A Trip to Shangri-La Plaza

A long lost musical TV pilot.

Issue 24

In today’s issue, guest contributor Shoshana Greenberg celebrates a little known musical television pilot called Shangri-La Plaza.

• 8.12 | The film adaptation of Jason Robert Brown’s 13: The Musical is now streaming. [Netflix]

• 8.16 | Kenya Barris will write & direct a reimagining of Wizard Of Oz for Warner Bros. [Deadline]

• 8.16 |An in depth look at Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, a stop motion musical. [Queue]

• 8.23 | A cast reunion of the incredible Cinderella (1997), starring Brandy, is now streaming.  [Hulu]

• 8.24 |Trailer for Disney’s Pinocchio starring Tom Hanks. [YouTube]

A Trip to Shangri-La Plaza

by Shoshana Greenberg

At first, Shangri-La Plaza doesn’t even seem real, more of a drug-induced early 1990s strip mall fantasia. That’s how the pilot episode begins, anyway, with an opening credits sequence featuring the title number complete with neoncing scenery and floating singing heads. Shangri-La Plaza, a mostly sung-through television musical which aired only once, on July 30, 1990 on CBS, may be bad, but it’s the best kind of bad, the bad that can make one smile with delight. And, honestly, after a few viewings, I began to see how much of this pilot episode actually works.

I discovered Shangri-La Plaza on YouTube when it was first uploaded back in 2008, and ever since it has been a balm, my own personal Shangri-La that can shield me from the world when I’m feeling down or the world seems as though it’s falling apart. There is an element of camp to the show, plus a heap of absurdity to remind me that the world doesn’t always have to make sense. In fact, sometimes it’s better if it doesn’t.

The pilot sets up the characters. Brothers George and Ira Bondo (obviously named after the Gershwin brothers) run an auto shop at Shangri-La Plaza, a strip mall in Los Angeles. George, responsible and sweet, and Ira, a flighty ladies man, work on a car together as Ira explains what happened with it last night. “Mercedes and ladies don’t rhyme for nothing,” he sings.

The Plaza welcomes a new tenant, Amy Copeland (presumably named after composer Aaron Copeland), played by a young Melora Hardin (The Office, Transparent). Her ex-husband has died and left her a doughnut shop, which she is looking to dispose of so that she can collect the money and realize her dream—living in Paris.  She has a feisty young daughter named Jenny (cult member and Smallville’s Allison Mack) who wanders around the mall annoying everyone in sight. As soon as George and Ira see Amy they are completely smitten. Their rivalry heats up as they try to impress her, but she informs them that she is not staying at the Plaza. Their disappointment does not last long, however, because Amy soon finds that the Doughnut Hole is not worth more than the monthly rent, which she begrudgingly hands over to the landlord (Chris Sarandon).  She and Jenny don aprons, and Amy assumes her role as owner.

The stage is set for love triangle intrigue amidst fast cars and greasy doughnuts, but, unfortunately, the show never made it beyond the pilot episode. It seems CBS realized that producing multiple half hour (well, 23 minute) segments of an almost completely sung-through television show was too expensive. In fact, it was the most expensive pilot CBS had ever made at the time. It also tested very poorly.  

Creating the perfect balance of story, music, and lyrics for any dramatic form—stage or screen—is difficult, and to do it within the grueling weekly television production schedule may be impossible, although in recent years some shows have come closer, most notably Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which was one of the few recent musical television shows to feature original songs, though it was far from sung-through. When Shangri-La Plaza aired, however, two other shows debuted that season featuring original songs: the infamous Cop Rock and the forgettable Hull High. Neither lasted more than a season. Perhaps if Shangri-La Plaza and the others were made today the writers and producers could have figured out how to make a weekly original score work, especially with shortened seasons. The more I watch Shangri-La Plaza, the more I wish that other 23-minute television musicals like it existed, either as an ongoing series like Shangri-La Plaza was intended to be, or perhaps as a mini-series or an anthology of one-offs. It’s a fun and exciting form, one that television creators often attempt but then abandon when it doesn’t quite work the way they expect. But musicals are always a different beast and operate with a different language of storytelling than the typical television fare.

Despite the difficulties, writers Nick Castle (who also directed the episode), Craig Safan, and Mark Mueller crafted a few memorable songs, such as “That’s How You Make a Doughnut Hole,” sung by jazz singer Carmen Lundy as the lone doughnut shop worker, along with Amy and a chorus of customers, and “Ain’t It Always the Way,” in which each character’s storyline reaches its climax. The remaining songs, however, are not really songs but songlets, meandering musically and lyrically as they plow through the plot. Perhaps a sung-through half hour of television necessitates this lack of song form, but, at least on a first viewing, it can leave the audience feeling a bit lost. Still, the songlets and recitative sections are sonically pleasing, and on multiple viewings one can see how they’re working to tell the story.  

A television musical like Shangri-La Plaza needs a stellar cast, and they don’t disappoint. The aforementioned Hardin and Lundy are top notch performers, but if you are still on the fence about giving this a try, tune in for Broadway star Terrence Mann (the original Rum Tum Tugger in Cats and Javert in Les Misérables on Broadway) bringing a swagger and a deep, edgy voice to Ira Bondo. You’ll even see future Tony award-winning dancer/choreographer Savion Glover working with crutches (he’d apparently broken his ankle playing basketball right before filming).

I wish we could have seen what else the writers of Shangri-La Plaza had up their sleeves, but the pilot works as a one-off short form musical, and we are lucky we still have access to it via YouTube. It may require repeat viewing to appreciate the nuances of its absurdity, but if one can get past the “what the hell is this?” stage, one will see a rare gem and perhaps find themselves wishing that television had more failed musical pilots to discover. Or more successful short form musicals.

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Shoshana Greenberg writes musicals, plays, and prose. She is a bookwriter and lyricist, librettist, playwright, singer, and freelance theater journalist in New York City. She produces and hosts the musical theater podcast, Scene to Song.

Rooster Revue is edited by Matt Andrews and Jeffrey Simon with contributions from the entire team at The Barn. Read past issues in the archive.