Richard Skipper Celebrates

The Original San Francisco Cast Album of 'Oh My Godmother' was released in 2008. His holiday musical THE MAN WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS, debuted in 2006 and was deemed an "instant holiday classic" by the press. It was released for national productions for the 2009 season and has been produced throughout the United States since. The Studio Cast Album was released in 2014. He followed it up with another holiday hit: CHRISTMAS IN OZ in 2017.

Ron looks forward to recording the score in the near future. In 2021, during the Covid Pandemic, he created the musical film short ONCE UPON A TIME STEP and released the soundtrack album which contains the eight songs from the film plus eight more songs from his one-act musical fairy tales.

Ron subsequently performed leading roles in musical comedies throughout the nation, and in productions for The Walt Disney Company and National Public Radio. He has performed onstage alongside many celebrities including Debbie Reynolds, James Earle Jones, Lea DeLaria, Nancy Dussault and JoAnne Worley. While working as a performer in Las Vegas (!), he founded the children's theatre company The Palace Players, writing and producing seven original musicals in a three year period for the Excalibur Hotel and Casino (the most successful of which played well over a thousand performances). His writing on classic film musicals appeared in the internationally published periodical Hollywood Studio Magazine. 

He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and occasionally performs with several theatre companies there. Since 2005, he has been the resident musical playwright for the East Bay Children's Theatre, the oldest continuously operating theatre company in the SF Bay Area, debuting over a dozen new works with them.

Recent release “Work at Sea, See the World,” from Newman Springs Publishing author Nancy Soulé, contains tips and tricks to what working and living on a cruise ship is like. Drawing from her own experiences from working at sea for over ten years, Nancy is able to provide a unique and personal perspective, revealing the ins and outs for those seeking an extraordinary way of life. Nancy's book is an eye-opening guide to navigating life while working full time on a cruise ship, and the incredible and fulfilling experience it can be.

For the bulk of his career, Alan Shayne relied on the creativity of others. Alan Shayne (born November 21, 1925 in Boston, Massachusetts) was President of Warner Brothers Television for ten years, where he shepherded such hit shows as Alice, The Dukes of Hazard, Night Court, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Head of the Class and Growing Pains. In addition to holding other positions at the Warner Brothers Studio, he has been an independent film and television producer with such projects as The Bourne Identity starring Richard Chamberlain (nominated for an Emmy), and he won a Christopher Award for The House Without a Christmas Tree.

Prior to that, he was an actor on Broadway and in television. Shayne is the author of the children's book, The Minstrel Tree¸ illustrated by Sunshine. Norman Sunshine is a painter and sculptor whose work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Earlier in his career, he was a fashion illustrator and Vice President, Creative Director of Trahey Advertising, where he coined the phrase "What Becomes a Legend Most?" for Blackglama Minks and "Danskins are not just for Dancing."

 In 1988, he served as Design Director of Lear's Magazine. View his artwork at www.normansunshine.com “A fascinating, frank and page-turning memoir about the lifelong love affair of two extraordinary men” (Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the City). The human story at the center of this debate is told in Double Life, a dual memoir by a gay male couple in a fifty-plus year relationship.

Double Life is a trip through the entertainment world and a gay partnership in the latter half of the twentieth century. As more and more same sex couples find it possible to say “I do,” the book serves as an important document of how far we’ve come.

Susan Silver wrote two Top Ten Movies of the Week, feature films and pilots for her own sit-coms. She has appeared on TV talk shows such as Fox Good Day NY (5) , The Today Show (3), is a frequent radio guest on Boomer issues for the Growing Bolder radio program, Bill Bennett Show and others. She has a long running radio commentary on the NPR affiliate out of Connecticut called “Susan Says” on www.Robinhoodradio.com and ITunes. Profiled in TV Guide, Esquire and other publications, she has written OP-Ed pieces for The New York Times, articles for Los Angeles Magazine, Refinery 29 and had a long running column on newyorksocialdiary.com entitled “The Search For Mr. Adequate.” In a second career, she worked in Holocaust related organizations such as the Anti Defamation League, running their Speakers Bureau, and as a UN Observer for the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Her memoir, “Hot Pants in Hollywood: Sex, Secrets & Sitcoms was published in 2017. Hot Pants In Hollywood is a Show Biz memoir, and much more. It's a Baby Boomer's lifeon steroids. Susan Silver was one of the first female TV comedy writers with credits like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, Bob Newhart, among others. As the lyrics from the iconic Mary Tyler Moore Show said, "She made it after all!" From another Midwest town, Milwaukee, with all its Sixties' values and normalcy, Susan went on to fame and fortune in Hollywood, had a successful career as one of the first women in TV sitcoms, and reinvented herself in different prominent arenas in New York.Along the way, she "Searched for Mr. Adequate," her well received dating column, had many romantic adventures, loves and loss, and she's 'still here!'

 If you love 'Show Biz' and want to know what it's like behind the scenes, Hot Pants in Hollywood is very funny...sexy too!

Like the Sondheim song says, this trooper is, at age 90, "still here." She was born in Canada in 1933 and grew up with a marvelous knack for making faces and getting laughs. The then-19-year-old met the much older Phil Ford in Alaska while both were playing different clubs in 1952. She was a quick fill-in after his female partner accidentally broke her ankle.

They married two years later and continued performing together in night clubs with Phil serving as the straight man. The plain-Jane, rubber-faced singer/comedienne with the prominent dimples and toothy grin had her customers alternately rolling in the aisles with her "chipmunk" routines and sobbing in their beers with heart-wrenching versions of torch songs. 

From then on Ford and Hines became a hot commodity in niteries, Las Vegas showrooms and on TV variety shows hosted by the likes of Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, Jimmy Dean and Johnny Carson. In 1965 it all culminated in the role of a lifetime for Mimi when she replaced Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl" on Broadway in the role of entertainer Fanny Brice. The part of the famed Jewish torch singer/comedienne fit like a glove and Mimi stayed with the show for a healthy 18 months, putting her own indelible stamp on the role.

 She also recorded albums during this peak and went on to appear in acting parts on TV, including "Love, American Style" and, more recently, "Frasier."

 Surviving several personal and professional roadblocks over the past few decades, the indefatigable Mimi continues to headline in nightclubs, music halls and the touring stage, both here and abroad, reuniting on several occasions with Ford (who died in 2005 at age 85). More recent musicals have included "Sugar Babies," "Nite Club Confidential," "Sugar," "Pippin" and "Nunsense."

From his first plays in the early 1960s to his death in 2020, playwright Terrence McNally has been a force in American theater. Beginning in the Off-Off Broadway movement, McNally’s writing continually reflected a changing culture, from opposition to the Vietnam War through the emergence of AIDS and gay rights. His stage plays, musicals, and operas continue to be performed internationally, and they remain the work of a consummate artist, delving into the human soul and fearlessly examining both the lighter and darker aspects of existence in an uncertain—and sometimes frightening—world. A Man of Much Importance looks at McNally’s life and work against the backdrop of a dynamic theatrical culture, tracing the ways in which an artist grows and responds to his world. Based on extensive interviews with McNally, it also features interviews with many of the artists—actors, designers, and producers—with whom he’s collaborated, including Nathan Lane, Chita Rivera, Audra McDonald, Christine Baranski, Kathy Bates, Swoosie Kurtz, John Glover, Joe Mantello, Arin Arbus, Paul Libin, Lynne Meadow, and many more.

 Christopher Byrne is an author and theater critic.

 He is a member of The Drama Desk and the American Theatre Critics Association. He began his career as a stage manager and producer and is a graduate of Boston University’s College of Fine Arts. In his not-so-secret double life, he is a leading expert on toys and play, writing extensively (including seven books), speaking, and appearing on many television programs worldwide on the topic. He is the creator and host of The Playground Podcast, a B2B podcast for the international toy industry, as well as Voice Out Loud, a podcast amplifying diverse voices in the LGBTQ+community. The book is officially out on July 15, and it’s available for pre-order.

Julian Schlossberg (Producer).Theatre: Bullets Over Broadway, Relatively Speaking, Sly Fox, Mornings At Seven, My Life On A Diet, Fortune’s Fool, Terms of Endearment, After the Night and the Music, Adult Entertainment, The Unexpected Man, Tommy Tune, Madame Melville, Taller Than a Dwarf, Power Plays, If Love Were All, Death Defying Acts, Vita and Virginia, etc. Film: Widow’s Peak, In theSpirit, Bad Girls, No Nukes, Ten From Your Show of Shows. Television: Mike Nichols – American Masters (PBS), Nichols and May (PBS), Elia Kazan: A Director’s Journey (AMC), Claire Bloom’s Shakespeare’s Women (Bravo), Lives of Lillian Hellman (PBS).His new memoir, Try Not To Hold It Against Me- A Producer’s Life is now available on Amazon. In 1976, Steve Guttenberg was on a plane to Hollywood. His mother and father gave him $300 for a two week trip to try his hand at film acting. He was 17 years old . He had done childrens theatre, an off broadway play and studied at various schools. He landed and immediately started trying to sneak into studios. He found his way into Paramount Studios, commandeered an office in the Lucille Ball Makeup Building, strung a phone from the water stage , and started making phone calls to casting directors, agents and producers. He landed a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial and was off to the races. 

Steve flew to Portugal and didn’t look back. He was cast in some of the most popular films the the industry released. Diner, Police Academy, Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby, Short Circuit to name a few.

Steve starred in The Day After, Billy Liar, Veronica Mars, Ballers , the sci fi hit Lavalantula, and most recently How to Murder Your Husband with Cybill Shepherd.

Steve is married , devoted to his family and divides his home between Scottsdsle AZ and Pacific Palisades California.

Few songs have captured the contradictions and ambiguities of the 1960s as memorably as “California Dreamin’,” the iconic folk music single that catapulted the Mamas & the Papas into rock and roll history. In All the Leaves Are Brown, author Scott Shea details how John Phillips, Denny Doherty, Michelle Phillips, and “Mama Cass” Elliot became standard-bearers for California counterculture, following their transformation from folk music wannabes to rock sensations and chronicling the tumultuous events that followed their unexpected success. Shea gives a definitive account of the group’s short time together, from their hitmaking approach with legendary producer Lou Adler to John’s unique songwriting to tours and friendships with other musicians riding the folk-rock wave. He explores the emotional vicissitudes that came with being in the Mamas & the Papas, from Cass’s unrequited love for Denny, his affair with Michelle, and the ebb and flow of dysfunction in John and Michelle’s marriage. And he explains how it all came to a crashing end with John’s brainchild, the Monterey Pop Festival, which should have launched the group even further into the musical stratosphere, but only served to be their undoing. Drawing on new interviews with former bandmates, session musicians, family members, and many others, All the Leaves Are Brown is a layered, revelatory tale of overnight stardom and its many pitfalls.

In the late 80s and early 90s. Jenny Burton had four national number one R&B/Dance hits -- "One More Shot," rose to Billboard's number five slot and led to Burton's first major-label solo deal. Atlantic Records released her first LP, "In Black & White," which included the hit single, “I Remember What You Like". “Bad Habits,” off her second album was a #1 dance hit in America and rose to #12 on the R&B charts.

Moving more into an Inspirational direction, she created with producer/composer Peter Link, The Jenny Burton Experience, an award winning Inspirational group ran for seven years to sold out standing room only audiences at New York City's "Don't Tell Mama". The Jenny Burton Experience also opened at Trump Marina for Al Green, performed with The Gap Band and Morris Day and The Times at The Indianapolis Black Expo for 80,000 people, opened for Stevie Wonder at Lincoln Center in NYC, and completed a one month run headlining at Resorts International in Atlantic City, the first Gospel group to ever headline in Atlantic City.

Recently, Jenny joined the cast of Rosemary and Thyme, a Musical Podcast written and composed by Peter Link, which premiered Christmas of 2022 and is now running in 135 countries around the world. Presently, Jenny is working on a new CD with producer/composer Peter Link, due out in the fall of 2023. Barbara Minkus originally from Chicago began in NYC in Julius Monk's "Bit's and Pieces", was Lucy in the original "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown" album, toured as Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl", costarred on Broadway in "The Education Of Hyman Kaplan". Barbara was a regular on Love American Style for 6 season's and played Gittle The Witch on ABC's Curiosity Shop.

Tom Jones wrote the book and lyrics, and Harvey Schmidt wrote the music for The Fantasticks, which closed January 13, 2002, almost 42 years after its opening on May 3, 1960. It is the longest running production in the history of the American theatre. To mark the 60th anniversary of its founding, the Provincetown Theater has announced a unique and celebratory lineup of productions for the 2023 season in Provincetown, MA, the historic birthplace of Modern American Theater. With all shows being produced at the company's playhouse at 238 Bradford Street in Provincetown from May thru December, Opened July 10, the Provincetown Theater is honored to be producing the East Coast premiere of a newly re-imagined and re-gendered adaptation of the landmark musical The Fantasticks by its original librettist and lyricist, Tom Jones. While the beloved score and storyline remain intact, Jones's re-vision of the show finds the show's young lovers Matt and Louisa have become - Matt and Lewis. Moreover, they aren't being pushed into each other's arms by their prankster, gardening fathers, but rather by their prankster, gardening mothers! With equally fresh twists on all the characters, The Fantasticks' legendary librettist Tom Jones states: "This will be a fresh, new production, swept clean and filled with light and color. It is still The Fantasticks: a celebration of the magic of the theater, where, combined with the imagination of the audience, we can bring an exciting new world to life. The point of the show," Mr. Jones declares, "is the same. Whether a boy and a girl, or two boys -- falling in love, being hurt, growing up: it is the same." To be directed by Provincetown Theater Artistic Director David Drake, with John Thomas serving as Musical Director, this summer's East Coast premiere of The Fantasticks in Provincetown is a musical theater event not to be missed.