25 Years of Firsts with Chad Beguelin and Matthew Sklar, the Songwriters Behind The Prom

“I think we’ve fought maybe twice,” librettist/lyricist Chad Beguelin says, looking at his writing partner of 25 years, composer Matthew Sklar. “And by fighting, I mean, I get really quiet and he says, ‘What’s wrong?’”

These days? Not much is wrong for the Broadway favorites now basking in the best reviews of their careers for their joyful new musical comedy, The Prom, Broadway.com’s pick for the Best Show of 2018. The score is both a delicious throwback to the brassy sounds of classic musicals mixed with the catchy, thumping pop beats of radio hits. And the story, about a lesbian teen struggling with attention and Broadway stars thirsty to get attention, has hit a nerve with theatergoers.

On the latest episode of Broadway.com Front Row, Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek catches up with the pair. Some highlights of the conversation are below.

FIRST SHOWS
As kids (Beguelin in Illinois, Sklar in New Jersey), the future songwriters fell in love with original Broadway cast recordings on vinyl. A budding composer who hit it big early by selling a song to Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club, Sklar would pretend the conduct the finale while listening to Maury Yeston’s Nine. Meanwhile, Beguelin would lipsync for his life to Patti LuPone on the Evita album: “I can do a really good Eva Peron death scene,” he jokes. “I have a ‘Final Broadcast’ that will make you cry.”

FIRST MEETING
Beguelin and Sklar were paired up by Andrew Barrett, the literary manager of the now-defunct Musical Theater Works, a not-for-profit that helped develop new musicals. Barrett knew Sklar from his gigs in the pits of Broadway musicals—which he balanced with schoolwork at New York University—and he wrote Beguelin a “very nice rejection letter” when the young hopeful mailed him materials. After Beguelin pushed for a meeting, Barrett re-read his stuff and thought he might be a good partner for Sklar. They had a blind creative “date” at the Astor Riviera Diner on Astor Place, (which is, naturally, now a Starbucks) and hit if off.
 

FIRST COLLABORATION
Challenged to write a musical in a few months, Beguelin and Sklar immediately got to work on an adaptation of Maurice, E.M. Forster’s famous gay novel, before realizing they couldn’t get the rights to the property. “And that’s when we went to the public domain of Sophocles,” Sklar laughs. Wicked City was next, an Oedipus-inspired campy musical noir set in the 1940s. Although the show has seen several regional productions, it wasn’t their ticket to Broadway. “We learned there’s not a big demand for musicals about banging your mom,” Beguelin jokes.

FIRST HEARTBREAK
Beguelin and Sklar got the jazz bug from Wicked City and started exploring more swinging ideas. Enter The Rhythm Club, an original idea about the underground swing club scene during the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany. The duo leapt headfirst into the show, and got the attention of big-time producers. A Broadway bow was announced for early 2001, after an out-of-town tryout at the Signature Theatre in Virginia. But reviews were mixed, investors pulled out, and the show was called off. (An attempt to reboot it for Manhattan Theater Club off-Broadway a few years later also got canceled.) The young songwriters were crushed. “The poster was up in Shubert Alley for like three months,” Sklar remembers. “I had a tough time going to the theater district for like a year.”

FIRST TASTE OF SUCCESS
Devastated but not defeated, Beguelin and Sklar doubled down on their commitment to their craft and found an exciting new project to embrace. Hairspray producers Margo Lion and Mark Kaufman of New Line Cinema hired them to adapt The Wedding Singer for the stage. Jazz tunes were out and ‘80s electro pop was in! Helping to lead the charge of brand-name movies titles making the leap to the stage, The Wedding Singer opened on April 27, 2006 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Just two weeks later, Beguelin and Sklar were nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score with Beguelin also garnering a nomination for Best Book, two of five nods for the show including Best Musical. Although The Wedding Singer only ran for eight months, many productions around the country and world have followed and Kaufman immediately hired them to adapt Elf for the stage, one of the first projects for his new role as head of Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures.

FIRST ORIGINAL SHOW
Clearly, movie brands have done well for Beguelin and Sklar; Elf has enjoyed two holiday runs on Broadway (and became an animated TV special that earned Sklar an Emmy Award nomination for music direction), and Beguelin has a massive side success (and two more Tony noms) as librettist/lyricist for Disney’s Aladdin, but the pair’s newest creation is completely original. They created the story of The Prom with Elf creative partners director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw and co-librettist Bob Martin, off the idea of New York producer Jack Viertel. A ripped-from-the-headlines spin on a brouhaha over a lesbian couple who want to attend their prom, The Prom is not based on anything but their imaginations, which has been thrilling for Beguelin and Sklar. “When you have source material, that spine of the story is always there,” Sklar says. “Here, there are so many ways you can go. Ultimately, if a story is told well, I don’t care where it comes from.” Beguelin concurs. We need both [original work and adaptations] because I know the person that will go see Aladdin might not have ever seen a musical, but it’s Aladdin so they’ll go," he said. "And then maybe they’ll go see The Prom. He laughs. "And I’m not just saying that because Aladdin paid for all [my] plastic surgery!”

Find out more about Chad Beguelin and Matthew Sklar (and see them sing from The Prom!) in the full Front Row segment below.