Being the personal chronicle of a life in American Theatre:
From the glory days of the Off-Broadway movement, to theatre's
present decline, and towards its uncertain future.
"Welcome to my Website.
Come on in and explore my Off-Broadway
productions and full play catalogue; my days as Artistic Director of
two important venues of play development; various bits and pieces;
articles and essays— and (after a teaching career spanning 40 years)
my insights into the art and craft of the writing of plays.”
FG
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NEW LINK
johnny mercer/american songbook
If you’re an enthusiast and devotee of, and all-around nut (as I am) for, the great American legendary lyricist and composer
JOHNNY MERCER,
and for the other genius composers and lyricists
of the golden age of American song
(Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Harold Arlen, Yip Harberg, Frank Loesser, Harry Warren, Jimmy Van Heusen, Jule Styne, and so, so, so many others),
you will want to log on (often) to
johnny mercer/american songbook
FIRST POSTING
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(April 23, 2012)
First postings include: MY FIVE DAYS WITH CHEKHOV (pdf text and photos about my participation in the recent 2012 Chekhov Conference — as playwright/performer and Keynote Speaker — at the Chekhov Memorial Museum in Yalta, Crimea), and my KEYNOTE ADDRESS (“Looking For Chekhov, This Traveler Comes Home”) and the text of my play, “MY CHEKHOV LIGHT,” which I read/performed on 26 April, at the Chekhov Museum. The link will then feature ongoing critical insights and creative pieces from Chekhovians the world over.
SCROLL DOWN FOR:
•THE VOODOO TRILOGY,
and my novel,
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GAGLIANO'S VOODOO TRILOGY
PREMIERED AT THE PITTSBURGH PLAYWRIGHTS THEATRE COMPANY
FEB-MAR 2011
For Voodoo Trilogy Complete Schedule And Ticket Information, contact
http://www.pghplaywrights.com/
The Productions:
CONGO SQUARE (The Musical)
Feb 10-27 and March 8 (Fat Tuesday)
IN THE VOODOO PARLOUR OF MARIE LAVEAU
(an unsung voodoo chamber opera)
February 24 through March 8 (Fat Tuesday)
Extended to March 12
THE COMMEDIA WORLD OF LAFCADIO B (A Reading)
March 5 through March 8 (Fat Tuesday)
The texts of all three VOODOO TRILOGY pieces
(LAVEAU/LAFCADIO/CONGO) can be viewed
in the plays link
Listen to mp3 excerpts from the CONGO SQUARE score in the audio from musicals link
To access the playwright's narrative on the journey of the Voodoo Trilogy, click here:
Gagliano's Voodoo Trilogy Narrative
"Marie Laveau image credit: New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, Jerry Gandolfo, Wikipedia."
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Frank Gagliano's first novel,
"Anton's Leap"
NOW AVAILABLE IN
SOFT COVER
AND ON
KINDLE
What Anton's Leap is about:
Part political thriller, part sex farce, playwright Frank Gagliano's first novel ANTON'S LEAP is narrated by free-associating, sex-obsessed ballet star, Anton Otchayanie (which in Russian means Despair). It is 1982 and Anton wants to defect from Soviet Russia. But to do so, he will have to survive a train collision in Prague, join a traveling troupe of erotic jugglers, fall in love, screw a lot, create ballet and Commedia dell' Arte scenarios, get sodomized with the nose of a Commedia dell' Arte mask, seek a super-strength serum, struggle to find an artistic persona, and develop compassion for other human beings. All this, while fleeing (in drag) from a Gay KGB agent and Anton's own psychopathic twin brother Vahktang who--in a Kafkaesque horror scene--confronts Anton in a Prague Fun House. Richard Wagner's testicles also play a role. For fans of picaresque flights of literary fancy like "Candide" or "Gulliver's Travels," and for devotees of unhinged surrealists like film director Federico Fellini, ANTON'S LEAP is a must-read tour-de-force.
Anton's Leap (back cover)
"I just finished reading Gagliano's delicious, delightful and magnificently- sexy novel, ANTON'S LEAP; I loved it! I am thinking now, that if somehow, against restrictions: biological, geographical, and perhaps, moral -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Susan Sontag, Madonna and The Smashing Pumpkins had managed to produce a child together, that child might well have written ANTON'S LEAP."
Joseph Graves -- Artistic Director, Beijing Institute of World Theatre and Film
--Raymond Benson, author of JAMES BOND--THE UNION TRILOGY
"Much is written in other reviews about the virtuosity of the language; the wildly inventive entertainment; the richness of the characters -- all of which I see, and raise: a delightful filthiness not experienced since Roald Dahl's 'My Uncle Oswald'; a narrative with the propulsive force of a literary orgasm; and most rewarding of all, a surprise crash course on why artists love art. Although readers who know little about theatre, dance, or the arts in general will enjoy "Anton" for the crazy-entertaining romp that it is, those who know and love the arts will recognize that they are experiencing a master class by an author who knows and loves theatre as much as Anton knows and loves fornication. I know it, and I love it. Read this book."
Michael Rashid, Actor/Director,
Artistic Drector, Black Elephant Theatre,Chicago
"Anton's Leap" is a wild and wacky psycho-sexual romp that reads like a triple cross between ‘Tom Jones,’ ‘Myra Breckinridge’ and ‘The 39Steps’...and all the other things that make life worth living." SimonSaltzman, Free lance arts journalist and theatre critic: President ofthe Outer Critics Circle; Member New York Drama Desk; American andInternational Theatre Critics Association.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Anton%27s+Leap&x=0&y=0