32 | JANUARY 16 • 2020

C

omposer Alan Menken’
s studio,
just outside New York City,
became the setting for work with
lyricist Glenn Slater to develop the score
for a musical version of A
Bronx Tale, first a one-man
stage production and then
a large-cast film.
The award-winning
musical team, while punc-
tuating the fictionalized
early neighborhood experiences of
actor-writer Chazz Palminteri, sought
to enhance the emotional sensitivities in
this coming-of-age story reimagined for
the stage.
The plot moves along as a youngster
(Calogero) makes life choices, watching
the modest and honorable example of
his dad (Lorenzo) as compared to the
flashy and danger-filled ways of a mob
boss (Sonny).
A Bronx Tale: The Musical, scheduled
Jan. 21 -Feb. 2 at the Fisher Theatre, is
filled with some 15 musical numbers
accentuating a Palminteri script.
“Music turns up sights, sounds and

feelings, so Alan and I tried to create
[what could have been] heard in the
1960s on a street in the Bronx,” explains
Slater, who earlier partnered with
Menken on the scores of the film Home
on the Range, the stage production of
Sister Act and the TV series Galavant.
The two wanted audiences to under-
stand what it might have meant to
experience snatches of music from car
radios, the candy store on the corner, an
apartment with an open window and a
transistor radio held by a teen sitting on
a stoop.
“We tried to bring a sense of all these
different strands of music — whether
it be doo-wop or Motown or Sinatra or
Bobby Darin — from that era blending
together,” Slater explains. “Using that
musical tapestry with this story packs a
real wallop when you get to the end.”
Slater’
s favorite song in the show is
“One of the Great Ones.” It expresses
the way one person looks back on life,
and Slater can relate to that general
idea, especially as it pertains to raising
his two teenage sons.

Slater and Menken, working together
for 20 years, have established a comfort-
able way of collaborating.
“I have a title for a song in mind and
a line or two of lyric,” Slater, 51, says.
“We’
ll spend a big part of time talking
about the characters,
scene and what we
want the song to do
and sound like. Once
we’
ve discussed it,
Alan will sit down at
the keyboard and start
writing it in musical
language.
“
At the end of two
or three hours, we’
ll
have a finished melody of the musical
push of the song, and I have a sense
of where I want to go language-wise. I
spend up to a week building the lyric,
and we’
ll sit down at the keyboard again.
He’
ll work on the melody based on what
I have given him. We do the nips and
tucks together, and the song is finished.”
Slater, also a composer, got his career
interest in high school, when he came

Glenn Slater

Arts&Life

theater

Life Choices

A Bronx Tale takes audiences back to a 1960s street scene.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

JOAN MARCUS

details
A Bronx Tale: The Musical
runs Jan. 21-Feb. 2 at the
Fisher Theatre. Tickets start
at $39. (313) 872-1000,
ext. 0. broadwayindetroit.com.

TOP: The Bronx Tale company