The guys are gambling, the dolls are dancing, and the audience will come up a winner when Cabrillo Music Theatre launches its 2009-2010 season with Guys and Dolls. Returning is Director Nick DeGruccio, whose previous Cabrillo production of Jekyll & Hyde led to three Ovation Awards, including Best Director. Returning with DeGruccio is Choreographer Roger Castellano, Ovation-nominated for Jekyll. Musical Direction is by Darryl Archibald, and the production will be overseen by Artistic Director Lewis Wilkenfeld. Cabrillo’s production of Guys and Dolls, created exclusively for the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, will open on Friday, October 16th, 2009 and run through Sunday, October 25th, for Cabrillo Music Theatre in the 1,800-seat Kavli Theatre at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, located at 2100 Thousand Oaks Boulevard in Thousand Oaks.
With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, and a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, Damon Runyon’s colorful characters come to life in Guys and Dolls. Suave Sky Masterson wages a bet on whether he can woo the buttoned-up Sister Sarah Brown.
Meanwhile, Nathan Detroit puts his floating crap game ahead of his long-suffering fiancé (of 14 years!), Miss Adelaide. The score features “Luck Be A Lady,” “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ The Boat,” “I’ve Never Been In Love Before,” and the title tune.
“Guys and Dolls might be the best musical ever,” says Carole W. Nussbaum, Cabrillo Music Theatre’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “It’s a perfect blend of music and dance, and of comedy and glamour. It’s no wonder that Guys and Dolls has enjoyed three successful Broadway revivals, a memorable film version, and a rumored new movie version on the way.” Continues Nussbaum, “And with Nick DeGruccio at the helm, Cabrillo Music Theatre will surely ‘rock the boat’ at the Kavli Theatre, here at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza!”
Cabrillo Music Theatre’s production features another triumphant return, when Barry Pearl, of Cabrillo’s successful 1996 production, once again stars as Nathan Detroit. Pearl, a veteran of film (“Grease”) and Broadway (“Oliver,” “Bye Bye Birdie”), will be joined by Southern California theatre favorites Jeff Griggs as Sky Masterson, Alet Taylor as Miss Adelaide, and Jessica Bernard (star of Cabrillo’s recent Cats) as Sarah Brown. Featuring a cast of 30 and a full professional orchestra, Guys and Dolls is a “sure bet” for the entire family, and is recommended for all audiences.
Nick DeGruccio (Director) is a three-time recipient of the LA Ovation Award for Direction and has received the 2008 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Joel Hirschhorn Award for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theatre, as well as the 2009 BackStage Garland Award for Direction for an Outstanding Season of Work. Nick happily returns to Cabrillo having directed Jekyll & Hyde last season (Ovation Award for Direction). He also received Ovation Awards for his direction of The Laramie Project at the Colony Theatre and Laguna Playhouse and 1776 at Performance Riverside. Recent credits include Putting It Together, A Year With Frog and Toad for South Coast Repertory, the West Coast Premiere of The Andrews Brothers at Musical Theatre West (LA Ovation Award for Ensemble, Nomination for Direction), as well as Kiss of the Spider Woman (4 LADCC Nominations) and the LA Premieres of Thrill Me (2 LA Ovation Noms, LADCC Nom) and Dog Sees God (2 LADCC Noms, 3 LA Weekly Noms, GLAAD Media Nom) for Havok Theatre Company’s inaugural season. His other productions and Ovation-nominated works include Side By Side By Sondheim for The Rubicon Theatre and Pasadena Playhouse, the LA premiere of Side Show (Colony Theatre), Guys and Dolls and La Cage Aux Folles (Musical Theatre West), The Last Five Years in rep with I Do! I Do! (Pasadena Playhouse), The Full Monty (San Diego Music Theatre), The Spitfire Grill (Laguna Playhouse/OC Weekly Award Best Musical), Zanna, Don’t! at West Coast Ensemble (LADCC Award for Direction), Bad Apples, a World Premiere Play for The Rubicon Theatre Company, Beehive at the El Portal Theatre and City of Angels, An Ideal Husband and Putting It Together (Colony Theatre). Other directing credits include: I Left My Heart...a tribute to Tony Bennett (Welk Resort), My Way (La Mirada PAC) and Altar Boyz for The Welk Resort. For Musical Theatre Guild, he directed the L.A. Premiere of A Man Of No Importance (GLAAD Award Nomination) and Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party. Other credits: Basic Training (2nd Stage/NAACP Award Nomination for Direction), The Fantasticks (Performance Riverside), Pippin (BCLO), and Happily Ever After…After All (voiceovers by Angela Lansbury) (9 O’clock Players). Nick is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Theatre Director’s Lab West.
Roger Castellano (Choreographer) works extensively as a Director/Choreographer of Theatrical and Special events. He has had great opportunities to work and collaborate with many Professional Regional Theatre Companies such as Musical Theatre West, Cabrillo Music Theatre, Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities, Laguna Playhouse, Fullerton Civic Light Opera, Performance Riverside, International City Theatre, The Center Theatre Group, The Phoenix Theatre in Arizona, and Music Theatre of Wichita in Kansas. He has also created original shows, parades, and special events for companies like Sesame Street Live, Sanrio Inc., The Walt Disney Company, and has worked with personalities like Reba McEntire, Stevie Nicks, Chicago, Gladys Knight, The Doobie Brothers, Kenny Loggins, Natalie Cole, Christopher Reeve, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Bennett, Bill Cosby and Walter Cronkite, to name a few. Theatrical Awards include: LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award Nominee for best choreographer (Jekyll & Hyde – Cabrillo Music Theatre), LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award Nominee for Best Choreographer (The Andrews Brothers, Musical Theatre West), Los Angeles Time’s Critic’s Pick (Me and My Girl, Musical Theatre West), Drama Logue’s Critic Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre, “Best Choreography” (A Little Night Music, The Center Theatre Group), Drama Logue’s Critic Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre – “Best Choreography” (La Cage Aux Folles, The Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities), Drama Logue’s Critic Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre, “Best Choreography” (Oliver – The Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities), Inland Theatre League Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre, “Best Director” (Suessical, Performance Riverside), AriZoni Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre – “Best Choreography” (A Chorus Line, The Phoenix Theatre.)
Darryl Archibald (Musical Director/Conductor). Tours include: Disney's The Lion King (vocal coach/assistant conductor), A Grand Night for Singing, The All Night Strut, and Jerry’s Girls. Other shows include: Wicked at the Pantages Theater (substitute conductor), Smokey Joe's Cafe (El Portal Theater), Ragtime (Musical Theatre West); Swing! (Sacramento Music Circus); A Chorus Line directed by Kay Cole, and The King and I with Deborah Gibson (Cabrillo Music Theatre); Swing! (McCoy/Rigby Ent.); Merry Me A Little - revised version (Celebration Theater); The Fantasticks with Eric McCormack, Once On This Island, Li'l Abner with Cathy Rigby and Fred Willard; Merrily We Roll Along with Teri Hatcher; I Do! I Do! with Diana Canova and Harry Groener (Reprise); My Fair Lady, 1776, Little Shop Of Horrors, Camelot, and Forever Plaid (Utah Shakespearean Festival); Ain’t Misbehavin’ directed by Ken Page (CLOSBC); The Threepenny Opera, Raisin and A Christmas Carol (ICT); The Fix, Kiss Of The Spider Woman, Lady In the Dark, and Sail Away (Musical Theatre Guild). Arrangement and orchestration credits include: the prime-time television special A Hollywood Holiday Celebration (ABC), The Fountain Show and Christmas Trolley Show (The Grove Los Angeles). Upcoming productions include: White Christmas (CMT), Carousel, Two By Two, How To Succeed... (Reprise), Great Expectations (USF).
Jeff Griggs (Sky Masterson) has a Bachelors Degree in Theatre from New Mexico State University where he studied under Tony Award-winning playwright Mark Medoff. Favorite roles in the King in The King and I, Harold Hill in The Music Man, P.T. Barnum in Barnum, Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun, Oscar Jaffe in Twentieth Century, Tito Morelli in Lend Me a Tenor, General Howell in Kiss Me, Kate, Jack in Reefer Madness, and Macheath in the critically acclaimed The Threepenny Opera at ICT earlier this year. He is probably best known as the villainous Jude St. Clair on Days of Our Lives. Jeff is also an accomplished artist and was honored by the President with a personal invitation to the White House for his 9/11 memorial painting, The Eyes of a Nation.
