LYRICAL WORKER : David Zippel and ‘City of Angels’ Turned Out to Be a Match Made in Heaven

In the world of musical theater, few people could be considered as lucky as David Zippel. In the span of two years, he has gone from virtually no career, to writing the lyrics for the Tony Award winning musical “City of Angels,” to currently working as the lyricist on a new musical for next season, with no less than playwright Neil Simon and composer Marvin Hamlisch.

But lest anyone think his story is a variation of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” it’s not. Trying --in both of its senses--is the operative word for the little-known and under-appreciated craft of musical theater lyric writing.

When Zippel collected his Tony in June, 1990, standing next to his well-known collaborators composer Cy Coleman and librettist Larry Gelbart, he simply told the audience: “Thank you from the only person on stage I never heard of.”

For 10 years he pursued his ambition to write lyrics for the commercial theater, working at the computer in the bedroom of his upper Westside Manhattan apartment, watching many Broadway seasons come and go with fewer and fewer musicals being produced.

But Zippel, now 37, continued to write, getting his first major break when Broadway star Barbara Cook recorded three songs he wrote with composer Wally Harper in the early ‘80s, and writing jingles, songs for revues, and industrial shows.

Always, in the back of his mind, he knew he could fall back on his law degree from Harvard if he had to. “But I decided long ago that I would rather have a show biz attorney than be one,” he said, during an interview at L.A.’s Shubert Theatre where “City of Angels” completed a five-month run before heading out on a tour that includes the current stop in Costa Mesa.

He has kept his word: So far, he hasn’t practiced law.

Given the economic conditions of Broadway, not to mention a theater community obsessed with the sound of composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, the odds against Zippel were overwhelming. “Someone once said you have a better chance of going to the moon than getting a hit show on Broadway,” he quipped during an interview.

Yet, when Zippel got his first big break to write the 1940s-set film noir -style “City of Angels,” everything seemed to be going his way. Little did he realize how his lyrics for the opening song would parallel for his own career:

This job is not to be believed,

And I cannot believe my luck.

I’m at the literary prime of my life,

And I’m about to have the time of my life.

Unless, I’m easily deceived . . .

True, he acknowledged, “it was lucky and unbelievable.” And he was not deceived. Working on the show with pros like Gelbart and Coleman was everything he ever wanted it to be, ever since he was a kid in Easton, Pa., and his parents took him to Manhattan to see his first Broadway musical, “Oliver!” “I knew right away--I wanted to be a part of it.”

At first, though, there was trepidation. Zippel recalls the night Coleman gave him the haunting melody to a song that became “With Every Breath I Take.” He knew he had to come up with a lyric to match the strength of the melody. “I had a week to do it and I wanted it to be perfect. I knew that if I could do it, I will have written a Cy Coleman song.”

In his eagerness, he said he came up with 12 variations--but Coleman was sold on the first one he heard.

“From the first time we got together at Gelbart’s Los Angeles home to work out the scenes and songs, it was like I was a part of the team. I was never made to feel like the junior partner . . . even though compared to their work I wasn’t even a junior partner.”

There are more positive comments when Zippel talks about working with Simon and Hamlisch on his next show. But no other details about that musical are forthcoming, except that the three first met to discuss “it” last May, they have been working “pretty hard since then,” and rehearsals should begin next summer.

Zippel won’t even say if the show is based on one of Simon’s previous plays (though Simon wrote an original script for “They’re Playing Our Song,” a musical he wrote with Hamlisch and lyricist Carol Bayer Sager). “Musicals notoriously take forever, so this is relatively fast,” he said. Beyond that, Zippel’s mouth is, well, zipped.

Except.

Except when he talks about Hollywood. On this topic, Zippel is one of those people who might be right at home amid the archives of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences library, fielding questions about movies. He would spend hours a week going to the Boston revival houses seeing classic films while he was at Harvard. And one of his pet projects is a musical adaptation of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s 1930s satire on Hollywood foibles, “Once in a Lifetime,” called “Going Hollywood.”

Finally, in “City,” Zippel had the chance to write about the movie business, and, in the process, zing the filmmaking quirks a few times--in the context of Gelbart’s satirical script, which focuses on a screenwriter whose Raymond Chandler-like movie script and personal sex life co-mingle wildly.

He’s also joined Hamlisch in writing a song for the current movie “Frankie & Johnny,” and may join with Alan Menken--another New York composer who’s been writing in Hollywood--to write the score for a future Disney animated musical.

But nothing beats the rush of hearing an audience react to his words being sung, live on stage, he said. “People tell me it’s very rare for audiences to laugh during songs. So when I hear the laughter, I feel very good.” He beat the odds again.

What: “City of Angels.”

When: Through Nov. 10. Performances Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday at 2 and 8 p.m. (no 8 p.m. on Nov. 10).

Where: Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Whereabouts

San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Street exit. North to Town Center Drive. (Center is one block east of South Coast Plaza.)

Wherewithal: $21 to $44.

Where to call: (714) 556-2787.