Frank Gagliano
Benedum Professor of Theatre
Frank Gagliano was born in Brooklyn, NY and was educated at The University of Iowa (BA), and at Columbia University in New York (MFA). He is married to Sandra Gagliano. His son Rico is an Associate Producer and on-air commentator for National Public Radio’s MARKETPLACE, and a co-creator, co-producer, co-anchor of the podcast DINNER PARTY DOWNLOAD .
Frank Gagliano was part of the1960’s group of Off-Broadway
playwrights that revitalized American drama.
Gagliano’s Off Broadway plays include: Conerico Was Here To Stay (at NY’s Cherry Lane Theatre); Night Of The Dunce (first developed as The Library Raid, at Houston’s Alley Theatre, directed by Nina Vance), produced in New York at The Cherry Lane Theatre; Father Uxbridge Wants To Marry (first developed at the O’Neill Theatre Center), produced at New York’s American Place Theatre, starring Olympia Dukakis, and later televised on New York’s WNET-TV, starring Roy Scheider; and The City Scene (Conerico and Paradise Gardens East).
In The Voodoo Parlour Of Marie Laveau also was first developed at The O’Neill Theatre Center, showcased in New York’s Phoenix Theatre Sideshow Series (directed by Michael Montel) and at The Neighborhood Group Theatre (also in New York), directed by Frank Gagliano. In The Voodoo Parlour of Marie Laveau had its West Coast premiere at L.A.’s Ensemble Studio Theatre on 11 June 1986, produced by Christine Beato and Brent Hedgecock, in association with Videosyncracy.
Other plays have been produced in regional theatres and universities throughout the country; they include, The Hide-And-Seek-Odyssey Of Madeleine Gimple (a children’s play, first commissioned by The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center and which starred Raul Julia, directed by Lloyd Richards); The Prince of Peasantmania, first produced at The O’Neill Theatre Center and which had its World Premiere at The Milwaukee Repertory Theater, starring John Glover, directed by Eugene Lesser); Congo Square (a musical, with Broadway composer Claibe Richardson); The Resurrection of Jackie Cramer (a Rock Opera with composer Raymond Benson, recently the official writer of the James Bond novels): Big Sur (first produced as an original television play on the NBC network, starring Billy Dee Williams and the late James Coco); The Total Immersion of Madeleine Favorini; and San Ysidro, a cantata with composer James Reichert (written in memory of those who were massacred at a MacDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California, on July 8, 1984).
Gagliano’s musical theatre piece (original book and lyrics), From The Bodoni County Songbook Anthology, with a score by Claibe Richardson, was developed at the 1989 O’Neill Theatre Center Musical Theatre Conference, and inaugurated the new Musical Lab productions at New York’s Vineyard Theatre in the Spring of 1991 and, in its revised text, was showcased by Pittsburgh’s Pyramid Productions, August 1995.
His two theater pieces, Hanna and his monologue play for male performer My Chekhov Light, were performed at The Birmingham Lofts, Pittsburgh (1991); The New Dramatists, NYC (1992); A Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Shephardstown-on-the-Potomic (1992); Primary Stages in New York City (May, 1993).
Gagliano has given reading-performances of My Chekhov Light here and abroad, at: The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, 2004; New York’s Cherry Lane Theatre, 2004; Kirovograd, Ukraine, 2005; Dancer Stage of Amsterdam,19 November 2005, and at The E.T.A. Hoffman Theatre in Bamberg, Germany, June14-15, 1998; followed by the world premiere production of My Chekhov Light on 28 November 1998 at the E.T.A.Hoffmann’s Studio Theatre, starring Ernst Hofstetter and directed by Georg Immelmann.
Gagliano’s theatre piece, Eulogy, was included in Primary Stages’ Legacy Project (Oct.,1994). Gagliano’s latest play in the Bodoni Cycle, The Farewell Concert of Irene and Vernon Palazzo, was workshopped in the 1995 Showcase of New Plays, directed by Michael Montel, featuring Rita Gardner (the original “girl” in The Fantasticks) and Bill Young (of the NY cabaret group, Shake, Wilder & Young; with original music by Mr. Young).
Gagliano conceptualized (along with director Robert Brewer and choreographer Rick Pessagno) And The Angels Sing: The Songs of Johnny Mercer, which premiered in Las Vegas (Jan, ‘96), and, soon after, at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles (Feb ‘96). He wrote the book for a new musical, Piano Bar (At The Chateau De LaMer), with composer/lyricist Gene Nordan; which had its world premiere at the Vivian Davis Theatre in Morgantown, WV in April 1998, directed by Michael Montel. At West Virginia University, Gagliano is currently the Benedum Professor of Theatre, a chair he has occupied since 1976.
Mr. Gagliano is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors,and Publishers (ASCAP); The New Dramatists (alumnus); The Dramatists Guild; The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center; has served on the Board ofDirectors of The Theatre Association of Pennsylvania (TAP); and was a panelist on the PEW Trust’s Philadelphia Theatre Initiative. Gagliano has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in playwriting, two RockefellerFoundation playwriting grants, an O’Neill Theatre Center/WesleyanUniversity grant, a 1989 Pennsylvania Arts Council Playwrights Fellowship—and was awarded the grand prize for the 1999 International Ernest Hemingway Playwriting competition for his play, The Total Immersion of Madeleine Favorini. He is represented in anthologies of dramatic literature and in critical studies.
Gagliano helped found Carnegie Mellon Drama’s Showcase of New Plays (1986), and was the Showcase’s Artistic Director from 1986 to 1998. His most recent position as Artistic Director was with the University of Michigan’s Festival of New Works (A professional developmental showcase for New Dramatic Writing; plays, screenplays, musicals), 1999-2001. His first season was in the Spring of 1999, in Ann Arbor, Michigan—where he established the Arthur Miller Award For Dramatic Writing, with Mr. Miller attending.
Gagliano’s play, The Commedia World Of Lafcadio B, was presented in the Play Labs of the 2005 Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Valdez, Alaska. There, Gagliano also gave a tribute to Arthur Miller, a tribute he again gave on 4 August 2005 in Beijing, China, at the Beijing Institute Of World Theatre and Film, and at Open Stage Theatre in Pittsburgh, Feb 10, 2006, on the first Anniversary of Arthur Miller’s death.
Gagliano’s BIG SUR was performed at the Beijing Institute of World Theatre and Film at Peking University in May, 2007. A scene from the musical CONGO SQUARE was showcased at The Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre in June, 2007. Applause Books selected Gagliano’s MY CHEKHOV LIGHT for its 2008 edition of One on One: The Best Men’s Monologues for the Twenty-First Century, published by Applause Books.
Gagliano’s first novel ANTON’S LEAP was published by BookSurge in June, 2008 and is available on www.amazon.com.
For samples of Frank Gagliano’s writings – plays, essays, teachings – visit his Web site, www.gaglianoriff.com.
Father Uxbridge Wants to Marry
Father Uxbridge Wants to Marry
