Cameron Crowe’s ‘Almost Famous’ Rocks Out on Broadway

Cameron Crowe poses outside the the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York on Oct. 27, 2022. (AP)
Cameron Crowe poses outside the the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York on Oct. 27, 2022. (AP)
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Cameron Crowe’s ‘Almost Famous’ Rocks Out on Broadway

Cameron Crowe poses outside the the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York on Oct. 27, 2022. (AP)
Cameron Crowe poses outside the the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York on Oct. 27, 2022. (AP)

Composer Tom Kitt got a compliment the other day that any songwriter would sing about.

A friend had seen his Broadway stage adaptation of Cameron Crowe's film “Almost Famous” and couldn't tell which songs Kitt had supplied and which ones were classics.

Mind you, those classics included songs by the likes of Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens, David Bowie, Deep Purple, Joni Mitchell and the Allman Brothers.

“I thought, ‘Well, then I’m doing my job,’” recalls Kitt, a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner. “The goal here was in some ways to make it all feel like one voice.”

Kitt has teamed up with Crowe to turn the filmmaker's very autobiographical coming-of-age story for a new audience in a new age. The show, now in previews, opens Nov. 3 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.

“It feels like it’s a companion piece to the movie,” says Jeremy Herrin, the musical's director. “It’s another iteration of that story in another form.”

“Almost Famous” centers on a smart and earnest 15-year-old in the early 1970s who manages to get assigned by Rolling Stone magazine to do a profile of the fictional midlevel rock band Stillwater.

“It’s about a young man discovering that he can express himself with integrity and that life is better for him and those around him when he does so. And that’s a powerful thing to be reminded of,” says Herrin.

Crowe, the writer-director who won an Oscar for the film's screenplay, was inspired by his own experiences growing up and says he wanted the musical to “capture that same feeling that the movie did.”

In many ways, a stage adaptation makes perfect sense: The film is about loving music and had a community constantly bursting into song — something musical theater is built on.

“That communal feeling and that hang that you have going to a concert is also the thing that I experience when I go to Broadway. I’m going to be in a room with a bunch of people, having a shared experience, with storytelling and live music happening. So I think that there’s a real crossover,” says Lia Vollack, lead producer.

The film starred Billy Crudup as Stillwater's lead guitarist, Frances McDormand as the young man’s mother and Kate Hudson as Penny Lane, the band’s chief groupie or, as she prefers to think of herself, its muse.

“At the heart of it, it's a story that many people can relate to, which is finding your own family,” says Vollack. “You have your family that you’re with, who you love and who are a part of you, but also finding community outside of that.”

Kitt supplied 17 original songs, did the orchestrations and arrangements, and collaborated with book writer Crowe on lyrics. He was already a fan of the filmmaker's “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Say Anything,” “Jerry Maguire” and “Vanilla Sky.”

“I love to write about connection and catharsis and what are things that trouble us. What are things that we are in motion on, and where do we settle and find great resolution and hopefully walk out of a theater feeling inspired and excited to talk about what you just experienced?” he said. “That’s a Cameron Crowe film for me.”

The challenge for Kitt was to write new songs alongside such classic rock songs as “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “20th Century Boy” by T. Rex and “Ramble On” by Zeppelin. The film's score won a Grammy.

“When I was a classical pianist — just starting to study in the ‘80s — it was the music of the ’70s that took me away from Mozart and into Bruce Springsteen and Elton John and Billy Joel at my piano,” Kitt says. “The assignment was to write original music in the style of music that I love.”

The creative team chose to stud the musical with songs that reveal the characters' feelings. So if the film has a close up, the musical gets a song in its place. Kitt often plumbed the film's script for the lyrics.

Take the song “The Night-Time Sky’s Got Nothing On You,” a quiet moment between the muse and the guitarist. Kitt begins the song with dialogue from the film virtually word for word: “The way you turn a hotel into a home/The way you pick up strays wherever you go.”

“That was the goal for me because Cameron is a poet, and he writes poetry about our everyday experience. So it’s a natural for that to become lyric,” says Kitt, who has worked on the musicals “Next to Normal," Green Day’s “American Idiot" and Alanis Morissette’s ”Jagged Little Pill.”

The creators initially considered using only preexisting songs, but that posed a challenge to the storytelling. They also considered all original music but would awkwardly have to plop in John's “Tiny Dancer” — which is sung in a pivotal scene. Kitt, who has worked with originals and written his own, was the answer they needed.

“Tom just made it all flow together in this gorgeous tapestry of this world and created a world with it and it is seamless,” says Vollack. "Tom is very comfortable swimming in both waters."

The creators also took the opportunity to alter some things, like going deeper into the characters of the mom and Penny Lane, or as Crowe says “putting a little more padding in the shoulders of these characters.” Both women get songs, including “The Wind” for Penny and “Elaine’s Lecture” for mom.



Michael Madsen, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Kill Bill’ Star, Dies at 67

Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)
Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)
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Michael Madsen, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Kill Bill’ Star, Dies at 67

Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)
Actor Michael Madsen appears at the premiere of "The Hateful Eight" in Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 2015. (AP)

Michael Madsen, the actor best known for his coolly menacing, steely-eyed, often sadistic characters in the films of Quentin Tarantino including "Reservoir Dogs" and "Kill Bill: Vol. 2," has died.

Madsen was found unresponsive in his home in Malibu, California, on Thursday morning and pronounced dead, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Watch Commander Christopher Jauregui said. He is believed to have died of natural causes and authorities do not suspect any foul play was involved. Madsen's manager Ron Smith said cardiac arrest was the apparent cause. He was 67.

Madsen’s career spanned more than 300 credits stretching back to the early 1980s, many in low-budget and independent films. He often played low-level thugs, gangsters and shady cops in small roles. Tarantino would use that identity, but make him a main character.

His torture of a captured police officer in Tarantino's 1992 directorial debut "Reservoir Dogs," in which Madsen's black-suited bank robber Vic "Mr. Blonde" Vega severs the man's ear while dancing to Stealers Wheel’s "Stuck in the Middle with You" was an early career-defining moment for both director and actor.

He would become a Tarantino regular. He had a small role as the cowboy-hatted desert dweller Budd, a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, in 2003's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," then a starring role the following year in the sequel, in which he battles with Uma Thurman's protagonist The Bride and buries her alive.

Madsen also appeared in Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" and "Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood." He was an alternate choice to play the hit man role that revived John Travolta's career in 1994's "Pulp Fiction." The character, Vincent Vega, is the brother of Madsen's "Reservoir Dogs" robber in Tarantino's cinematic universe.

His sister, Oscar-nominated "Sideways" actor Virginia Madsen, was among those paying him tribute on Thursday.

"He was thunder and velvet. Mischief wrapped in tenderness. A poet disguised as an outlaw. A father, a son, a brother—etched in contradiction, tempered by love that left its mark," she said in a statement. "I’ll miss our inside jokes, the sudden laughter, the sound of him. I’ll miss the boy he was before the legend. I miss my big brother."

His "Hateful Eight" co-star and fellow Tarantino favorite Walton Goggins celebrated him on Instagram.

"Michael Madsen... this man... this artist... this poet... this rascal..." Goggins wrote. "Aura like no one else. Ain’t enough words so I’ll just say this.... I love you buddy. A H8TER forever."

James Woods, Madsen's co-star in two films, wrote on X, "I was always touched by his sweet nature and generosity, the absolute opposite of the ‘tough guys’ he portrayed so brilliantly."

Madsen was born in Chicago to a family of three children.

He performed on stage with the city's Steppenwolf Theatre Company alongside actors including John Malkovich.

During a handprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre in November 2020, Madsen reflected on his first visit to Hollywood in the early 1980s.

"I got out and I walked around and I looked and I wondered if there were someday some way that that was going to be a part of me. And I didn’t know because I didn’t know what I was going to do at that point with myself," he said. "I could have been a bricklayer. I could have been an architect. I could have been a garbage man. I could have been nothing. But I got lucky. I got lucky as an actor."

His first film role of any significance was in the 1983 hacker thriller "WarGames" with Matthew Broderick. The following year he played pro baseball player Bump Bailey alongside Robert Redford in "The Natural."

He spent much of the rest of the 1980s doing one-off guest roles on television dramas including "Miami Vice" and "Quantum Leap."

1991 would bring a career boost with roles in "The Doors," where he played a buddy of Val Kilmer's Jim Morrison, and "Thelma and Louise" where he played the boyfriend of Susan Sarandon's Louise.

Then would come "Reservoir Dogs."

In 1995, he played a black ops mercenary in the sci-fi thriller "Species" and in 1997 he was third billed after Al Pacino and Johnny Depp as a member of a crew of gangsters in "Donnie Brasco."

He occasionally played against type. In the 1993 family orca adventure "Free Willy" he was the foster father to the orphan protagonist.

Madsen would return to smaller roles but worked constantly in the final two decades of his career.

Madsen had six children. He had struggled in recent years after the 2022 death of one of his sons, Hudson.

"Losing a child is the hardest and most painful experience that can happen in this world," Madsen said in an Instagram post last year.

He said the loss put a strain on his marriage to third wife, DeAnna Madsen. He was arrested on suspicion of domestic battery last year, but was not charged. He filed for divorce, but asked that the filing be dismissed just weeks later.

He had previously been arrested twice on suspicion of DUI, most recently in 2019, when he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor.

"In the last two years Michael Madsen has been doing some incredible work with independent film including upcoming feature films ‘Resurrection Road,’ ‘Concessions and ’Cookbook for Southern Housewives,' and was really looking forward to this next chapter in his life," his managers Smith and Susan Ferris and publicist Liz Rodriguez said in a statement. "Michael was also preparing to release a new book called ‘Tears For My Father: Outlaw Thoughts and Poems’ currently being edited."

They added that he "was one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors, who will be missed by many."