Word: ashman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...dicing, flaying and serving of les poissons. Ursula (Pat Carroll) the sea witch is a fat, shimmying squid with malefic revenge in mind -- the sort of Disney horror queen who has given kids nightmares for a half-century. All these characters are given witty, hummable pop songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken (the Little Shop of Horrors team), a reminder that the Hollywood cartoon has become the last, best refuge of the Broadway musical...
Written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken...
Written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken...
WHAT GAVE the staged Little Shop its appeal was the purity of its homage to Cliche. Writer and lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken built their Little Shop out of an inestimable number of dramatic, social, cinematic and musical commonplaces. Superficially, it followed the plot of the Corman picture, but it also obeyed dramatic rules enforced through the millenia: the Ashman/Menken Little Shop was a carefully structured Greek tragedy, replete with chorus, hero, dilemma, tragic flaw, catastrophic misstep and ultimate retribution. Snappy Chiffons-type songs and bouffant hairdos notwithstanding, the resolution of Little Shop was closer to that...
...repeatedly telling them it shouldn't matter. Curiously, Smile works. It is a swift-paced, skillfully performed and thoroughly professional entertainment that balances amusement at the shallow ambitions of the characters with respect for the depth of their feelings. Composer Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line) and Author-Lyricist Howard Ashman (Little Shop of Horrors) have written touching songs for the stars, Anne Marie Bobby as a sweet, awkward A student who realizes she is out of her element at the pageant and Jodi Benson as a wanderer who is prematurely wise in the ways of selling herself, including a talent...