tumminelli: So the Schuberts came.

[44:10] John Bow: David Geffen came because obviously Howard had this connection with "Little Shop of Horrors" and the movie and David Geffen, and Marvin had this great connection with the Schuberts because he had made them millions and millions of dollars for "A Chorus Line," and they both sort of left that workshop, that very expensive workshop, and said, "We don't want anything to do with it. We think it's bad."

[44:31] Marc Tumminelli: And Marvin was so upset about this because these are people that should have believed in his talent.

[44:37] John Bow: He had two hit Broadway shows, and it really upset him.

[44:41] Marc Tumminelli: So he just decided to bring his own friends in, and he brought his best friend Richard Kagan in to raise money, and he started... Marvin started doing concerts around the country with four girls from the workshop.

[44:54] John Bow: Donna Marie Asbury, a buddy of mine, was one of the four, and they would go to Kiwanis clubs, they would go to concert venues, and they would raise money.

[45:03] Marc Tumminelli: And you could get in to pitch the show and you could give $25,000 and be part of the producing team of "Smile."

[45:10] John Bow: And so that's a very old school way of raising money for a show that wasn't really done much anymore by the 1980s.

[45:18] Marc Tumminelli: Correct.

[45:19] John Bow: And then we have to talk about Sidney Schlanker, who was the owner of the Denver Nuggets.

[45:25] Marc Tumminelli: Um, and he... who also testified in the Heidi Fleiss Hollywood Madam trial in 1995.

[45:31] John Bow: Oh my god.

[45:31] Marc Tumminelli: He had put in $2.5 million into bringing the show to Broadway, so he was the other half of the money, and he was just like this Texas sort of dude who really believed in the show.

[45:43] John Bow: It's actually very sweet.

[45:44] Marc Tumminelli: Now, I'm sure maybe you know this, but maybe not everyone else.

[45:47] John Bow: "60 Minutes" was following "Smile" from the workshop to the out-of-town Baltimore to opening night on Broadway.

[45:53] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, so there is this incredible amount of footage of the show and Marie Bobby and they all seem so excited and like gung-ho about this production.

[46:05] John Bow: They really believe in it.

[46:08] Marc Tumminelli: You can tell, you can tell in those clips.

[46:10] John Bow: She asked them, um, she asked Howard and Marvin, like, "Do you think this is gonna be a hit?"

[46:15] Marc Tumminelli: And they're like, "We don't, we have no idea. We certainly think we have something here, and if it's not a hit, it's our fault," which I think is like a really great way to put it.

[46:24] John Bow: Like it's like all the ingredients should work, so it's just a matter of like, did you cook it right or not?

[46:29] Marc Tumminelli: That's right.

[46:30] John Bow: So that's... and then there's also this very famous story of they have this opening night and the show feels like a hit, and they go to the New York Times building, and it's Marvin and Howard and Marvin reads the review, he says nothing, he hands it to Howard and walks away, and they never speak again.

[46:49] Marc Tumminelli: This is like Broadway legend.

[46:50] John Bow: Whoa.

[46:51] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[46:52] John Bow: Because it's a terrible review.

[46:54] Marc Tumminelli: Yes, and is that the Frank Rich?

[46:56] John Bow: And yes, that's a Frank Rich review, which I'm sure we'll get to.

[46:59] Marc Tumminelli: And Marvin disappears, he never comes back to the theater again, he never talks to the cast again.

[47:05] John Bow: And Howard, the wonderful man that he is, and not that Marvin was not, but he goes to the theater all the time, he keeps the girls excited, he does everything he can to keep the mojo at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater to be as exciting as possible to get through these 48 shows and that we have a great show here.

[47:23] Marc Tumminelli: And he really believed in it in a way that Marvin unfortunately is not putting it.

[47:28] John Bow: Well, and Marvin had, like you said, Marvin had been through the ringer with this project and had been through several rewrites, several composing partners, and had just had enough and needed to walk at this point.

[47:41] Marc Tumminelli: But it's great that Ashman stayed around to keep, you know, spirits high.

[47:45] John Bow: Now, Marvin really did still believe in the score that he wrote, and he took my buddy Donna Marie, who you can listen to on "LITTLE ME: Growing Up Broadway," who was in this show and Marily and Gypsy with Angela Lansbury.

[47:56] Marc Tumminelli: She's the greatest stories.

[47:57] John Bow: Anyway, she took her on tour, and they did symphony gigs years after "Smile," and she sang "Disneyland" at every Symphony gig that he had for years, and he took care of her in that way, which was really lovely.

[48:11] Marc Tumminelli: And she wound up singing "Disneyland" on Joan Rivers because they couldn't swing Jody out of the show because press was coming.

[48:18] John Bow: And so there's this great footage of Donna singing, Marvin's at the piano and they're singing "Disneyland" on Joan Rivers, who was in for Johnny Carson during the preview period of "Smile."

[48:28] Marc Tumminelli: Wow, that's amazing.

[48:29] John Bow: Is there, can you find that on YouTube?

[48:31] Marc Tumminelli: I, yeah, I found it when I was interviewing Donna.

[48:34] John Bow: Oh, I have to search for it.

[48:35] Marc Tumminelli: I'll find it and send it to you.

[48:36] John Bow: No, please do.

[48:37] Marc Tumminelli: It's great.

[48:38] John Bow: Wow.

[48:39] Marc Tumminelli: So those are all the versions of this musical.

[48:41] John Bow: I mean, it's really two people who love the source material, really thought they could make it work, tried everything they could, and it just did not, those Legos did not click in, sadly.

[48:51] Marc Tumminelli: Well, but it seems as though, you know, sometimes in these stories, the producers, you know, they can't raise money from the right producer, and that's part of why the show fails.

[49:01] John Bow: They can't get enough money together.

[49:03] Marc Tumminelli: But in this case, it seemed like the producers could tell that there were problems with this show and that they needed to be fixed, or that they couldn't be fixed.

[49:11] John Bow: Where... and also like think about what was happening. Like every musical was a British invasion that was a hit.

[49:15] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[49:17] John Bow: And so "Rags" was the last American musical I think before this, also Flop Ola.

[49:22] Marc Tumminelli: And then this, so then there was a lot riding on this show being a wild success.

[49:27] John Bow: And it was an American musical that was gonna save American musical theater.

[49:31] Marc Tumminelli: I mean, obviously "La Cage" had been a hit the year before, but this, there was a lot riding on this for everybody.

[49:36] John Bow: Marvin needed a hit.

[49:37] Marc Tumminelli: Howard had never had a Broadway show, and you know, he never had a Broadway hit while he was living.

[49:37] John Bow: "Little Shop" was an enormous hit that was an off-Broadway musical.

[49:47] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[49:47] John Bow: And so everybody had a lot riding on making this show a very big success.

[49:51] Marc Tumminelli: So I think the failure felt very deep for everybody.

[49:55] John Bow: I'm sure. Well, I think it might be time for my favorite part of this podcast, and that is Critical Reception.

[50:05] Marc Tumminelli: Um, now did you... you have the Frank Rich?

[50:05] John Bow: Um, I have the Frank Rich review and I have my favorite line from that, and then I have like two good reviews.

[50:13] Marc Tumminelli: So we don't want to only talk about the negative.

[50:16] John Bow: Of course, yeah. So let me read a little bit from Alan Wallach, Newsday. This was from November nineteen eighty-six. The title of his article is "An Empty Smile Greets Broadway."

[50:29] Marc Tumminelli: Hamlisch and Ashman have turned out a glossy musical many people may enjoy, probably the same people who'd enjoy an actual Young American Miss Pageant.

[50:38] John Bow: But in adapting Jerry Belson's 75 screenplay, Ashman has softened the satire to the consistency of oatmeal.

[50:48] Marc Tumminelli: Not oatmeal.

[50:49] John Bow: Not oatmeal.

[50:50] Marc Tumminelli: The teenage contestants and their adult supervisors are so bland that it's a relief when the professional choreographer who shows up to stage the pageant is a cynic, even though his character too has been watered down.

[51:03] John Bow: As in the Hamlisch composed "A Chorus Line," the built-in suspense has to do with who wins and who loses.

[51:10] Marc Tumminelli: But unlike the distinctively personal "Chorus Line" songs, some of those in "Smile" are sung by all 16 contestants for the title.

[51:18] John Bow: The contestants are given so little individuality that only a parent could care who wins.

[51:26] Marc Tumminelli: That is exactly right.

[51:28] John Bow: Also, you're such a good reader.

[51:30] Marc Tumminelli: Oh, thanks.

[51:31] John Bow: Four stars.

[51:32] Marc Tumminelli: I wish someone would pay me for it, but here I am.

[51:34] John Bow: They're paying for you, aren't you reading some lines in "Cats"?

[51:37] Marc Tumminelli: No, just a few.

[51:38] John Bow: Yeah, there's not many lines at all.

[51:40] Marc Tumminelli: I tried improving a few lines in rehearsals, but they told me, "Just stick to the T.S. Eliot."

[51:45] John Bow: It's odd that they didn't want you to change up Kat's musical jobs.

[51:51] Marc Tumminelli: Seems so odd to me that they didn't want to add your own line.

[51:53] John Bow: Okay, it was strange to me too.

[51:55] Marc Tumminelli: Um, the last quote I have from Alan in Newsday is, "The performers can't provide what isn't there: an overarching viewpoint that would make the pageant a microcosm of larger value conflicts."

[52:07] John Bow: Trying hard to be likable, the show is the equivalent of those smile buttons people used to wear.

[52:13] Marc Tumminelli: Like too syrupy, I guess.

[52:15] John Bow: All right, give us some of Frank Rich's New York Times review.

[52:19] Marc Tumminelli: I only took this quote, and you can read the rest.

[52:21] John Bow: "When a show has more endings than it does numbers in its second act, that's a sure sign it lacks creative vitality and an engaging point of view."

[52:30] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[52:30] John Bow: And these, as I've mentioned, the second act is the problem of this show.

[52:33] Marc Tumminelli: Correct.

[52:35] John Bow: Do you have more Frank Rich you'd like to share?

[52:37] Marc Tumminelli: Yes.

[52:37] John Bow: Um, he says, "The show is sporadically amusing."

[52:44] Marc Tumminelli: Raves.

[52:44] John Bow: "Schizoid in tone."

[52:46] Marc Tumminelli: I think I just... I would love to see "sporadically amusing" on a marquee.

[52:50] John Bow: Frank Rich says, "In place of the well-drawn characters and clever numbers that might have lifted 'Smile' above its premise's limitations, there is a convoluted plot populated by stereotypes."

[53:00] Marc Tumminelli: For reasons too boring to repeat, a dramatic high point in Act 1 is a dispute about the placement of a ramp, while Act Two offers a marital brawl in which Mrs. Freelander suddenly confronts Big Bob with a feminist bill of demands.

[53:16] John Bow: At that point, "Smile" inexplicably metamorphoses into a disillusioned Sondheim Prince musical about the collapse of the American dream, but without the theatrical, thematic, or musical substance to lend support or even credence to such dark ambitions.

[53:41] John Bow: How about this one? This good looking show has a lot to like.

[53:49] Marc Tumminelli: I love it.

[53:50] John Bow: They loved it.

[53:51] Marc Tumminelli: They loved it.

[53:52] John Bow: It was for women.

[53:54] Marc Tumminelli: I love the reviews in Women's Wear Daily.

[53:57] John Bow: You had other good reviews?

[53:59] Marc Tumminelli: That's I think that's awesome.

[54:00] John Bow: That's all.

[54:01] Marc Tumminelli: It's actually kind of hard to find reviews for this show.

[54:04] John Bow: It was, yeah.

[54:05] Marc Tumminelli: Um the only other article I was able to find, this is William B. Collins, the Philadelphia Inquirer. The title was Fate of Smile Reinforces the Sad Plight of Musicals.

[54:15] John Bow: Uh, just a couple quotes from him. He said, The Broadway musical has been dying a slow death. I mean, how many times have we heard that? Fifteen years ago, there were 20 new musicals to be seen. Last year, there were 10. For several years, the nominating committee for the Tony Awards has been hard pressed to come up with even four respectable musicals in the same season. Rising production costs have been a major factor, but there's more to the problem than that. When people like Hal Prince and Charles Strauss lose their touch, the reason may lie in some sea change that has come over popular taste.

[54:46] Marc Tumminelli: Audiences are increasingly drawn to the easy, uncomplicated, and mindless pleasure of what has come to be known as the review. And this is the same time period as like Ain't Misbehaven was a big hit, and like these the beginning of what would become what we would call a jukebox type of show.

[55:01] John Bow: Quote, it may be that the Broadway musical is not dead, but merely stalled between the sophisticates of the Sondheim school and the undoubted appeal of the old-fashioned hack work represented by Jerry Herman and Lakage. In the middle are the reviews that entertain without really engaging the attention. Plainly, we need someone to reconcile the contradictions and revive a dying form.

[55:24] Marc Tumminelli: And that really does, I think, speak to what was happening in the 80s. It's these big new style rock type musicals were coming out of London and with roller skates.

[55:35] John Bow: With roller skates and masks and wigs and cat fur.

[55:40] Marc Tumminelli: But America was not innovating anymore in theater. They were trying to either recreate what they'd been doing for 50, 60 years, or they were coming up with stuff that just was plainly not working.

[55:52] John Bow: So this brings us to what are the major reasons the show failed. So we've already talked about uh, you know, the problem with the producers and the I mean, the biggest plot points in the show are Child Kitty porn, the ramp, and Robin's refusal to reveal orphan points. So what what else?

[56:10] Marc Tumminelli: Now, Hamlish and Ashman not getting along, I'm sure, contributed. And I I and also I did ask uh Donna about that, and she had said I never saw them not, they never got into a fight in front of us. They never it never felt like contentious. So I don't think the girls experienced that at all. Um, but I do think that probably behind the scenes it was probably pretty hard for these two wildly creative people to come together and try to create a musical that is not working. And then, you know, maybe they just both had a little too much riding on it, you know. It's like the desperate need to get it right. Um, and that that they didn't have the vote of confidence from the Schuberts that David Geffen pulled out. Like those things probably really propelled them maybe in a negative way, in that people love what we're doing, let's keep creating instead of like it's not working, it's not working.

[57:01] John Bow: Um, but there's there's just too many characters, not enough, not enough development. And I think that you know, that ultimately the show doesn't exactly know what it is, and that is the problem for most musicals that fail, which is when you see a great musical, it knows what it is and it does it. You're like, oh, you know what you're doing, but this show did not necessarily know what it is, and it certainly didn't do that thing.

[57:23] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, yeah, uh in a good musical, you leave the theater knowing exactly what the authors were intending to say. And or at least you could still or at least discussing it, you know, talking about what they might have said, but this is it's so confusing. And I think part of that is the sort of the romanticizing of the Disneyland concept. It's ironic that there's these two views of Disneyland, the magical enchanted version and the cardboard version. And the cardboard version is is the reality. However, it's the fake version that gets romanticized, and then this musical sort of becomes about that very thing. It misses the satirical element or any commentary on the phoniness of the pageantry itself. Instead, we keep coming back to Big Bob saying, This is the heart of America. This is the this is the point of life, you know.

[58:09] John Bow: And it's like, really? Is it Bob? Because I'm do you think that it is uh because they didn't want to dog the very medium that they were celebrating that you know to say pageants are dumb, this is unnecessary when pageants were still kind of a big thing.

[58:25] Marc Tumminelli: I mean, it feels that way because the the drama that they put into the show is more about the scandal uh behind the scenes than it is about the fact that this whole thing is just a way for the producer to make money or you know, just like uh an exploitation of young female bodies. Um that isn't really commented upon.

[58:44] John Bow: I mean, it it isn't in listening to the score. Maybe if I read the the dusty script you have in your hand.

[58:52] Marc Tumminelli: So is there a way for this show to work today?

[58:55] John Bow: Yes.

[58:56] Marc Tumminelli: Oh my god. So I'm gonna tell the little mini quick story because it's boring. But about a decade ago, I was brought on to write a new book um to juniorize Smile as a high school edition.

[59:08] John Bow: Oh my gosh.

[59:09] Marc Tumminelli: And uh series of events happened with people at Sam French and it wound up falling apart. And um, I after having this conversation today, I'm very engaged in wanting to try to make that happen again. And um, every every body steals every idea I've ever had, so um, I'm not gonna share uh what I would do with it, but I do think it needs to be a one act musical, like a hundred-minute straight through show that really focuses on these two girls.

[59:35] John Bow: And the big issue that we have in the show is that neither one of our two girls wins the pageant.

[59:40] Marc Tumminelli: And so I think I have come up with a way that uh would be satisfying for the audience and also will not be satisfying for us right now because you're not gonna tell us.

[59:49] John Bow: Well, because then, like, you know, someone a little fancier than me, like calls Concord Theatricals tomorrow morning and they have a deal for the code.

[59:56] Marc Tumminelli: Of course, of course. So I have I have some ideas, and I do think it could really work, especially if the campsite is built up, the great songs stay, the things that are clunkers go, and um I've done all the work already. It's like done.

[1:00:08] John Bow: And so I mean, like, if you're looking at my little script, it all has all of my cuts it does that I made uh 10 years ago. But I think it could work.

[1:00:18] Marc Tumminelli: I have some questions.

[1:00:20] John Bow: I may or may not have an answer.

[1:00:22] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, how do you how would you would you completely eliminate the Maria character as to not offend the Latin community?

[1:00:30] John Bow: I think that it has to be uh done carefully, and I think that uh the right people need to be consulted on that before there's a final version.

[1:00:38] Marc Tumminelli: Okay, but I do think that what they're saying about the pageant is that they are promoting this girl because she's Latina and they want to celebrate that she's unlike the rest of these girls, and um I think that there's something about that that is actually kind of important to talk about. I think it just can't be done as a she has to be making the choice to do it to do correctly.

[1:01:03] John Bow: Exactly.

[1:01:03] Marc Tumminelli: And I I I think it's a bad idea to ignore that it exists because it's a real thing and it's uh it's a real conversation I think people have now.

[1:01:11] John Bow: So yeah, but she does the character must be in on the joke.

[1:01:15] Marc Tumminelli: On that they're doing it on purpose, and I think that that's okay. Also, Smile has been done but at hundreds of high schools. It's not like the show has not been touched.

[1:01:22] John Bow: Okay, but like with the with the pornography element. Because that also can shift to so many things. It doesn't have to be completely like boobies out.

[1:01:33] Marc Tumminelli: Uh-huh.

[1:01:33] John Bow: Um she can be in a towel and looking like a terrible with like a face mask on. Do you know what I mean?

[1:01:39] Marc Tumminelli: Sure.

[1:01:39] John Bow: Okay.

[1:01:39] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah.

[1:01:40] John Bow: Just needs to ruin her.

[1:01:42] Marc Tumminelli: And yes, it is more scandalous if she's completely naked, but I don't think there's any world where that's appropriate anymore. Each girl comes forward and they say I'm smiling because this, I'm smiling because this and it's a gorgeous glamour shot of them.

[1:01:48] John Bow: Gorgeous glamour shot.

[1:01:55] Marc Tumminelli: Then we get to this girl with a towel on and a face mask and colors in her hair. Look in a rack, it's enough to still ruin the pageant. And maybe it's a series of photos.

[1:02:04] John Bow: So we triple down on it. Do you know what I mean?

[1:02:06] Marc Tumminelli: Of course there's there's ways to make it work and I and multiple high schools have done it many different ways. I've never actually seen the show at a high school so I don't know what they have done to do that.

[1:02:16] John Bow: I don't think that this show can work on Broadway personally.

[1:02:19] Marc Tumminelli: Gotcha.

[1:02:20] John Bow: Um yeah I would say you know not and especially not with like you were saying before that weird focus on the Reagan era value system of the 80s. I think that needs to be kind of re looked at.

[1:02:34] Marc Tumminelli: But how fun to see these girls in a send up of the 80s with the big hair and the neon clothes and the headbands.

[1:02:40] John Bow: Sure.

[1:02:41] Marc Tumminelli: And singing about Terry Gardner.

[1:02:43] John Bow: Period peach.

[1:02:44] Marc Tumminelli: It's fun it's I mean that's it would be weird to set Bye Bye Birdie in 2022. It doesn't make sense.

[1:02:49] John Bow: Well I have a question for you. I and I mean as a person who works with young talent in the age of social media what do you think the show says or can say about sort of curating one's image and the sort of that winning is everything mentality. Because I mean you work with kids that are you know they have to be competitive if they're trying to get Broadway gosh.

[1:03:12] Marc Tumminelli: And it's you know it's not the right it's not that different than 16 girls auditioning to play Lydia in Beetlejuice like what is the difference?

[1:03:18] John Bow: Yeah like they're all bringing themselves to it so ideally if that is a conversation maybe a director has like you all audition to play Doria like what what is it about you that makes you stand out what is it about you that makes you special and these girls trying to fit in a box to be Kim Kardashian or whatever that that's the comment of today is that it still comes down to who are you the person who is most in their own body the person who's most willing to share who they are inside the person who's um not trying to take everyone down to bring themselves up generally tends to be the people who win in life and also can win in this pageant who you know get the part.

[1:03:57] Marc Tumminelli: I agree with that and I I I've enjoyed seeing the show through your eyes.

[1:04:02] John Bow: Through these brown eyes baby um all right well before we wrap this up by the way this was just great. Thank you so much for being here this was fun and I uh why don't you uh what do you have to plug right now talk about uh where can we find more info about sure always follow us at Broadway Workshop to see if you're interested in classes and workshops for young people and we're gonna be doing some things in January for 18 plus um so check out BW Studio that's gonna be a new thing coming your way and um you can always touch down on the LITTLE ME podcast at little me podcast on Instagram and uh follow little me and uh we we have a great time over at the Little Me Podcast.

[1:04:42] Marc Tumminelli: I get to talk to so many fun people who are child stars or people that I'm just obsessed with that I want to hear what they were doing when they were kids. And uh a lot of people listen and that makes me really happy. So check out LITTLE ME podcast.

[1:04:53] John Bow: Yeah it's so it's so great. I reckon I highly recommend it. It's so nice to hear these big Broadway stars talk about the way that they started when they were kids and all the people they met and it's just it it makes you I don't know it brings it all down to earth a little bit.

[1:05:08] Marc Tumminelli: Yeah, I mean it's a crazy thing to be a famous kid. I just can't imagine. I don't I mean I wanted that so desperately for myself um so now I'll I'll live through others.

[1:05:18] John Bow: Um of course check out Better Nate Than Ever on Disney Plus in April I think and uh and follow me because I'm a narcissist at Marc Tumminelli um because I love to see those see those follows thank you so much for joining us for this episode Marla will be back with us next time for another flop follow us on Instagram at Flop of the Heap or email us at show at flop of the heap podcast dot com to suggest our next flop like and subscribe on iTunes Spotify Stitcher or wherever you happen to be listening and be sure to leave us a comment the Flop of the Heap podcast is researched recorded edited and produced by Marla Alpert and John Bow.

[1:05:56] John Bow: Learn more about how you can support our flopastic endeavors by joining us at patreon.com slash flop of the heap podcast for as little as five dollars a month you too can be a Flop of the Heap podcast supporter until next time bye maybe it's all fake that's a chance I'll take it's perfectly okay Disneyland Take Me there to Disneyland I don't want to get to Disney.