David Zippel (#199) - April, 2008

Lyricist David Zippel, who won a 1990 Tony Award for his lyrics to City of Angels, discusses the development of Pamela's First Musical, the challenges posed by the untimely passing of two of his collaborators on the project -- composer Cy Coleman and author Wendy Wasserstein, and the upcoming benefit performance which will mark the show's first public performance. He also talks about his earliest lyric writing efforts, including the pre-Broadway Rotunda and Going Hollywood, an adaptation of Once in a Lifetime which is about to get a new workshop presentation 38 years after Zippel first thought to adapt it; how he came to collaborate with Coleman and Larry Gelbart on City of Angels, before the show's acclaimed dual-story structure was even in place; what drew him to musicalize The Goodbye Girl; and the challenge of creating the lyrics his first through-sung musical The Woman in White, a collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber.