Maury Yeston

Lyricist and composer Maury Yeston was still a teenager when Federico Fellini's 1963 masterpiece "8½" first reached cinemas. "I really just wanted to grow up and turn that into a musical," he said. "And the first chance I had to do it was when I was in this BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in my early 20s, and I began to write that as my project. I called it 'Nine,' because I figured that I'm doing a musical based on '8½,' but I'm adding a little music, so that's worth at least another half a point.

Lyricist and composer Maury Yeston was still a teenager when Federico Fellini's 1963 masterpiece "8½" first reached cinemas. "I really just wanted to grow up and turn that into a musical," he said. "And the first chance I had to do it was when I was in this BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in my early 20s, and I began to write that as my project. I called it 'Nine,' because I figured that I'm doing a musical based on '8½,' but I'm adding a little music, so that's worth at least another half a point.

When Andrew Lloyd Webber was putting together his "The Phantom of the Opera," playwright Arthur Kopit and composer/lyricist Maury Yeston were putting together their own version. Hands down, in the future, the Kopit-Yeston "Phantom" will be the more revived. For starters, Kopit went back to the original novel by Gaston Leroux, a powerful drama contrasted with the simplistic fluff of Webber's coloring-book take on the goings-on at the Paris Opera.

Good fortune is seldom associated with the Titanic, but the timing of "Titanic," the stage musical, was remarkably lucky. The competition was so lackluster in Broadway's Class of 1997 that this big white elephant won the Tony Award for best musical. And that triumph apparently carried the show until the following winter, when millions of people suddenly became interested in all things Titanic, thanks to the Hollywood movie.

According to Maury Yeston, whose latest musical, "Goya . . . A Life in Song" will be previewed in a special benefit at the Hollywood Bowl Monday, American music has given the world two great gifts: jazz and the musical. "They both take a lot of different styles and a lot of different elements from our culture and mush them together," he says. But no one on Broadway since Leonard Bernstein has mushed them quite like Yeston does.

If you ask Broadway composer-songwriter Maury Yeston which comes first, the music or the lyrics, he wants to know if you've heard the one about Cole Porter. "Someone asked him the same question," Yeston says. "And do you know what he said? 'The check.' " Yeston subscribes to Porter's theory of music composition. "A commission has a way of focusing you," he says. But Broadway commissions are few and far between. Even when you get them, you can't always count on them.

Good fortune is seldom associated with the Titanic, but the timing of "Titanic," the stage musical, was remarkably lucky. The competition was so lackluster in Broadway's Class of 1997 that this big white elephant won the Tony Award for best musical. And that triumph apparently carried the show until the following winter, when millions of people suddenly became interested in all things Titanic, thanks to the Hollywood movie.

The popularity of "The Phantom of the Opera," in any of its several guises, is a tribute to the primal, enduring passions exposed by Gaston LeRoux in his 1911 novel. The ill-fated love of the Phantom for soprano Christine Daee taps into the emotions of anyone who has yearned in vain for an idealized figure.

Long Beach Season: Long Beach Civic Light Opera's 1992-93 season will include a revival of "Grease" re-conceived and supervised by Tommy Tune (Sept. 30-Oct. 17), the Maury Yeston/Arthur Kopit "Phantom" (March 3-20, 1994), a staging of "South Pacific" with Sandy Duncan and George Hearn (May 5-22, 1994) and a revival of "No No, Nanette" (July 7-24, 1994).

They won the best picture Oscar with 2002's blockbuster "Chicago," and now director Rob Marshall and producer Harvey Weinstein plan to adapt another hit Broadway musical for the screen. This time the production is "Nine," which won the Tony for best musical. The Weinstein Co. said Thursday that Marshall will direct the adaptation, with Maury Yeston, the composer and lyricist for the original 1982 production, reprising his songwriting roles.

When Andrew Lloyd Webber was putting together his "The Phantom of the Opera," playwright Arthur Kopit and composer/lyricist Maury Yeston were putting together their own version. Hands down, in the future, the Kopit-Yeston "Phantom" will be the more revived. For starters, Kopit went back to the original novel by Gaston Leroux, a powerful drama contrasted with the simplistic fluff of Webber's coloring-book take on the goings-on at the Paris Opera.

If you ask Broadway composer-songwriter Maury Yeston which comes first, the music or the lyrics, he wants to know if you've heard the one about Cole Porter. "Someone asked him the same question," Yeston says. "And do you know what he said? 'The check.' " Yeston subscribes to Porter's theory of music composition. "A commission has a way of focusing you," he says. But Broadway commissions are few and far between. Even when you get them, you can't always count on them.

The popularity of "The Phantom of the Opera," in any of its several guises, is a tribute to the primal, enduring passions exposed by Gaston LeRoux in his 1911 novel. The ill-fated love of the Phantom for soprano Christine Daee taps into the emotions of anyone who has yearned in vain for an idealized figure.

According to Maury Yeston, whose latest musical, "Goya . . . A Life in Song" will be previewed in a special benefit at the Hollywood Bowl Monday, American music has given the world two great gifts: jazz and the musical. "They both take a lot of different styles and a lot of different elements from our culture and mush them together," he says. But no one on Broadway since Leonard Bernstein has mushed them quite like Yeston does.

* "The Scarlet Pimpernel," the national tour of the musical comedy by Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton about an elusive hero during the French Revolution, plays Tuesday through Jan. 7 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $20-$55. (714) 740-7878, (213) 365-3500. * "The Price," Arthur Miller's drama about two brothers' uneasy reunion, opens Jan. 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Ends Feb. 4. $34-$43.