WVU Division of Theatre and Dance

Frank Gagliano
Benedum Professor of Theatre
BA - University of Iowa; MFA - Columbia University

Playwright Gagliano's off-Broadway plays include: Conerico Was Here To Stay (at New York's Cherry Lane Theatre); Night of the Dunce (first developed as The Library Raid at Houston's Alley Theatre, directed by Nina Vance and 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 Palace Theatre, starring Olympia Dukakis, and later televised on New York's WNET-TV, starring Roy Scheider); and The City Scene: 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, official writer of the James Bond Novelizationss); Big Sur (first produced as an original television play with 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 Mcdonald's Restaurant in San Ysidro, California, on 8 July 1984 ).


Father Uxbridge Wants to Marry


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 Festival, Shephardstown-on-the-Potomac (1992); and Primary Stages in New York City ( May 1993). Mr. Gagliano has given reading-performances of My Chekhov Light all over the country and at the E. T. A. Hoffmann Theatre in Bamberg, Germany, June 14-15, 1998; followed by the world premiere production of My Chekhov Light on November 28, 1998 at the E. T. A. Hoffmann 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 Carbaret Group, Shake, Wilder, & Young , with original music by Mr. Young) Mr. Gagliano's conceptualized, along with director Robert Brewer and choreographer Rick Pessagno, And the Angels Sing: The Songs of Johnny Mercer—which was premiered in Las Vegas (Jan. 1996) and at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles (Feb. 1996). He wrote the book for a new musical, Piano Bar (at the Chateau De La Mer), with composer/lyricist Gene Nordan; which had its world premiere, April 1998, directed by Michael Montel.

Gagliano occupies the Benedum Chair in Theatre at West Virginia Univeristy, helped found Carnegie Mellon Drama's, Showcase of New Plays (1986), and was the Showcase's Artistic Director from 1986 to 1998. 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 Theatre Center; has served on the Board of Directors of the Theatre Association of Pennsylvania (TAP); and was a recent panelist on the Pew Trust's Philadelphia Theatre Initiative. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting, Two Rockefeller Foundation Playwriting Grants, An O'Neill Theatre Center/Wesleyan University 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's most recent position as Artistic Director was with The Festival of New Works (A developmental showcase for New Dramatic Writing; plays, screenplays, musicals),1999–2001. In his first FESTIVAL season—in the Spring of 1999, in Ann Arbor, Michigan—Gagliano established the Arthur Miller Award For Dramatic Writing, with Mr. Miller in attendence.

Father Uxbridge Wants to Marry

Father Uxbridge Wants to Marry