It’s been a few months since I’ve seen my name in print, and I’m excited to make my debut in Emmy Magazine (which is distributed to Academy of Television Arts & Sciences members) with a feature on Alan Menken in the new December issue. Menken is composing songs — 31 in all! — for ABC’s upcoming eight-episode musical comedy series Galavant, which debuts Jan. 4. As I wrote,

It’s been a rewarding, but daunting challenge. Instead of composing three- or four-minute songs, as Menken is used to, he’s lucky to get two minutes on TV, give Galavant‘s twenty-one-and-a-half-minute running time. “You hone your skill in a different way,” he observes. “You learn to be more concise and figure out what’s going to work for the medium.”

Menken also discussed his early success with Little Shop of Horrors and the “mixed blessing” of being synonymous with “Disney music” after The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. And yes, he talks about how he is only an Emmy short of the coveted EGOT (he has 11 Grammys, eight Oscars and a Tony under his belt). I also spoke with Galavant creator Dan Fogelman and Menken’s lyricist partner Glenn Slater about the legendary composer.

Here’s the whole profile (click to enlarge):

I really enjoyed my first Emmy Magazine feature, and I’ve already lined up several more stories in the coming months. You can read (and buy) Emmy‘s entire December issue here.

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With the new TV season about to kick off, I looked at 16 returning second-year series, and predicted which ones will surge in Season 2, and which will slump. As I wrote at The Daily Beast,

A show’s second season is often its make-or-break year. After a season’s worth of growing pains and tweaking under its belt, will the series make the leap and fully realize its potential, as Scandal and New Girl gloriously did last year, or will it hit the dreaded sophomore slump and watch that initial promise implode, as was the case with Revenge, Up All Night, and Smash?

Maybe I’ll check back at the end of the season and how my predictions held up.

Sophomore TV Shows: Which Will Surge and Which Will Slump?

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