Over Easy:Banana Schpeel
Good things can be born of disaster, but in the interests of accuracy, let me say that the reverse can be true, as I discovered a number of years ago when I was asked to write music for a Cirque du Soleil show.
For a show that you’ve almost certainly never heard of, called ‘Banana Schpeel’, Cirque wanted to do a show with a narrative structure, unlike anything else they’d done. They hired phenomenal singers, former leads from “Jersey Boys” and “Wicked” on Broadway, amazing dancers and musicians, and the usual collection of highwire geniuses, and brought in a director who was a Tony award winning clown. They’d fired a bigtime traditional Broadway lyricist and wanted someone different. I was perfect – I knew absolutely nothing about writing for the theatre. They gave me one night to write something with the show’s composer that would serve as my audition. We knocked something out, and the next mornng, after a couple of hours sleep, we taught it to the singers. The director loved it and the rest of the cast was brought in, because they were leaving the next day to perform it on “America’s Got Talent” to millions of people. This is one gutsy organization, not afraid of risk. It all went off perfectly and I continued to write for the show for about 6 weeks. The big test came when the investors from NY arrived for a run-through in the Cirque theatre on their campus in Montreal.
By chance I was sitting behind the investors, and from the opening number it was clear from their body language that they didn’t get it. Just like the preview audience in Chicago. There, the leads were fired as the show was drastically rewritten, then they were hired back, but it was too late. Banana Schpeel was a sinking ship. My songs went down with it – only one made it to the final performance of the show in Toronto. But what did Cirque do? They did what they always do – continued putting up some of the most breathtaking live shows you could imagine, leaving behind the sad aroma of ‘Banana Schpeel’.
One memory sticks in my mind from the experience – in one of the nightly production meetings they spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get a microphone hidden on a clown who was wearing nothing but tiny red underwear. (I believe the mic ended up in his hair.) During that same meeting the director and producer had to be physically separated when they disagreed about some aspect of the show. As I watched them shout and gesture from across the table, I saw out of the window of the boardroom, over the producer’s shoulder, two tiny women climbing into view up ropes where they swung, twisted and leapt ecstatically while the argument was going on.
What’s the takeaway?
If you’re given a chance to do something you’re totally unqualified for, go for it!
Bail when fate tells you there’s no other way.
And don’t try to fit a microphone into a pair of tiny red underwear worn by a clown.
