"She's meat. Beautiful meat, granted, but ... grown in a vat."
December 28, 2022 6:20 PM   Subscribe

Did you know that Alan Menken, the songwriter of "Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", and "Aladdin", wrote a science fiction musical based on two separate science fiction stories, each starring the original Audrey from "Little Shop of Horrors"? Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, YouTube.

The first act is "The Girl Who Was Plugged In", by James Tiptree, Jr. -- a pseudonym for Alice Bradley Sheldon.

The second act is "Her Pilgrim Soul", originally a Twilight Zone episode.

Menken: hell with "orange", possibly the only person who could rhyme "simulacrum".
posted by MollyRealized (6 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- loup



 
I'll take a guess: "into vacuum"
posted by one for the books at 7:10 PM on December 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


A 1985 Twilight Zone episode directed by Wes Craven, no less. I don't remember this one though.
posted by credulous at 7:52 PM on December 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


Wait, this is real?
posted by amtho at 8:10 PM on December 28, 2022


The musical God Bless You Mr. Rosewater (based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel) was also written by Alan Menken - written, in fact, by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, the team responsible for "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast" (and generally, saving Disney from the deep artistic and commercial hole it had dug for itself during the 1980s).

The podcast Musicals with Cheese did an episode about it which is very much worth listening if you are a fan of Vonnegut or Menken or Ashman.
posted by Jeanne at 8:30 PM on December 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


Isham: "And your fans--"

P. Burke: "I'll have fans?"

Isham: "[Awn] and dutiful
as you throw them
on a [fake run?],
even you won't suspect
you're a mere simulacrum!"


The Google Books preview has it as

“Awed and dutiful.
As you throw them a buffet crumb,
Even you won't suspect
She's a mere simulacrum..."
posted by xenization at 8:35 PM on December 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


Just stopping in to point out that the excellent lyricist who ought to be credited here is David Spencer, who also collaborated with Menken on a musical adaptation of Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
posted by fredzo718 at 7:45 AM on December 30, 2022


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