Ole Olsen puts on 'Happy Days: A New Musical'
The Peru theater company is putting on 'Happy Days: A New Musical,' beginning this weekend at the Peru Depot, 154 S. Broadway St., Peru.
'Happy Days: A New Musical' is set in season four of the famous TV show and follows the kids' plans to save the diner Arnold's from demolition by hosting a dance contest and wrestling match.
The adaption is written by the sitcom's creator Gary Marshall and its music is written by famed songwriter Paul Williams, writer of the number 1 chart-topping song 'Evergreen,' featured in the 1976 adaptation of 'A Star is Born.'
Members of Ole Olsen have been working on the production for the last two months, a process show director Shanna Stoll described as arduous but rewarding.
The theater company has worked meticulously to recreate the clothing, set design and props to accurately portray the time period and TV show.
'What I'm wanting to happen is the audience getting sucked back into that 'Happy Days' nostalgia,' Stoll, who also portrays Marian Cunningham in the musical, said.
All the show's iconic characters are featured in the musical, including Arthur 'The Fonz' Fonzarelli played by Lucas Bowley, Richie Cunnigham played by Dustin Huddleston and Chachi Arcola played by Tanner Davis.
This is Bowley's first Ole Olsen production. The Indiana University Kokomo student said he knew he wanted to be a part of the show once the casting call was announced. If you're a fan of the TV show, you'll be a fan of this musical, he said.
'It takes a lot of the ideas of the show that people love from different parts of the show and mesh it all together so it's the best of all of it,' Bowley said.
The key to this production, Huddleston said, was the cast's ability to all 'gel together,' a must for a type of show that relies on the cast recreating the chemistry among actors of the original sitcom.
For Huddleston, the hope is for the musical to allow the audience to look back in their life and fondly remember some of their happiest days.
'One of my favorite lines is at the very end, Richie says 'For most of us, and I hope for a lot of you, I hope you'll look back on these days and they'll truly be happy days,'' he said. 'Some of my greatest times were in high school and being around all my friends. So when I look back on those days, I truly do think about those days being happy days. No matter where you're at in life, you can look back at life and either you grew from it or it was a lesson you can learn from.'
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Yahoo
2 days ago
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Inside the final burst of Elvis Presley's creativity 48 years after his death
Two and a half years before he died, Elvis Presley sat on the floor of a walk-in closet at the Las Vegas Hilton and discussed a project that might have changed the course of his life. The meeting, as recounted by Presley's longtime friend Jerry Schilling, put the King of Rock and Roll face to face with Barbra Streisand, who'd come to see Presley perform at the Hilton in March 1975 then sought an audience after the show to float an idea: Would Presley be interested in appearing opposite Streisand in her remake of 'A Star Is Born'? At the time of the duo's conversation — Schilling says that he, Presley's pal Joe Esposito and Streisand's boyfriend Jon Peters squeezed into the closet with the stars in a search for some quiet amid the commotion backstage — it had been six years since Presley had last played a dramatic role onscreen; Streisand's pitch so tantalized him, according to Schilling, that they ended up talking for more than two hours about the movie. 'We even ordered in some food,' Schilling recalls. Read more: All 43 of Billy Joel's Hot 100 hits, ranked from worst to best Presley, of course, didn't get the part famously played by Kris Kristofferson — a casualty, depending on who you ask, of Streisand's insistence on top billing or of the unreasonable financial demands of Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker. (In her 2023 memoir, Streisand wonders whether the character of a self-destructive musician was in the end 'a little too close to his own life' for Elvis' comfort.) Whatever the case, Schilling believes that the disappointment over 'A Star Is Born' set Presley on a path of poor decision-making that effectively tanked his career before his tragic death at age 42 on Aug. 16, 1977 — 48 years ago this weekend. 'That was the last time I saw the twinkle in my friend's eye,' Schilling, 83, says of the sit-down with Streisand. An intriguing new box set commemorates the King's final burst of creativity. Released this month in five-CD and two-LP editions, 'Sunset Boulevard' collects the music Presley recorded in Los Angeles between 1972 and 1975, including the fruit of one session held just days before the meeting about 'A Star Is Born.' These were the studio dates that yielded songs like 'Separate Ways,' which Elvis cut amid the crumbling of his marriage to Priscilla Presley, and 'Burning Love,' his last Top 10 pop hit, as well as 1975's 'Today' LP, an exemplary showcase of Presley's latter-day blend of rock, country and blue-eyed soul. Is yet another repackaging of Presley's music really something to get excited about? The Elvis industry has never not been alive and well over the half-century since he died; in just the last few years, we've seen Baz Luhrmann's splashy big-screen biopic, the latest book from the singer's biographer Peter Guralnick (this one about Parker) and not one but two documentaries about the so-called '68 comeback special that heralded Presley's return to live performance after nearly a decade of film work. More gloomily, 'Sunset Boulevard' arrives as Priscilla Presley — who got her own biopic from director Sofia Coppola in 2023 — is making headlines thanks to an ugly legal battle with two former business partners she brought on to aid in managing the Presley brand. (The feud itself follows the sudden death two years ago of Priscilla and Elvis' only child, Lisa Marie Presley.) Yet the new box offers an opportunity to ponder the curious position Elvis found himself in once the glow of the comeback special had faded: a rock and roll pioneer now strangely removed from the culture he did as much as anyone to invent. 'Sunset Boulevard's' title, which the set shares with Billy Wilder's iconic 1950 movie, can't help but evoke the spoiled grandeur of an aging showbiz legend. It also refers to the physical location of RCA Records' West Coast headquarters at 6363 Sunset Blvd., across the street from Hollywood's Cinerama Dome. Now the site of the L.A. Film School, the building is where the Rolling Stones recorded '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' and Jefferson Airplane made 'Surrealistic Pillow' — and where Presley set up in the early '70s after cutting most of his '60s movie soundtracks at Radio Recorders near the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and La Brea Avenue. By 1972, rock had long since evolved beyond the crucial influence Elvis exerted at the beginning of his career. Nor was the King particularly dialed into what was happening in music while he was busy in Hollywood. 'We weren't as exposed as much as I wish we would've been to everything going on,' Schilling says on a recent afternoon at his home high in the hills above Sunset Plaza. A core member of Elvis' fabled Memphis Mafia, Schilling has lived here since 1974, when Elvis bought the place from the TV producer Rick Husky and gifted it to Schilling for his years of loyal friend-ployment. 'When you're doing movies, you're up at 7 in the morning and you're in makeup by 8,' Schilling continues. 'You work all day and you come home — you're not necessarily putting on the latest records.' More than the growling rock lothario of Presley's early days — to say nothing of the shaggy psychedelic searchers who emerged in his wake — what the RCA material emphasizes is how expressive a ballad singer Elvis had become in middle age. Schilling says the singer's romantic troubles drew him to slower, moodier songs like 'Separate Ways,' 'Always on My Mind' and Kristofferson's 'For the Good Times,' the last of which he delivers in a voice that seems to tremble with regret. (Presley had to be cajoled into singing the uptempo 'Burning Love,' according to Schilling, who notes with a laugh that 'when it became a hit, he loved it.') Read more: John Fogerty on the stories behind 5 of his turning-est, burning-est hits But in the deep soulfulness of this music you're also hearing the rapport between Presley and the members of his live band, with whom he recorded at RCA instead of using the session players who'd backed him in the '60s. Led by guitarist James Burton, the TCB Band — that's Taking Care of Business — was assembled ahead of Elvis' first engagement at Las Vegas' International Hotel, which later became the Las Vegas Hilton; indeed, one of 'Sunset Boulevard's' more fascinating features is the hours of rehearsal tape documenting Presley's preparation in L.A. for the Vegas shows that began in 1969. The sound quality is murky and the performances fairly wobbly, as in a take on 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' where Elvis can't quite seem to decide on a key. Yet it's a thrill to listen in as the musicians find their groove — a kind of earthy, slow-rolling country-gospel R&B — in an array of far-flung tunes including 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me,' 'Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues,' even the Pointer Sisters' 'Fairytale.' In one rehearsal recorded Aug. 16, 1974, Elvis cues his band to play the Ewan MacColl ballad made famous by Roberta Flack: ''The First Time Ever I Saw Your Friggin' Face,'' he calls out as we hear the players warming up. Then they all lock in for a closely harmonized rendition of the song so pretty there's something almost spooky about it. Sitting next to the balcony he was standing on when he got the phone call alerting him to the news of Presley's death, Schilling takes clear pleasure in spinning well-practiced yarns about his years with Elvis: the time John Lennon told him to tell Presley that he grew out his sideburns in an attempt to look like the King, for instance, or the audition where Elvis took a flier on a relatively unknown drummer named Ronnie Tutt who ended up powering the TCB Band. He's more halting when he talks about the end of his friend's life and about what he sees as the lack of a serious artistic challenge that might have sharpened Elvis' focus. Staying on in Vegas a bit too long, making so-so records in a home studio set up at Graceland — these weren't enough to buoy the man he calls a genius. Does Schilling know if Presley saw 'A Star Is Born' when it came out at the end of 1976? He considers the question for a good 10 seconds. 'I don't know,' he finally says. He started tour managing the Beach Boys that year and was spending less time with Presley. 'He never mentioned it to me. I wish I knew. There's probably nobody alive now who could say.' Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
Inside the final burst of Elvis Presley's creativity 48 years after his death
Two and a half years before he died, Elvis Presley sat on the floor of a walk-in closet at the Las Vegas Hilton and discussed a project that might have changed the course of his life. The meeting, as recounted by Presley's longtime friend Jerry Schilling, put the King of Rock and Roll face to face with Barbra Streisand, who'd come to see Presley perform at the Hilton in March 1975 then sought an audience after the show to float an idea: Would Presley be interested in appearing opposite Streisand in her remake of 'A Star Is Born'? At the time of the duo's conversation — Schilling says that he, Presley's pal Joe Esposito and Streisand's boyfriend Jon Peters squeezed into the closet with the stars in a search for some quiet amid the commotion backstage — it had been six years since Presley had last played a dramatic role onscreen; Streisand's pitch so tantalized him, according to Schilling, that they ended up talking for more than two hours about the movie. 'We even ordered in some food,' Schilling recalls. Presley, of course, didn't get the part famously played by Kris Kristofferson — a casualty, depending on who you ask, of Streisand's insistence on top billing or of the unreasonable financial demands of Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker. (In her 2023 memoir, Streisand wonders whether the character of a self-destructive musician was in the end 'a little too close to his own life' for Elvis' comfort.) Whatever the case, Schilling believes that the disappointment over 'A Star Is Born' set Presley on a path of poor decision-making that effectively tanked his career before his tragic death at age 42 on Aug. 16, 1977 — 48 years ago this weekend. 'That was the last time I saw the twinkle in my friend's eye,' Schilling, 83, says of the sit-down with Streisand. An intriguing new box set commemorates the King's final burst of creativity. Released this month in five-CD and two-LP editions, 'Sunset Boulevard' collects the music Presley recorded in Los Angeles between 1972 and 1975, including the fruit of one session held just days before the meeting about 'A Star Is Born.' These were the studio dates that yielded songs like 'Separate Ways,' which Elvis cut amid the crumbling of his marriage to Priscilla Presley, and 'Burning Love,' his last Top 10 pop hit, as well as 1975's 'Today' LP, an exemplary showcase of Presley's latter-day blend of rock, country and blue-eyed soul. Is yet another repackaging of Presley's music really something to get excited about? The Elvis industry has never not been alive and well over the half-century since he died; in just the last few years, we've seen Baz Luhrmann's splashy big-screen biopic, the latest book from the singer's biographer Peter Guralnick (this one about Parker) and not one but two documentaries about the so-called '68 comeback special that heralded Presley's return to live performance after nearly a decade of film work. More gloomily, 'Sunset Boulevard' arrives as Priscilla Presley — who got her own biopic from director Sofia Coppola in 2023 — is making headlines thanks to an ugly legal battle with two former business partners she brought on to aid in managing the Presley brand. (The feud itself follows the sudden death two years ago of Priscilla and Elvis' only child, Lisa Marie Presley.) Yet the new box offers an opportunity to ponder the curious position Elvis found himself in once the glow of the comeback special had faded: a rock and roll pioneer now strangely removed from the culture he did as much as anyone to invent. 'Sunset Boulevard's' title, which the set shares with Billy Wilder's iconic 1950 movie, can't help but evoke the spoiled grandeur of an aging showbiz legend. It also refers to the physical location of RCA Records' West Coast headquarters at 6363 Sunset Blvd., across the street from Hollywood's Cinerama Dome. Now the site of the L.A. Film School, the building is where the Rolling Stones recorded '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' and Jefferson Airplane made 'Surrealistic Pillow' — and where Presley set up in the early '70s after cutting most of his '60s movie soundtracks at Radio Recorders near the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and La Brea Avenue. By 1972, rock had long since evolved beyond the crucial influence Elvis exerted at the beginning of his career. Nor was the King particularly dialed into what was happening in music while he was busy in Hollywood. 'We weren't as exposed as much as I wish we would've been to everything going on,' Schilling says on a recent afternoon at his home high in the hills above Sunset Plaza. A core member of Elvis' fabled Memphis Mafia, Schilling has lived here since 1974, when Elvis bought the place from the TV producer Rick Husky and gifted it to Schilling for his years of loyal friend-ployment. 'When you're doing movies, you're up at 7 in the morning and you're in makeup by 8,' Schilling continues. 'You work all day and you come home — you're not necessarily putting on the latest records.' More than the growling rock lothario of Presley's early days — to say nothing of the shaggy psychedelic searchers who emerged in his wake — what the RCA material emphasizes is how expressive a ballad singer Elvis had become in middle age. Schilling says the singer's romantic troubles drew him to slower, moodier songs like 'Separate Ways,' 'Always on My Mind' and Kristofferson's 'For the Good Times,' the last of which he delivers in a voice that seems to tremble with regret. (Presley had to be cajoled into singing the uptempo 'Burning Love,' according to Schilling, who notes with a laugh that 'when it became a hit, he loved it.') But in the deep soulfulness of this music you're also hearing the rapport between Presley and the members of his live band, with whom he recorded at RCA instead of using the session players who'd backed him in the '60s. Led by guitarist James Burton, the TCB Band — that's Taking Care of Business — was assembled ahead of Elvis' first engagement at Las Vegas' International Hotel, which later became the Las Vegas Hilton; indeed, one of 'Sunset Boulevard's' more fascinating features is the hours of rehearsal tape documenting Presley's preparation in L.A. for the Vegas shows that began in 1969. The sound quality is murky and the performances fairly wobbly, as in a take on 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' where Elvis can't quite seem to decide on a key. Yet it's a thrill to listen in as the musicians find their groove — a kind of earthy, slow-rolling country-gospel R&B — in an array of far-flung tunes including 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me,' 'Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues,' even the Pointer Sisters' 'Fairytale.' In one rehearsal recorded Aug. 16, 1974, Elvis cues his band to play the Ewan MacColl ballad made famous by Roberta Flack: ''The First Time Ever I Saw Your Friggin' Face,'' he calls out as we hear the players warming up. Then they all lock in for a closely harmonized rendition of the song so pretty there's something almost spooky about it. Sitting next to the balcony he was standing on when he got the phone call alerting him to the news of Presley's death, Schilling takes clear pleasure in spinning well-practiced yarns about his years with Elvis: the time John Lennon told him to tell Presley that he grew out his sideburns in an attempt to look like the King, for instance, or the audition where Elvis took a flier on a relatively unknown drummer named Ronnie Tutt who ended up powering the TCB Band. He's more halting when he talks about the end of his friend's life and about what he sees as the lack of a serious artistic challenge that might have sharpened Elvis' focus. Staying on in Vegas a bit too long, making so-so records in a home studio set up at Graceland — these weren't enough to buoy the man he calls a genius. Does Schilling know if Presley saw 'A Star Is Born' when it came out at the end of 1976? He considers the question for a good 10 seconds. 'I don't know,' he finally says. He started tour managing the Beach Boys that year and was spending less time with Presley. 'He never mentioned it to me. I wish I knew. There's probably nobody alive now who could say.'
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Eden' director Ron Howard talks George Lucas' influence, rediscovering acting and ‘getting the hell out'
Ron Howard grew up in Hollywood as a child star, but he became an adult on the streets of Petaluma while he was filming George Lucas ' 1973 ensemble piece 'American Graffiti.' 'For me it was literally a coming of age story,' Howard told the Chronicle in a video interview. 'That was the first project where I didn't have to have an on-set welfare worker and I didn't need parental supervision. So it was literally my first time away from home. 'I tried to sneak into some clubs in (San Francisco) and got thrown out within seconds. But it was an amazing adventure. It was definitely a pivotal, transformative moment for me.' Howard, a child star on 'The Andy Griffith Show' and later a regular on 'Happy Days,' said he was inspired by 'American Graffiti' producer Francis Ford Coppola and writer-director Lucas and would soon turn to directing himself. Now 71, Howard, an Oscar winner for 'A Beautiful Mind' (2001), is back with his first feature film in three years, 'Eden,' based on the true story of a group of German idealists who moved to Floreana, a deserted island in the Galapagos, to escape the chaos of post-World War I Europe. It opens in theaters Friday, Aug. 22. The director of films such as 'Cocoon,' ' Apollo 13 ' and ' Solo: A Star Wars Story ' admits the film is a tonal departure for him; it is perhaps his bleakest movie. To tell the story, Howard turned to screenwriter Noah Pink, with whom he collaborated on the Albert Einstein episodes of the National Geographic series 'Genius,' and an all-star cast led by Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, Sydney Sweeney and Ana de Armas. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Q: This doesn't seem like a Ron Howard-type movie. A: I acted with Henry Fonda in a television series that nobody knows about, nor should they, because it was pretty bad, called 'The Smith Family,' when I was 15, 16 years old. He was really the first voice of the industry that encouraged me to be a filmmaker. He was looking at my short films and reading the little scripts that I'd written, and he said, 'If you don't take a big creative risk every year and a half or two, you're not servicing your talent or the audience or the medium that you love.' Q: So then obviously, when you were filming 'American Graffiti,' you were already thinking of becoming a director? A: Yeah. My real common ground with George Lucas, who was in those days very withdrawn and quiet but a very nice guy, but we connected because I'd already been accepted to USC film school (Lucas' alma mater) and I was probably one of the few cast members who had seen the 'THX 1138' short. I had read about Lucas in a collection of interviews by Joseph Gelmis, who was a film critic at the time, called 'Film Director as Superstar' (1970). Francis Coppola was in it, there was a picture of him holding a handheld 16mm camera or an ARRI or something, and he mentioned George at the end of his interview. (Coppola) said, 'Independent filmmaking is gonna be very exciting. And I've been working with this young filmmaker out of USC. His film 'THX 1138' is fantastic.' So it was the beginning of the idea of a kind of an American independent film culture. Q: 'Eden' may be set around 1930, but it has appeal to a lot of modern people who might dream of deactivating all social media accounts and moving to a deserted island. A: 'Off the grid' is one of the most searched terms, so it's always been a big idea. I think one of the reasons that these three groups were German was that not only were they facing this horrible aftermath of World War I and the hopelessness of oppression and the autocracy that was filling the void in ways that were frightening, but also the book 'Robinson Crusoe' was this cultural event at the time. So that idea of getting the hell out and finding a desert island and making a go of it was a romantic one. Dr. Ritter (Law) and Dora (Kirby) were this Adam and Eve, and they became pop icons in German media and then later the U.S. as well. Q: How did you hear about the story, and what was the appeal for you? A: About 15 years ago I was on a vacation with the family in the Galapagos, a place I'd always wanted to go, and had been to Floreana, and I heard about a mystery and a twisted story of people coming into conflict. They had a museum about the Galapagos, and they had a whole room dedicated to this (story) and a lot of images, some of which we use at the end of the movie. Q: What's the most glaringly obvious mistake these people made? A: That the whole notion of running away from society and rediscovering yourself only to recognize that you are part of society. Your humanity is part of what you're trying to run away from. Q: Sydney Sweeney is great in this movie. Any take on the American Eagle jeans commercial controversy? A: I have no opinion about it. (Laughs and shakes head). I'm doing a documentary right now about the photographer, Richard Avedon, and so we have a segment about the (1980s) Brooke Shields (Calvin Klein) jeans ad. But I haven't been paying any attention to the controversy. I don't really even understand it. Q: Do you ever see yourself retiring? A: No, I don't. That's the beauty of this kind of business. My father (Rance Howard) acted until the day before he was stricken and lapsed into a coma, and he was 89. I look at Clint Eastwood and Scorsese and Ridley Scott and they're doing fine work. So if my health holds, I'm loving the process. Q: You appeared as yourself in the Apple TV+ series ' The Studio ' earlier this year. Could we see more of you in front of the camera? A: I could see myself trying to do a little acting again. That was the first time I really had to do any acting in decades where I really learned a lot of lines, even though I played myself. I really enjoyed it.
