An almost-perfect union: Alice Cooper & Michael Bennett

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/5/14 at 4:30pm

In the winter of 1973, Alice Cooper almost had his very own show on the Broadway, "Alice at The Palace". And Michael Bennett was going to be the director.

As Alice told After Dark:

"We figured that Broadway has never seen real rock," explained the hit maker. "Hair wasn't rock. Our show is going to be a rock and roll combination on Hellzapoppin and Dracula! Michael Bennett's going to direct us. He's the best. I saw Follies and I thought it was terrific. Michael won the Tony Award for it. If you're going to do the best thing on Broadway, you might as well get the best person! Michael hadn't seen us but he'd heard a lot about us. I guess we have a lot of notoriety!" Alice pauses and smiles shyly. He stares at the television set for a moment. We are now listening to the theme from Mission Impossible. "I went over to Michael's apartment and we talked a lot about it," he resumes. "Michael said that the kids are alienated towards Broadway and parents are alienated towards rock. We'll have parents bringing their kids and kids bringing their parents." Suddenly Alice Cooper flashes that fiendish grin this is almost a trademark of his on-stage rock horror show. "We're going to lock the doors after the audience comes in," he continues gleefully. "That will separate the men from the boys! We're also going to have dancers and people planted in the audience. We're trying to get a lot of Palace-type vaudevillians to be in it. Not the dead ones. We don't want to dig them up. But you'll be seeing us with people you'd never expect to see us with. We're trying to get the Three Stooges. Two weeks ago, I was going some place and I was talking about the show and my chauffeur said, 'I played the Guy in the Straight Jacket in Hellzapoppin in 1934.' Now, that chauffeur is going to be in the show. We're trying to get the entire Hellzapoppin crew together."

But for all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been."

From Rock Scene, the following summer:

This spring Alice's appearance in New York City was supposed to have been "Alice At The Palace", an appearance at the Palace Theatre just off Times Square, a real big, splashy Broadway show; choreographed and everything, but then it didn't happen, and now Alice is slated for Madison Square Garden instead.

"The Palace got much too complicated," Alice says. "It's easy to say you want to do a show on Broadway, but the unions . . . God! is it a problem. Shep (Shep Gordon, Alice's manager) had to go and wear a suit and tie to meet with them, they thought the kids where going to come in and tear up the seats - which they might have done, I don't know. We couldn't use any of our own road rats - we would have to use all union people, it just got ridiculous."

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/5/14 at 5:40pm

Alice Cooper, union buster?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/5/14 at 6:03pm

His Republicanism is life-long. Golfing with Jerry Ford and all.

Still, to have been a spider on the wall at that meeting in Bennett's apartment.