CheekyChicago

He just closed a show called Sugar where he was the lead role, and still has The Emperor’s New Clothes (for which he is the composer and lyricist) running at Navy Pier’s Chicago Shakespeare Theater.  This New Jersey native, playwright and actor truly does it all.  Mr. Alan Schmuckler (a.k.a. the future Stephen Sondheim) found a few minutes to give us an exciting sneak peak at the future theatrical magic he has up his sleeve.

Cheeky:  When The Emperor’s New Clothes closes, what is up next for you? Is Broadway in your future?

Alan Schmuckler: Oh, man. I’ve got a couple of cool writing projects I’m working on around the city. I have a few in development with a few friends of mine for ABC called BoyFred. It’s a new musical half hour TV show. Some friends of mine and I started it about two years ago as kind of a side project for a web series and it got to the TV world and we have been developing it with Sony and ABC.

Cheeky: That’s so great! Can you give us a little background about the show?

AS: The basic premise of the story is about a guy named Fred who is a sound engineer and a web designer living in Chicago. His girlfriend goes off and works on the other side of the world, so he designs a website for her so they can keep in touch. So it’s him and all of their friends in Chicago uploading vlogs (video blogs) and photos and all sorts of new media posts that all together form this patchwork story of their life in Chicago. He’s a sound designer, some of their friends are writers and one is a singer so music is a big part of their lives. It should be really cool. It’s definitely in development.

Cheeky: Will you be moving to New York? Or sticking to your Chicago roots?

AS: Potentially. L.A. potentially.  I’m kind of just sitting back and seeing what happens.

Cheeky: How has the musical theatre program at Northwestern helped you?

AS: I’ll tell you, I have worked on and recently am working on a couple of projects. Every single one of them is populated almost exclusively by Northwestern students. The Emperor’s New Clothes is Dave Holstein and I. We worked together in the musical theatre program.  The Waa-Mu show - which is a big student written show that goes up every year at NU – is where I learned to write. Once I started writing, [Dave] wrote a lot for them too so we got to know each other there. I have another musical called Summertime in development with a friend who directed me in a show at Northwestern through the musical theatre program. BoyFred is four guys and I and most of us were in the musical theatre program. So I feel like I met a lot of fantastic friends and collaborators and I love working with all of them. In no small part, the part where we were friends first, and as we started to work in the professional world, we found more reason to be together.

Cheeky: Last but not least, what is the cheekiest thing you have done this week?

AS: What is the cheekiest thing I have done this week? Can you define cheekiest?

Cheeky: Sure! Something bold, fantastic and really fun.

AS: Sugar - the show I just closed – is based on the movie Some Like it Hot which is about men who are on the run so they dress up as women and hide in all girl bands. Having to run in heels for eight shows a week has to be the cheekiest thing I have done this week.