Courtesy Sarah Peak as the Madonna-influenced character, Holly, sings ‘Saturday Night in the City.’ Girl, we’d love to raid that wardrobe.

Fans of the “The Wedding Singer,” the 1998 movie starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, will notice a big difference in the musical theater version.

Instead of “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” “99 Luftballons” and other classic '80s songs, the musical features a mostly original score that sounds like it's straight out of the '80s.

“Somebody Kill Me Please” (which Sandler wrote) and “Grow Old With You” (which he co-wrote) were the only songs to make the transition to the stage version.

Don't worry — the new songs are hilarious. A couple of favorite lines? “Remember that Linda is a skanky whore” from “A Note From Grandma” and “But as I learned when I applied to DeVry, you gotta have a safety school” from “Let Me Come Home.”

The production hits the Majestic Theatre as part of the Broadway Across America — San Antonio series. 210SA talked to Chad Beguelin, who co-wrote the book and wrote the lyrics to the musical score, about composing songs inspired by the likes of Run DMC, Heart and Madonna.

Jessica Belasco | 210SA contributor
 

You said you're a child of the '80s. What were some of your favorite bands back then?

I was a big fan of the Eurythmics and Madonna and that sort of thing. Cindy Lauper was great. A little bit of The Cure but not a lot. I was more mainstream.

What was the biggest challenge when you were working on this score?

We wanted to make sure we kept entertaining but also pushing the story forward. There was the option to just do a jukebox musical where you just slot in songs from the ’80s, but we definitely wanted to make it a traditional musical-theater piece. We wanted to write songs where you could see the characters developing and falling in love and revealing their personalities through song.

That's interesting because part of the appeal of the movie was Adam Sandler singing these '80s hits. Were you worried about losing that?

It would have definitely been a way to go, but I think we were able to get much more deeper into the characters and get deeper into the story and have more fun with the comedy of it if the songs were really, truly based on the characters.

Did you have specific bands in mind when you were writing the score?

Absolutely. We tried to decide what each character listened to. For the character of Holly, it was definitely very Madonna, “Material Girl,” “Cherish,” that kind of thing. For Linda, it was sort of more Heart and that sort of funny hard rock.

‘The Wedding Singer' was nominated for five Tony awards, including best original score. How did that feel?

We were just so excited. It was so great to be able to go to the ceremony and hang out with Julia Roberts and Oprah Winfrey. They're stalking me now, which is weird, but that's cool. I'm in Oprah's book club.