A version of this story about Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” first appeared in the comedy series theme from TheWrap Awards Magazine.
Five seasons of Amazon’s pop culture hit “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” have produced more rising stars than bagel dough, but possibly none more than showbiz writers Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore. The duo, who met at Northwestern and mentored “The Muppet Show” veteran and multiple Emmy Award winner Larry Grossman, are responsible for just about any piece of music you hear that isn’t from someone’s songbook, and just like Other Amy Sherman efforts: Palladino and Daniel Palladino (“Bunheads,” “Gilmore Girls”), you can bet the musical numbers will be part of the deal.
“In fact, they set us up on a blind date of sorts with them almost 10 years ago,” says Mizer. “We had been writing a stage musical with Amy for a while and she was like, ‘Listen guys, I’m going to have to take the next five months off to do this little thing on Amazon that nobody’s going to want. look [laughing].”
And that little thing turned into a very big thing, but it involved them writing for various styles throughout the series, from calypso (with their first Emmy-nominated song, “Maybe Monica”) to R&B (for their second Emmy-nominated song). , the ultra-catchy “One Less Angel”), to what we hope will be her third, “Your Personal Trash Man Can,” a big multi-part Broadway-esque number performed when Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) gets the assignment from Susie (Alex Borstein) being a waste management storyteller at a decades-old industrial acting entity that highlighted the finer points of a company pushing its product, often employed with Broadway actors seeking additional work.
“Amy took us to her office and they had already built a model and had everything planned out,” says Moore. “And then she says, ‘okay, this is crap,’ and I’m like, ‘you could have told us three weeks or three months ago and we could have started, but I think she likes to put us under the gun in things together, Because sometimes that’s how we work best. And I mean, we all work on these [industrials]says Moore, noting along with Mizer that the wonderful documentary “Bathtubs Over Broadway” It really opened their eyes to this hidden art form and the Palladinos wholeheartedly agreed.
“Tom and I laughed about this, but it was basically three weeks from when Amy gave us the assignment to when we were recording in the studio,” adds Moore. “And then we had to write all those songs on it. [including the others we see in the episode], there are basically three musicals, you know, we see bits of two of them, and then we see the whole third one. It was definitely a very fun and challenging situation to be in.”
And cleverly, in addition to using Brosnahan as the non-singing narrator, the main number, complete with tappers decked out in trash can lids, is performed by all the talent of Broadway, including Emily Bergl (as Susie’s singing sister) and one blink and you’ll see. -I miss Alexander Gemignani (who also plays the fiancé of the Maisels’ housekeeper, Magda). Mizer notes that they have regretted not using some of the cast’s flutes, especially Borstein, with whom Mizer regrets missing a musical part filmed with her last season, “but she was too good, she’s a very good singer; people would have kept asking, “Why isn’t Susie a star?”
When they pointed out to Mizer and Moore that their work is so slyly fluid in the show’s universe, they were tickled by the fact that their contributions aren’t always instantly noticeable. Says Mizer, “My own father doesn’t know when our songs are on the show. He can’t tell what’s a standard and what’s ours, and that can be hard on our egos, but it’s exactly what we want. We want it to feel like it’s show business.”
Read more of the comedy series edition here.
