Forty years after David Foster began writing music for movies, a list that would include St. Elmo’s Fire, The Secret of My Success and The Bodyguard, the Victoria-born tunesmith has developed a passion for the stage.
Chilling out in a suite at Bayview One after being honoured at a Canadian College of Performing Arts fundraiser last Saturday night, Foster said his current list of projects includes development of Betty Boop, a musical based on Max Fleischer’s Depression-era cartoon sex symbol.
Foster has composed 35 songs for the New York-bound musical he’s collaborating on with Bill Haber, the Broadway producer whose credits include War Horse and Spamalot.
“Betty Boop is being fast-tracked now,” said Foster, 67, who was in Victoria to attend a 75th birthday party on June 30 at Strathcona Hotel’s Distrikt nightclub for his first wife, singer-songwriter B.J. Cook.
“I think I’m at the point where we can do a 29-hour read, lock things down and workshop it by the end of the year.”
He’s acutely aware there are no guarantees it will reach Broadway, which he says just makes the journey that much more thrilling.
As Hello Dolly! composer Jerry Herman discovered when Penny in My Pocket, his cherished solo number for Horace Vandergelder, was cut prior to Hello Dolly’s original opening in 1964 because of time constraints, Foster realizes he, too, will face changes and omissions. (The happy ending for Herman, incidentally, was that his beloved tune was reinstated for the Broadway revival with Bette Midler.)
One of Foster’s favourite numbers, Wake Up, has already been reworked, renamed Lean In and moved from Betty Boop’s opening to its midpoint.
“All going well, by the fall of 2018, we should be up and running,” said Foster.
Another labour of love is his development of an autobiographical one-man-show ostensibly inspired by Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays.
He originally took the concept to Des McAnuff, the former Stratford Festival artistic director and Broadway director (Jersey Boys, Big River), who referred him to choreographer Kelly Devine (Come From Away).
“She put together a one-man show for me, as a director, and then she got sidetracked by the Newfoundland hit,” said Foster. Come From Away, a musical about how Gander residents responded to travellers forced to land in the community after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has won several theatre awards, including a Tony.
Although Foster has been credited as an actor before — he appeared as the Oscars conductor in The Bodyguard, for instance — this project will put his acting abilities to the test.
“It’s not like anything you’ve seen me do before,” he said. “It’s a real story, and I really have to act. I can’t do any schmoozing. It’s a lot of hard work, but I like new challenges.”
RUSHES: Principal photography begins next week on Front Street Pictures’ latest Hallmark project, Gourmet Detective 4, filming at locations including the Uplands and Metchosin. … While there’s still no confirmation on a potential Pup Star 3 shoot here this summer, the last entry in Air Bud Entertainment’s popular canine franchise — Pup Star: Better 2Gether, filmed here last year — debuts on digital and VOD on Aug. 29. Meanwhile, the first film in the Pup Star series chronicling the adventures of Tiny, the adorable Yorkie pup and TV singing star, is available on Netflix and had its broadcast première on Disney Channel. Fans of Disney’s popular Descendants franchise, filmed in part here, will also be able to see Disney’s Descendants 2 starting July 21, when it debuts across six networks, including Disney Channel, ABC and Lifetime.