ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Chad Beguelin is a six-time Tony Award nominee, having worked on "The Prom", "Disney's Aladdin", "The Wedding Singer" and along with writing the screenplay for the Netflix version of "The Prom".
Now Beguelin, who is a Centralia, Illinois, native has recently released a new book titled "Showmance".
"The character, Noah, goes back to his small hometown and I sort of based it on Centralia," said Beguelin on Total Information A.M. "I changed the name of course because I don't want to get sued."
In the book "Showmance" Beguilen showcases some of the major events that takes place in Centralia, Illinois, such as the Centralia Balloon Fest, but admits he did forget to include the Halloween Parade in the book.
Beguilen says that although he lives in New York City now, his roots in Centralia still plays a big role in his career on Broadway.
"When we were working on the Broadway musical "The Prom", the director said 'You know what I feel like the hometown isn't real enough, it feels like "Bye Bye Birdie" or something. We need to make it more real,'" said Beguilen. "So I called up some of my friends who are still in Centralia or lived in the area and really talked to them about issues at hand nowadays for small towns."
"It really helped the musical and helped sort of inform how we wrote the people from that town."
"Showmance" can be found online and purchased through Amazon, Kindle, etc.