Your Own Forbidden Broadway Tunes

I've written some pretty funny parodies of Legally Blonde that I might post someday.

Akiva

It's Your Dying Day (Wedding Singer)
Getting to Slap You (The King and I)
I Can't Do Him Alone (Chicago)
The Color Purple Rain (The Color Purple and Purple Rain)

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LuPone "Gypsy": Everything's Coming up Crazy (And, from me, crazy is a compliment)

Laura Benanti: "I'm Fin'ly Healthy" (I'm Young and Healthy)

Phantom of the Opera: "I Will Never Leave Here" (I Will Never Leave You)

Christine Ebersole in "Grey Gardens": "What Award Don't I Have?" (What Did I Have that I Don't Have?)

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Lemme try and write a Spring Awakening parody of Who Will Love Me As I Am:

When I first premiered on Broadway,
I was banned for 90 years
All I got were gasps and hisses
Instead of laughter and tears
Now I've won myself eight Tonies
I'm adored by screaming fans
But I am on Broadway wond'rin'
Who Will Love Me As I Am

I was once so controversial
An important work of art
But now folks all sit on stage left
To see Jon Groff's private parts
They just listen to the rock songs
They don't care for what's onstage
They don't care about the fact that
This play's never gonna age

I should be considered rough and edgy
Instead of hipper than eggs and ham
And I'm asking all of Broadway
Who Will Love Me As I Am

All that risque subject matter
Was what drove the crowds away
And the last time that we sold out
Was on Gallagher's last day

Who will look beyond the rock score
And the kids with microphones?
Will those who call me the next Rent
Just leave me the heck alone

I should be considered rough and edgy
Instead of hipper than eggs and ham
And I'm asking all of Broadway
Who Will Love Me As I Am

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Here's my Light in the Piazza parody. I really do love this show, despite how scating the parody is. So, Adam Guettel, Craig Lucas, Vicki Clark, Kelli O'Hara...I'm sorry. You're all brilliant and your show is too!

Richard Rodgers enters with Adam Guettel.

RODGERS: This is my grandson, Adam Guettel.

GUETTEL: Hey grandpa.

RODGERS: You stink! Ever hear of a melody?

GUETTEL: But grandpa, this is the new way of writing shows. Purple prose lyrics, tuneless melodies and a book that plagiarizes an episode of “The OC!” Isn’t it great?

RODGERS: No.

GUETTEL: Well, maybe you’ll have to give my new show a second look.

He snaps his fingers and the two exit as Victoria Clark as Margaret from “Piazza” enters in that horrible southern accent.

CLARK: Hello, my name is Victoria Clark, the Tony Winner for Best Actress in a Musical of 2005. I won for “The Light in the Piazza” which I’m still staring in today. I play a middle class hick from North Carolina who speaks all her dialogue like this and sings...

She operatically sings.

CLARK:
Like this!

On a senseless square
In a city made of scum
Was a center

It was sleek and modern
On the west side of NYC

At the center
A musical would play

Kelli O’Hara enters.

O’HARA:
What kind of play, mom?

CLARK:
Just a new show about a girl who was so

O’HARA:
Oh!

CLARK:
Retarded

On a central square
Was a musical with music so boring

O’HARA
Was their a beat? Was there a tune?

CLARK:
By a man whose grandpa
Wrote “The Sound of Music” and such

O’HARA:
Dick Rodgers

CLARK:
Adam Guettel

O’HARA:
Adam Guettel

CLARK:
Is retarded just like you

O’HARA: That’s a completely boring story

CLARK:
T’was a boring show unfurling

O’HARA:
It had a heart!
But the music is so bad you know

CLARK:
The book should go


O’HARA:
On a senseless square

CLARK:
In a city made of Disney and Sondheim

O’HARA:
Hey I’m retarded, what is that?

CLARK:
They blew up the porn
The city’s Disneyland after dark
But this show is

O’HARA:
But this show is

CLARK:
Not like Disney

O’HARA:
Not like Disney

CLARK:
And the public
Doesn’t follow
‘Cause the sugar
doesn’t swallow!

Hey that rhymed!

O’HARA:
We’re on vacation!

Matthew Morrison enters in an Italian accent.

MORRISON: Why do you randomly scream like this?

O’HARA: Who are you?

MORRISON: (in American boy accent) I’m Link Larkin from “Hairspray” (back in Italian) in an Italian accent.

Morrison’s father enters. He too speaks with an Italian accent.

FATHER: Mathew Morrison what do you here? Go back to the Neil Simon to all the Teeny Boppers. Andre Bishop does a-not want them at the Lincoln Center.

MORRISON: Father, I am in love!

FATHER: So soon, you didn’t even catch her hat! How can you be in love?

A hat falls from the flies. Morrison catches it.

MORRISON: Now I did.

O’HARA: I love you.

MORRISON: So do I. Let us make passionate love.

They go off kissing.

FATHER: Love! Love! Love! What is this? “Gigi!”

CLARK: I do not love you.

FATHER: What a relief.

CLARK: I do not want my retarded daughter loosing her virginity.

FATHER: Oh?

CLARK: Yes, she’s only 32.

FATHER: And I don’t want my dumb curly haired son making passionate love to a scitzo-retardiano.

Music starts up.

CLARK: Perhaps, we should balk.

Father sings.

FATHER:
I look at him and I can’t see
What the hell he sees in she
Her nose is strange
He needs to rearrange

CLARK:
She isn’t at the certain age
When she can go live on her own
It’s such a fright
She wants to spend the night
With you’re loving son
But is he really loving as I just said?

FATHER:
Let’s balk


CLARK:
Let’s balk

FATHER:
Let’s balk

CLARK:
Let’s balk

FATHER:
Let’s balk

CLARK:
Let’s view

FATHER & CLARK:
What critics do
Ahh...
And after that we might as well...
Balk

They exit. Matthew Morison and Kelli O’Hara renter doing a strange dance with all sorts of prostitutes dressed in black.

MORRISON:
Let’s rip off-a da
Michael Bennett
Dancing from da
Flop show Seesaw
And throw Fosse in
To-a dis mess

O’HARA
“Oh crap!” “Oh crap!”
I’m so random.

MORRSION & O’HARA
Autami! Autami!

Victoria Clark enters.

CLARK: Oh my God! What are you two doing here? Can’t you see this is the red light district?

O’HARA: But the lighting’s so blue in this scene!

MORSSION: I guess-a da lighting designer da Christopher Akerlind not-a deserve-a da Tony.

CLARK: Oh, it makes no difference? Look at these vile women left over from Sweet Charity! Can’t you see?

A long pause.

O’HARA & MORRSION: No.

CLARK: Young man, my daughter and I are going to Rome and we want nothing to do with you ever a…

O’HARA: That’s what YOU want.

CLARK: No, it is what you want as well.

O’HARA: No it’s not!

CLARK: Yes it is!

O’HARA: No!

CLARK: Yes!

O’HARA: No!

CLARK: Yes!

The father re-enters.

FATHERS: Ladies! Stop-a this ridiculous bitching that belongs in da Gillmore Girls. I think we must-a all leave Victoria Clark alone so she can reflect on-a da problem.

Everyone leaves.

CLARK:
We don’t even know his name
Nor do we know if has a STI
Either way, she’ll prob’ly die
Or will she?

But I’m old and always groan
I should just leave her alone
And have
And have
And have
Dividing day.

Everyone re-enters.

CLARK: You may marry my daughter.

MORRSON: Hooray-a!

CLARK: And you, don’t forget to take your pill.

O’HARA: Yippee!

The young lovers leave leaving The Father and Victoria Clark onstage.

CLARK: And you. Are you married?

FATHER: Yes.

CLARK: So am I. Let’s be adult and realistic and leave the audience thinking we’re going to have sex as the curtain falls.

They exit. Adam Guettel and Richard Rodgers re-enter.

RODGERS: What kind of ending was that?

GUETTEL: One that alienates the audience and makes them think.

RODGERS: What about the reprise of the big pop hit?

GUETTEL: Oh, I forgot.

The entire cast comes on “Ahh”-ing the “Light in the Piazza” theme music. Guettel looks amused, Rodgers does not. After the “Ahh” section ends, everyone but Richard Rodgers exits.

RODGERS: How the hell is that looked upon as art? Beats me!

Sorry.

Everytime I hear Defying Gravity...all I can think of are the lyrics to "Wickeder"

"I'll blown the Gershwin up because
I am the loudest witch in Oz.
And no one's gonna turn my volume down!!!"

Because that is exactly how I felt when I saw the show. Parts of it were really hard to hear even in the orchestra...then Defying Gravity is so freaking loud it blows you out of your seat!