Bella Vita Entertainment, with Anthony Gruppuso, Calvin Remsberg, and Tricia Stabile announces the Los Angeles premiere of Glory Days. Glory Days has music and lyrics by Nick Blaemire and book by James Gardiner, and will be directed by Calvin Remsberg. Glory Days will preview at 8 pm on Thursday, March 17 and Friday, March 18 with opening night at 8:00 pm on Saturday, March 19 and run through April 24 (Thursday through Sunday) at the Lillian Theatre (1076 N. Lillian Way Hollywood 90038) Tickets are $32 and are available through www.plays411.net or by calling 1-323-965-9996.
Glory Days is a new musical by newcomers Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner that premiered at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia on January 15, 2008. The show opened to enthusiastic reviews, including a rave in the Washington Post, and moved to The Circle in the Square on Broadway where after seventeen previews it opened...and closed...on May 6, 2008.
Glory Days concerns four high school friends, who, after a year away at college, reunite on their high school football field. Will, the protagonist, intends to induce the three others into some prank playing in order to seek revenge on their high school football team who tormented the four while they were in high school. After some convincing, the other three come on board, but things don't go smoothly as the boys find that they have grown apart...and their friendship is not what it was. With an infectious pop-rock score and a timely story, relevant to today's youth, and anyone who has seen treasured high school relationships fail, Glory Days is a chance to see what Peter Mark of The Washington Post called a "fresh and vivacious one-act musical... real and surprisingly moving.... The buoyant product of the talented young team..., Glory Days swiftly, tunefully and yes, authentically latches onto the rhythms of late adolescence and plays them back to us as the music of wrenching transitions."
ABOUT THE CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM
Nick Blaemire (Music/Lyrics) is a performer and songwriter living in New York City. His first musical Glory Days, which he began working on with his friend James when they were 18, had a critically-acclaimed run at the prestigious Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia (under the direction of Eric Schaeffer), and then moved to the Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway in the spring of 2008. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he also appeared in the Broadway musical Cry-Baby. The original cast recording of Glory Days is available through Sh-K-Boom Records. He is currently at work on a new original musical, Finding Robert Hutchens, with bookwriter Paul Downs Colaizzo, which was commissioned by Broadway Across America. Mr. Blaemire continues to perform around the country, including the new musical Bring It On currently in Atlanta, opening at the Ahmanson Theatre, LA in fall 2011.
James Gardiner (Book) is a 26-year-old playwright and actor who currently resides in Alexandria, Virginia. Mr. Gardiner wrote the book for Glory Days (music and lyrics by Nick Blaemire), which premiered at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia and opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway in 2008. As an actor, Mr. Gardiner has performed at The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, and various other theaters in the Washington D.C. area. Mr. Gardiner received his BA in Theatre from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Calvin Remsberg (Director/Producer) has worked extensively both as a performer and as a director. He is perhaps best remembered by Los Angeles audiences for his portrayal of Firmin, the crotchety opera house manager in the record breaking production of The Phantom Of The Opera at the Ahmanson Theater, having played the role with three different Phantoms over the entire four and a half year run. Other stage roles include the Beadle in both national tours, and the acclaimed television production of Sweeney Todd, and for four years he crawled around as Old Deuteronomy in the first national tour of Cats. He appeared as the Padre in both the Long Beach and South Bay Civic Light Opera productions of Man Of La Mancha, and as Mr. Bumble in Oliver for the Theatre League and Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, where he also appeared in The Pirates Of Penzance. In addition, he created the role of the Mayor in Mary Rodgers musical The Griffin And The Minor Canon, as well as numerous readings and backer's auditions of new works on both coasts. He appeared in three S.T.A.G.E. benefits, and their subsequent recordings, and recently recorded Jerry Herman's latest musical score, Miss Spectacular.
On television, Mr. Remsberg has appeared on "The Young And The Restless," "Nurses," "Sunday Dinner," "Unhappily Ever After," "General Hospital," "Tracey Takes On...," "Cheers," "Frasier," and "The X-Files" and the made for television film of "The Water Engine." He has appeared in the motion pictures "A River Made To Drown In," "Pretty Woman," and "Twilight Of The Golds," and recently lent his voice to the Oscar winning "Shrek".
He began his professional career in the classical world, having sung concerts in Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap Farm Park, and over thirty operas with Washington, Boston and New York City operas, including three filmed for television with opera diva Beverly Sills at Wolf Trap.
On the other side of his career he has directed many works for the stage, including The Adding Machine, The Way Of The World, Invitation To A March, A Clearing In The Woods, The Medium (With Glenn Close), The Crucible, A Member Of The Wedding, And The Musicals Gypsy, Brigadoon, Once Upon A Mattress, and The Mikado.
He directed the acclaimed 20th Anniversary production of Sweeney Todd at the Ahmanson Theater, starring Kelsey Grammer, Christine Baranski, and Neil Patrick Harris, and recently directed the equally well received production of Sweeney at Performance Riverside. He directed Educating Rita, Chapter Two, and Dracula for the Hermosa Beach Playhouse, Triumph Of Love at the Falcon Theater, and The Sound Of Music for Cabrillo Music Theater. Recently, he has directed the Los Angeles premieres of Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years and Parade, Street Scene, Drood, Aspects Of Love, and The Most Happy Fella for the Musical Theatre Guild, as well as the Best Musical Ovation Award nominated productions of Urinetown for Interact, and Sunday In The Park With George for West Coast Ensemble. He made his Lincoln Center debut directing "Night And Day: The Words And Music Of Cole Porter" starring Victoria Clark and David Hyde Pierce, part of the acclaimed American Songbook series, in January of 2009. He further directed the American premiere of F*CKING MEN by Joe DiPietro at the Celebration Theatre, Sweeney Todd for Musical Theatre West, Hello, Dolly! for 3-D Theatricals, and Into the Woods, starring Emmy Award winning actor Anthony Geary and produced this past fall in a warehouse by Lucid By Proxy.
Upcoming projects include the fabulous Palm Springs benefit One Night Only in April, which he will direct this year for the second time, and an upcoming stage retrospective of the life of Charles Pierce.
In addition to all of this he maintains and active studio in private voice in Van Nuys, California, having Tony, Emmy, and Oscar winners among his students, including American Idol finalist Adam Lambert.
James May (Music Direction) has worked on Broadway, as conductor and/or associate music director: Teddy and Alice, Les Miserables, Sunset Boulevard. National Tours: A Chorus Line, La Cage Aux Folles. Kiss Me Kate, Man of La Mancha, Beauty and The Beast; Los Angeles companies: Les Miserables, The Lion King, White Christmas, Wicked; in Spain and Mexico: La Bella y La Bestia and Mamma Mia; Les Miserables at The Hollywood Bowl. Also, James has worked at many regional theaters, including St Louis MUNY Opera, The Goodman Theater in Chicago, and Sacramento Music Circus.
The cast of Glory Days includes: Alex Robert Holmes, Derek Klena, Matthew Koehler, and Ian Littleworth, with Jeffrey Scott Parsons and Alex Martinez Wallace.
Glory Days is produced by Bella Vita Entertainment in association with Anthony Gruppuso, Calvin Remsberg, and Tricia Stabile. Sean Thomas is Associate Producer. The scenic design is by Andrew Hammer, the lighting design is by Jeremy Pivnick, the costume design is by Mara Bear, and the sound design is by Joseph "Sloe" Slawinski. The show is stage managed by Ronn Goswick.
Glory Days will preview at 8 pm on Thursday, March 17 and Friday, March 18 with opening night at 8:00 pm on Saturday, March 19 and run through April 24 (Thursday through Sunday) at the Lillian Theatre, 6322 Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The Lillian Theatre is part of the Elephant Theatre complex of stages.
Tickets are $32 and are available through www.plays411.net or by calling 1-323-965-9996.
