This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.

From ‘Ham’ to ‘Spam,’ Gerard Alessandrini of Essex is the Parody Master

Four years ago, Gerard Alessandrini wondered if there was anything left to spoof on Broadway after spending 30 years creating deliciously clever parodies of shows and their stars in his Tony Award-winning Forbidden Broadway series of more than two dozen popular off-Broadway revues.

“I was getting a little discouraged about the Broadway shows that weren’t big enough to be spoof-able,” he says. “That is, the general public didn’t know them well enough.”

Then he saw Hamilton, “which was the biggest hit show I have ever experienced since coming to New York in the late ‘70s,” says Alessandrini, who lives in Essex with his husband, Glenn Bassett, a graduate of The Hartt School performing arts conservatory in Hartford.

It wasn’t just the show but the public reaction to it that inspired him, he says. Alessandrini was especially taken by the way the musical became such a part of the national cultural zeitgeist, tapping into the worlds of education, entertainment, politics, and social media.

Here was a situation where, he says, the general public—and not just Broadway die-hards—knew the show and its songs.

“I had been reading so much about [the musical’s creator and star, Wesleyan grad] Lin-Manuel Miranda that I thought Spamilton! has really got to be as much about him as it is about Hamilton.”

After seeing Hamilton during its pre-Broadway run at The Public Theater in 2015, Alessandrini pored over video clips, the new PBS documentary about the musical, and the coffee table book about the musical, which had all the lyrics as well as the annotated material about Miranda and the creation of the show.

Spamilton! opened in the fall of 2016 and was an immediate hit with critics and the public. That first ensemble of performers in the show featured Hartt grad Juwan Crawley, who got cast in the revue right after college, launching the young actor-singer’s career in New York. Crawley is now is an understudy for Genie in Aladdin.

“I re-wrote the part for Juwan,” says Alessandrini. “I often craft around the talent, like a tailor trying to fit everything perfectly for an actor.”

Spamilton! is now on tour and just opened for a 3 ½-week run through Sunday, Sept. 8 at West Hartford’s intimate theater space, Playhouse on Park. The engagement is being presented in association with Hartford’s The Bushnell.

Alessandrini says he structured Spamilton! somewhat like Hamilton, hitting the major points of the musical, like Hamilton’s arrival in New York, his rivalry with Aaron Burr, the duel, his death—of course turning them inside out for parody’s purpose.

In Spamilton!, the Miranda/Hamilton character takes the now familiar Hamilton lyric, “I am not throwing away my shot,” and turns it into: “I am not gonna let Broadway rot.”

Alessandrini also has Barbra Streisand giving Miranda the Tony Award and singing, “I wanna be in the film when it happens.”

He takes some lyrics that the Schuyler sisters sing in a frequent refrain in the musical and turns it into: “Look around, look around—at the other shows on Broadway”—allowing Alessandrini to bring other shows and stars to spoof.

“I wanted to have the old Broadway represented to compare it to the new Broadway, so I wanted to get some of the old divas in,” says Alessandrini, who grew up in Needham, Massachusetts.

So Alessandrini has Patti, Liza, and Bernadette make cameos in the show, “sort of having them appear as lost ghosts, like, ‘What are they going to do now?’”

And was he worried when Miranda and Hamilton director Thomas Kail and music director Alex Lacamoire showed up to see Spamilton! one night early in its run?

“They were laughing heartily throughout the show,” says Alessandrini. “Afterwards, they met the cast and hung out and gave Hamilton tickets to all of us.”

Next up for Alessandrini: the next edition of his Forbidden Broadway revues—his first in five years—which will open off-Broadway this fall.

Spamilton! runs through Sunday, Sept. 8 at Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Street, West Hartford. For more information, visit www.playhouseonpark.org or call 860-523-5900 ext. 10. Alessandrini will be interviewed by Frank Rizzo on stage Thursday, Aug. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Mark Twain House & Museum, 351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, as part of its “A Little Harmless Fun” series. For tickets, $10, visit www.twainhouse.com.

Frank Rizzo is a freelance journalist who lives in New Haven and New York City. He has been writing about theater and the arts in Connecticut for nearly 40 years.