In fact, the Broadway musical begins with the trumpet fanfare from "Gonna Fly Now." But it immediately switches to tribal drumming, followed by the high adrenaline rock number "Ain't Down Yet."įiguring out what to use and not use from the one of the country's most-beloved movies was also tough, the duo said. "Music is part of the Rocky experience already," says Mr. Goliath plight: the theme song, "Gonna Fly Now" by Bill Conti and "Eye of the Tiger," by Survivor. Plus, he says, it didn't hurt that the character already has a few songs associated with his David vs. "I could see all the elements: a terrific love story between two losers, the underdog boxer, lower class people trying to survive…" "I saw it through his eyes, and I thought, yes, I see it. Stallone's house to re-watch the film in the star's private screening room. Meehan was in Los Angeles anyway, so he went to Mr. Meehan have the same attorney, who asked Mr. Meehan says he didn't want to touch it either at first. The songwriting duo, who have worked together for 30 years and don't begin a sentence without the other finishing it, were brought in to the show by the musical's book writer Tom Meehan, ("Annie," "The Producers"). Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, the Tony Award winning duo behind the score to "Rocky," which began performances this week at New York City's Winter Garden Theater, explain how they reimagined Rocky "The Italian Stallion" Balboa for a Broadway musical. "We weren't interested in taking another big movie and slapping it on the stage unless we could reinvent it," says Mr. She felt that she could write songs to fill in those moments, and give Rocky and Adrian another emotional dimension. Plus, she noticed a lot of "air" in the movie, she says, referring to scenes without dialogue. Ahrens says that when she re-watched the original 1976 Oscar-winning movie-about an over-the-hill fighter plucked from obscurity to face the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world, Apollo Creed-she was struck by how strong the story was. Stallone, who is a producer of the musical, has portrayed the boxer in six films now.) Ms. Flaherty understand that they have to overcome a lot of skepticism, partly because the franchise has been remade so many times (Mr. "When he does start singing that first song, you are not even really aware of it because he slips from speech into song really gracefully, which was a conscious choice to help people get used to the idea," Mr. Rocky doesn't dance, and he and Adrian sing quiet, conversational duets, not soaring love songs. Instead, the score is more funk than Gershwin-lots of rhythm and blues guitars, groovy horns, and heavy percussion. "We did not want a razzle-dazzle Broadway brassy kind of show," says Mr. All around him, people are singing, but he isn't. There is no traditional opening number-instead it is a long sequence that follows Rocky from the boxing ring in the gym to the locker room to the alleyway to his apartment. The duo knew they had to ease the audience into the production.
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