Interview: Gerard Alessandrini talks spoofing Sondheim and more in FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: MERRILY WE STOLE A SONG

Die-hard Broadway fans all have their favorite musicals, best-loved plays, and, of course, their most beloved performers.

Writer and director Gerard Alessandrini, the comedy mastermind behind “Forbidden Broadway,” has long taken his own Broadway fandom one step further, though, creating iconic parodies of stars like Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Carol Channing, Liza Minnelli, Yul Brynner, Patti LuPone, Chita Rivera, Mandy Patinkin, and Bernadette Peters and shows including “Hello, Dolly!” “The King & I,”  “Annie,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” “The Lion King,” and “Wicked.”

The revue’s latest installment, “Forbidden Broadway: Merrily, We Stole a Song,” comes to Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre, February 8-9.

“This is the version we did in New York at the end of last season. It highlights everything from the 2023 revival of ‘Merrily, We Roll Along’ to updates of the other recent post-Sondheim revivals of ‘Company’ and ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,’” explained Alessandrini by telephone recently from his home in New York. “And other shows like ‘& Juliet,’ ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ ‘The Outsiders,’ and ‘Back to the Future.’ We do Eddie Redmayne in ‘Cabaret,’ Cynthia Erivo in the ‘Wicked’ movie, and we even have a little bit of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Shaina Taub from ‘Suffs.’”

The creator acknowledges that one production was still being readied for Broadway when he prepared its parody.

“We began spoofing the Audra McDonald ‘Gypsy’ even before it opened, because I kind of knew what she would do with that show. It took imagination, of course, because it was the first time I parodied a show before it was even playing on Broadway,” he says. “We had previously spoofed the Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, and Patti LuPone versions and, of course, the Ethel Merman original. That time, we had Baby June singing ‘If Momma Were Merman.’”

One of the new parodies involves the late Stephen Sondheim, one of Alessandrini’s longtime comic subjects and friends.

“I saw an out-of-town tryout of the original Broadway production of ‘Follies’ at the Colonial in 1971 and after the show I got to speak with Steve. He and his shows have been a part of pretty much every iteration of ‘Forbidden Broadway’ over the years. Steve used to come to see the show once or twice a year in New York.

“Steve liked to check up on what we were doing and what we were saying about his shows. Sometimes he would ask me to put certain numbers into the show, and they weren’t always from his shows,” recalls Alessandrini. “Six months after the 1983 ‘Zorba’ revival starring Anthony Quinn closed in New York, we stopped doing our version of it. Steve, who had a wicked sense of humor, called to say he was bringing musical director Paul Gemignani, who hated Quinn, to see our show, and asked if we could put the ‘Zorba’ number back in.”

Sondheim also figures into “Merrily, We Stole a Song,” having, of course, written “Merrily, We Roll Along” as well as “Company” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

“Our new parody includes a take on ‘The Worst Pies in London’ called ‘The Worst Shows from London,’” says Alessandrini. “We didn’t do that one on opening night in New York, but we’re putting it back in for Boston. I know Boston audiences well and they’re savvier than their New York counterparts, so you can be a bit more aesthetic.”

The Boston tour stop features the four-member company from the recent off-Broadway run, Chris Collins-Pisano, John Wascavage, Jenny Lee Stern, and Nicole Vanessa Ortiz, with musical direction by Fred Barton and choreography by Gerry McIntyre.

Alessandrini, Needham native and Boston Conservatory graduate, last brought a show to Boston six years ago when his “Spamilton: An American Parody” was presented by the Huntington at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. The original “Forbidden Broadway” ran in New York and elsewhere for some 25 years, including a seven-year sit-down run in the Terrace Room at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel.

Over the years, affirmation from his subjects has become common for Alessandrini. “Most stars who have come to see what we do with them say nice things, at least publicly. The way I see it, whatever we say is never as bad as some of their reviews,” he says with a laugh.

Some legends were especially fond of being lampooned. “Carol Channing loved ‘Forbidden Broadway.’ She used to come to see it regularly, about once a month, in New York,” says Alessandrini.

It was while a student at Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood that Alessandrini – recipient of a 2006 Tony Award for Excellence in Theater – began developing both his interest in theater and his sense of humor about it.

“When I was at Xaverian in the 1970s, we did musical revues with 300 students from nearby parochial schools. I knew I wanted to be in theater by the time I graduated. And I started writing original musicals and parodies when I was in college.”

While productions of “Forbidden Broadway” have taken him all over the world, the man behind it says he will always call Boston home.

“I was an only child and both my parents are gone now, but I have cousins in Braintree, Dedham, Dover, Falmouth, Marion, Norwood, and Westwood, so I still feel very connected to home. I’m very reserved like most people from Boston, with a Yankee work ethic. I think it’s that repression that brings out my comedy side,” says Alessandrini.

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