Alan Menken is one of the most well respected names in showbiz today. The acclaimed composer has the GOT parts of the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar,Tony), several times over. So one would hope that his work on ABC’s Galavant could earn him an Emmy or two. So you can imagine how intimidating and thrilling it must have been for actor Timothy Omundson to stand before the Disney and Broadway legend after shying away from musical theater for most of his adult life. Ahead of this weekend’s Season 2 finale of Galavant, Omundson is opening up about how the musical episode of Psych lead to him working with Menken.
Recently, Timothy Omundson opened up to TVLine about the famed Psych musical episode reuniting his love for the genre:
“I did musicals in high school, and I loved them, but when I got to theater school I was a very ‘pretentious, serious young actor’ who was doing Shakespeare and Chekhov, and that was what I was going to do.”
That determination quickly paid off, as Omundson adds:
“It’s kind of weird, my New Year’s resolution that year was to sing more, and I just can’t believe that the first job out of the gate, after Psych, was not just a musical but an Alan Menken Disney musical.”
However, Omundson didn’t just start working with Menken overnight. The whole audition process took over five months:
“I started a crash course. Again, that five-month audition process helped. The first time I sang a song from Les Miz, because I’ve always wanted to play Javert. The next time I went in, months later, they said, ‘You’ve got to sing again, but the music is now written so we need you to sing Richard’s song from the pilot.’ That was utterly terrifying. And frankly, I got really pissed off, like, ‘Nobody else had to sing a song for the show! I’m going to be measured with a different yardstick than everyone else!” That lasted about 12 hours, then I said to myself, ‘Shut up. If you want to do a big boy musical, put your big boy pants on and go learn the damn song.’ It was all just fear talking, and I got over it, I learned the song, and gosh darn it, a few weeks later I’m in a studio in England with Alan Menken standing there on the other side of the glass listening to me.”
