came to New York and began writing for Broadway 50 years ago. His shows include High Button Shoes; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; Two on the Aisle; Hazel Flagg; Gypsy; Peter Pan; Arturo Ui; (The Dramatic Score); Bells Are Ringing; Say, Darling; Do Re Mi; Subways Are For Sleeping; Funny Girl; Fade Out - Fade In; Hallelujah, Baby!; and Sugar. His film scores include Anchors Aweigh and My Sister Eileen, as well as the title song for Three Coins in the Fountain. Mr. Styne was a member of the Songwriters' and Theatre Halls of Fame, a 1990 Kennedy Center Honoree, winner of two Grammys, and an Oscar, a Tony, a Donaldson Award, and a Drama Desk Critics Award. Mr. Styne died in New York City on September 20, 1994 at the age of 88.
studied drama at Carnegie Tech and moved to New York to become an actor. His success writing lyrics for Hit the Deck, Judy, and Bubbling Over led to a Hollywood contract in 1929. He wrote the lyrics for the film musicals, Innocents in Paris, Monte Carlo, Little Miss Marker, The Gang's All Here, My Gal Sal, and The Big Broadcast. His song, "Thanks for the Memories," won an Academy Award in 1938. He wrote the lyrics for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and later for Lorelei, and also collaborated with Jule Styne on the score for the musical film, My Sister Eileen. Mr. Robin died in January 1985 at the age of 85.
began her career as a movie scenarist and staff writer at the age of 14 for D.W. Griffith. In 1925 she published Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which triumphed on Broadway a few years later as a non-musical play. In 1948 she joined forces with Joseph Fields, composer Jule Styne, and lyricist Leo Robin, to musicalize Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which opened on Broadway the next year. Ms. Loos adapted the novel, Red-Headed Woman, for the screen with Jean Harlow. Her other plays include The Whole Town's Talking, The Fall of Eve, Pair of Fools, Happy Birthday, and Lorelei. She also crafted a Collette novel into a stage production, Gigi. Ms. Loos died in 1981 at the age of 88.
Screen credits include The Big Shot, Fools for Scandal, Two Girls on Broadway, Louisiana Purchase, and The Farmer Takes a Wife. For the stage he collaborated on several productions with Jerome Chodorov including My Sister Eileen, Junior Miss, Wonderful Town, The Girl in Pink Tights, Anniversary Waltz, and The French Tough. He also collaborated with Anita Loos on the 1949 hit musical, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. He was director and co-author for the stage production of Tunnel of Love and then wrote and produced the film version. With Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II, he co-authored and co-produced the production of Flower Drum Song. Mr. Fields died May 3, 1966, at the age of 71.
Director of the 1998 Lincoln Center all-star version of Sweet Charity. A producer on Gwen Verdon’s original Charity. Produced and/or directed the Charity’s of Chita Rivera, Juliet Prowse and Carol Lawrence. A producer for Angela Lansbury’s original Mame. Directed her in three tours, plus the Mame’s of Ann Miller, Janis Paige, Susan Hayward, JoAnne Worley and Jane Russell. Staged Debbie Reynolds’ 1990 Molly Brown tour. Directed REPRISE!’s Call Me Madam. In New York presented Shirley Jones in Maggie Flynn; produced and directed She Loves Me with Madeline Kahn and Rita Moreno and Richard Kiley’s Knickerbocker Holiday. Produced or directed 140 tours, including Lana Turner’s Forty Carats, Patricia Morison’s Pal Joey, Lois Nettleton’s Cole, Della Reese’s Same Time, Next Year and An Evening with George Burns and Carol Channing. Directed 400 television episodics, including The Cosby Show, Facts of Life, Bosom Buddies, Soap, Benson, Wayans Brother, Gabe Kaplan’s HBO Groucho and Jay Leno, Bob Hope, Tonight Show specials. Hosted cabarets at his home for Aid for AIDS, presenting Barbara Cook, Rosemary Clooney, Lanie Kazan, Nancy Dussault, Jerry Herman, Karen Morrow, etc. This season directed Robert Guillaume in Arthur Miller’s Creation of the World. Next, directs Dear Sheldon with JoAnne Worley and My Wife and the Kids for ABC.
was orchestrator/conductor on Broadway for Noel Coward’s Sail Away and Richard Rodgers’ No Strings and created orchestrations for Jule Styne’s Hallelujah, Baby and Tommy Tune’s Grand Hotel. On records Matz has arranged, conducted and produced albums for Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett, Dionne Warwick, Melissa Manchester, Kiri te Kanawa, Nancy La Mott, Barbra Streisand and recently arranged Barbara Cook’s recordings of songs with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. On TV, Peter was arranger/conductor for Carol Burnett’s long-running series, and composed scores for more than fifty TV movies and many feature films (Sidney Lumet’s Bye Bye Braverman is Matz’s favorite). Matz composed the music for The Gorey Details, which played at New York’s Century Center Theater in the Fall of 2001, and more recently created the orchestrations for the hit musical, The Boswell Sisters, at the Old Globe in San Diego. Peter and his wife, actress/singer/psychotherapist Marilynn Lovell are active fund-raisers for APLA, Shanti Foundation, Aid for AIDS and other local AIDS organizations. The CD of their show, Say It with Music, recorded live in New York, is available on the Original Cast Records label. Matz has been musical director of all the musicals at REPRISE! since its inception.
During the past thirty years, Mr. Johnson recreated numerous productions of Jerry Robbins’ original West Side Story all over the world. He has had a long relationship with Mel Brooks, beginning with the famous (or infamous) “Springtime for Hitler” number in The Producers. He also choreographed Blazing Saddles; Young Frankenstein; High Anxiety; History of the World, Part I; and Dracula, Dead and Loving It. He directed the film To Be or Not to Be, starring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. For the past twenty years, he has directed and choreographed all of Shirley MacLaine’s live appearances. He has also staged shows and choreographed for Ann-Margret, Chita Rivera, Ann Reinking, Tommy Tune, Leslie Uggams, Bernadette Peters and Peter Allen. His many television specials have earned him three Emmy Awards and six nominations. He received a Tony nomination for Legs Diamond on Broadway. He has won an American Choreography Award for The Gap/West Side Story commercials. He is also on the boards of directors of the Academy of Dance on Film and the Professional Dancers Society. He is a member of the American Choreography Awards and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. After last year’s Call Me Madam, Alan is pleased to return for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
has designed over 250 shows for theatre and television. His stage credits include Comedy Tonight, Bea Arthur on Broadway; Just Between Friends and Waiting in the Wings on Broadway, Jazz Leggs in Berlin, Jubilee! at Bally’s Grand in Las Vegas, Hello Hollywood Hello! at the MGM Grand in Reno, five productions at The Mark Taper Forum, The Time of Your Life, The Miser and The Caucasian Chalk Circle at the Loretto Hilton Theatre in St. Louis, Pepito’s Story, Dreams, Soul Possessed and Brothers of the Knight at the Kennedy Center, Call Me Madam for Reprise! and Big River for the Deaf West Theater in Los Angeles. His credits include sets for Cher, Diana Ross, Martha Graham, Michael Jackson, Liza Minnelli, Elton John, Princess Grace, Barbra Streisand, Madonna and Elvis. He created set designs for twenty-six American Music Awards shows, eleven American Film Institute Tributes, six Academy Awards, ten Kennedy Center Honors, two Tony Awards, and A Night of 100 Stars. He is the recipient of three Emmy Awards and eleven nominations, and the Hoffman Eminent Scholar Chair from Florida State University. He received an M.F.A. in theatre design from Yale University.
Bill’s designs for Murphy Brown, Sylvia Fine Kaye’s Musical Comedy Tonight, Pinocchio starring Danny Kaye and Sandy Duncan and Once Upon A Brothers Grimm each won him Emmy Awards. He was also nominated for his series and specials designed for Barbara Mandrell, Neil Sedaka, Doug Henning, Opryland, Pam Dawber and David Foster. His theatre designs include the 1979 Broadway revivals Oklahoma! and Peter Pan and the Los Angeles Production of I Do, I Do, which starred Carol Burnett and Rock Hudson. In October 1985 he opened Bill Hargate Costumes, which manufactures and rents costumes for motion pictures, television and theatre productions. The Academy Awards and numerous films, television series and specials have had costumes created at this popular Hollywood costume house. Candice Bergen, Geena Davis, Bette Midler, Delta Burke, Barbara Mandrell, Mary Tyler Moore, Annie Potts and Sandy Duncan are among the “star ladies” to wear his designs. Bill is a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, a native of St. Louis, Missouri and served two terms as Governor of the Television Arts and Sciences. He is a past President of the Costume Designers Guild and received their Career Achievement Award for 2001.
has created designs for fifteen REPRISE! productions including Sweeney Todd, Mack & Mabel, and Hair. He recently designed the acclaimed production of Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks at the Geffen Playhouse. He has designed over seventy-five productions for South Coast Repertory Theatre and shows for the Mark Taper Forum, International City Theatre, Opera Santa Barbara, CLO of South Bay Cities, Fullerton CLO, Sacramento Music Theatre, and Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. His lighting can be seen at theme parks in six different countries including Universal Studios Hollywood, Japan, and Florida; Warner Bros. Movie World Australia, Germany, and Spain; Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland. His architectural lighting can be seen at Santa Monica Place, South Coast Plaza Mall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Los Angeles Music Center, and many other shopping malls, restaurants, churches, residences and Las Vegas casinos and hotels. A recipient of the Lighting Designer of the Year 2000 Award, Mr. Ruzika is also head of the Graduate Lighting Design Program at U.C. Irvine.
has designed over 75 theatrical shows, including Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Cinderella at the Ahmanson, The First Picture Show at the Taper, and the first four seasons of REPRISE! Other design work includes Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks and Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues at the Geffen; Play On!, Only a Kingdom, and Blame It on the Movies at the Pasadena Playhouse; Masada at the Shubert Theatre; Joseph… and Singin’ in the Rain for Denver’s Arvada Center for the Arts; Forever Plaid and Blues in the Night at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami; and The King and I, South Pacific, and Into the Woods for the Long Beach Civic Light Opera. He served as Production Sound Engineer for Thoroughly Modern Millie at La Jolla Playhouse last fall and spent most of 2000 on the road with the national tour of Titanic. He won the 1999 L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award with Jon Gottlieb for their sound design of Cinderella, as well as five L.A. Dramalogue Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design and an Ovation Award nomination for Best Sound Design in a Large Musical.