MARTIN P. ROBINSON (puppeteer) Howard later told me that when he presented the script’s challenges – the need for a plant that would start small and incrementally grow bigger, as well as talk, sing and take over the stage, than the world – most of the people he spoke to said : “Well, you’re going to have to give this up.” I was the only one who said, “Yeah, sure, you can do all of that.”
Rehearsals started in earnest as Menken and Ashman continued to wind down their project as the actors settled into their roles.
ELLEN GREEN (Audrey) Howard lived on Greenwich Avenue, around the corner from the Pink Tea Cup, and Alan sat at the piano, Howard pacing up and down. He was a very strong director – very intelligent, with a dry sense of humor and a huge heart. Alan wanted to please Howard, and it was like a dance between the two of them. It was lovely to watch.
LUZ Ashman had that kind of intellect that goes 100 miles faster than anyone else. He would remember the lyrics and he knew every bit of music from the 60s and 70s.
MENKEN Howard could be impatient about music because it was the one thing he couldn’t do right away! [Laughs]
For the score Menken chose a mix of pop, rock and Latin.
MENKEN It’s the dark side of “Grease”, but there are also elements that nod to the late ’50s and early ’60s – beach blanket horror movies with people dancing on the beach as a monster came out of the water to terrorize people – as well as Phil Spector rock, which is apocalyptic in tone. And then our narrators were a girl group derived from the Ronettes and the Shirelles. It was a real cocktail of really dark themes and fun spoof elements.
Thanks to his father, Menken had an idea for the stage musical that would become iconic.
MENKEN My father, who was a dentist, was actually president of the New York branch of the American Analgesia Society, an association of dentists who promote the use of nitrous oxide as safe. So I figured Orin was obsessed with nitrous oxide and put the mask on itself to enjoy the sadomasochistic joy of drilling teeth and then securing the mask. Howard thought it was hilarious. My dad even supplied the slides for the “Look, Seymour, this could happen to you” section!
