PRETTY WOMAN – THE MUSICAL, STRUTS ONTO THE VANCOUVER STAGE

By Bill Allman bill@famousartists.ca

The classic line from the movie, Pretty Woman, has become a song hook for the stage in the hands of local boys gone Broadway - Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. And if you have any love for the movie, for the story, then the stage musical playing March 29 – April 2nd at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre will entertain you like no other. Let’s talk about the local connection. Adams and Vallance are rock music royalty who have, both together and separately, been a continuous hitmaking machine since they met in the late 1970s. Jim Vallance was fresh from a string of hits with Vancouver rock sensations PRiSM (he wrote Spaceship Superstar and others as Rodney Higgs – but that’s another story) and Bryan Adams was fresh from a brief stint at the (still) legendary Tomahawk Barbeque in North Vancouver as Chick and Chuck Chamberlain’s dishwasher. “I got my Dad to hire him because he had long hair and I liked that.” said Chuck, recently.

Bryan Adams knew that he wanted to be a rock star and he knew that he needed to work with a song craftsman to achieve that goal. Enter Jim

Vallance. Legend is that the two met at a Long and McQuade music store and soon after began writing songs together. Jim had already had hits and anyone who knew Bryan Adams knew that he was driven beyond belief. What nobody knew was that their rock and roll odyssey would eventually lead to Broadway.

Referring to writing for a Broadway musical, Vallance confessed that “I’ve never worked harder in my life.” And that’s saying something for a person whose hit songs have included works for

Pretty Woman (Broadway Across Canada) is at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from March 29 - April 2, 2023 westvancouver.com/events relatively new show like Pretty Woman – when done right - draws thousands of fans, many of them repeats who mouth the words and even show up in eighties fashions. There is something about this show that just… works. Naturally, the score and lyrics are unassailable, created by two exceptional composers and songsmiths. But the story itself, and the book of the musical by Garry Marshall and J.F. Lawton (who wrote the movie) holds you, uplifts you, and entertains you! and collaborations with Bryan Adams, Heart, Kiss, Aerosmith, and, as he reminded me when he asked me to speak up, Ozzy Osbourne

“Writing for Broadway isn’t like writing for rock. Yes, the tunes need to work, but lyrically, the rhymes need to be exact.”

“Five and dime,” and “Summer of 69” doesn’t cut it on the musical stage. But that’s part of the beauty of a Broadway musical – the rhymes are exact and the audience is delighted by the flow of one line into another. So delighted that even a

All our favourite looks and moments from the movie are in there. The red dress, the necklace box snapping shut, the night at the opera, and the climb up the balcony. I’ve seen it twice (London’s West End, about three weeks before Covid sidelined an entire business) and I wouldn’t miss it in Vancouver!

President of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, Bill Allman is a “recovering lawyer” who has been a venue manager (the Vogue), president of Theatre Under the Stars, a concert promoter, a television writer/producer, a theatre producer, and an adjunct professor of law at UBC. He currently owns Famous Artists Ltd., taking the company name with founder Hugh Pickett’s blessing, and produces plays, musicals, and concerts. He is no longer willing to move your piano.