Ending in harmony

WHEN director Adam Shankman and producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron asked us to write an end title song for "Hairspray," we were lucky to have had five years of eavesdropping on Broadway audience's reaction to base the song on.

Standing outside the theater (where I, Marc, often stand with a sandwich board around me that says "I wrote this, love me please"), we have heard parents and their children saying the same phrases over and over again:

"Can you believe I dressed and actually wore my hair just like that?"

"Was it really such a big deal for blacks and whites to appear together on TV?"

"Well, we've come a long way since then . . . although, to be honest, I wish things were further along than they still are."

"Gee, that Marc Shaiman sure is handsome . . . and so thin!"

So, we decided to put those ideas (well, most of them) into a song that would allow a quartet of our performers (Queen Latifah, Nikki Blonsky, Zac Efron and Elijah Kelley) a chance to sing "as themselves" and to sum up where we're at in 2007.