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

