July 22 - Alan Menken

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On this day, in 1949, Alan Irwin Menken was born in New York, New York. The son of an actress and a piano playing dentist, Alan showed an aptitude for music at an early age. He learned to play the piano and the violin before moving right on into composing. By the age of nine, his original works were receiving Superior scores from the judges of the New York Federation of Music Clubs Junior Composers Contest. Alan graduated from New Rochelle High School in 1967 and moved on to New York University. He enrolled as a pre-med student, a nod to dear old dad, but graduated in 1971 with a degree in Musicology. From there, his plans went in one of two directions. He was either going to be a composer or a rock star. He got to have his cake and eat it too by becoming a rock star of composing.

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Shortly after his college graduation, Alan joined a musical theater workshop sponsored by Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). He continued to participate in BMI workshops over the next several years, writing songs for potential musicals and then performing them around town in clubs like The Ballroom and Tramps. To make money during this period, he wrote jingles, accompanied ballet troupes, wrote songs for Sesame Street and was a vocal coach. In 1979, Alan would earn some modest success when he teamed up with an up an coming playwright, Howard Ashman, to create a musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. The show got great reviews but not so great box office receipts. It didn’t matter. The two men worked well together and were destined for bigger things.

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In 1982, Alan and Howard’s next collaboration opened just off-Broadway at the WPA Theater. Based on a 1960 dark comedy film by Roger Corman, Little Shop of Horrors got rave reviews and soon moved to the Orpheum Theater where it ran for five years, smashing the box office record for an off-Broadway production. In 1986, a hit movie version was released starring Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene, and earned Alan and Howard their first Oscar nomination. The success of Little Shop brought the duo the attention of producers at the Walt Disney Studios who were looking for the right people to turn their next animated film into a musical.

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The mission that Disney Alan and Howard in 1987 was a simple one: after years of the company’s animation product being subpar, they needed to help create a Disney musical that could stand up to comparison with Snow White or Cinderella. No pressure though. I’ve read stories about the song writing duo holing up with nothing more than a synthesizer, in one of those buildings in New York where every floor is just dozens of tiny recording studios lined up in a row. Every time the door to their studio opened, the music that spilled out into the hall caused other doors to other studios to open as everyone wanted to know what was going on in there. And that was before a full orchestra and talents of Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll and Samuel E. Wright were added. Needless to say, Alan and Howard did good. The Little Mermaid became the company’s first smash hit in years, due in no small part to its soundtrack. When awards time came around, the boys would earn an Oscar for Best Song (Under the Sea) while Alan picked up a second one for Best Score. The Disney Renaissance had begun and Alan was going to provide a pretty big chunk of the music for it.

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Alan and Howard rolled right on into their next project, another classic fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. You might have thought it would be hard for them to top their work in Mermaid, but they did. Their deft blending of romance and humor, spectacle and intimacy pushed Disney’s 30^th animated feature to a place cartoons had never been before: a nomination for the Best Picture Oscar. The boys also picked up not one but three nominations (and the win) for Best Song (Beauty and the Beast edged out Belle and Be Our Guest) while Alan again received the statue for Best Score. The ceremony would have been a magical evening of true celebration centering on Alan and Howard’s talents except for one thing. Howard wasn’t there to share in it.

During production on Mermaid, Howard had revealed to Alan that he’d been diagnosed as HIV+. As work progressed on Beast, so did Howard’s illness. Part way through production, meetings began to be held at Howard’s home and animators would be shocked as to how quickly AIDS was ravaging his body between sessions. Howard continued to work though, writing and rewriting songs and coaxing better performances out of Paige O’Hara and Robbie Benson, right up to the end of his life. Beast had its first screening for the press on March 10, 1991. Producer Don Hahn visited a barely alive Howard in the hospital to tell him about the incredibly enthusiastic reception. Four days later, he died.

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Work had already begun on the duo’s follow-up to Beast, Aladdin, when Howard passed away. Alan needed a new lyricist to work with (notes were his thing, not words) and he brought in the award winning Tim Rice to finish the songs for the film. Alan again picked up two Oscars that year, Best Song with Tim for A Whole New World and Best Score on his own. It should be noted that A Whole New World also won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, the only time a Disney song has managed to do that.

Following Aladdin, Alan has collaborated with a number of lyricists, none of whom can hold a candle to Howard in my opinion but all successful none the less. He teamed with Jack Feldman for Newsies, Stephen Schwartz for Pocahontas (picking up two more Oscars), Stephen again for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, David Zippel for Hercules, which was a bit of a throwback to his Little Shop days (not only musically but because he and David had worked together back then, too), Glen Slater for Home on the Range and Tangled and Stephen once again for Enchanted. Alan has also scored some non musical films for Disney as well including Touchstone Pictures' Life With Mikey and the 2006 remake of The Shaggy Dog.

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In recent years, Alan has been quite busy revisiting old projects and adding new material to them. For the Broadway stage he's helped bolster Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. A stage version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame became the longest running show ever in Berlin, Germany. Alan has also been (for better or worse; don't get me started) part of the teams that have been turning classic Disney animated films into live action movies. He revised old songs and wrote new ones for the live versions of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.

Outside of Disney (does that even exist anymore?), Alan has written music for a number of shows, several of which have had Broadway runs. His version of A Christmas Carol premiered in 1994 and became an annual event at Madison Square Garden for a decade. He's also written adaptations of Sister Act, A Bronx Tale and Leap of Faith. He is reportedly working on a stage version of Corrina, Corrina and had a reading of a new piece in collaboration with Jack Feldman and Harvey Fierstein called Greetings from Niagra Falls, but that production seems to have stalled.

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For basically writing everything everyone wants to put on their modern Disney playlist, Alan was declared an official Disney Legend in 2001. Not that he's done composing for the company by a long shot. He's currently working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on new music for the live action version of The Little Mermaid. And there's persistent rumors about a sequel to Enchanted (but don't hold your breath on that one). Alan is already at the top of the list of Living People with the Most Oscars with eight, but he's tied for third on the list of all time winners. I wouldn't be surprised if he pulls a couple more out of his little hat as time goes on here. Until then, we send good vibes Alan's way and wish him a happy 70th Birthday!