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run for its sixth outing for some reason though it never became a long running successful broadway or off broadway show that you may have heard of no original cast soundtrack albums were recorded only those lucky audiences who saw these six productions even know it existed that s not to say it wasn t successful those audiences did indeed love it perhaps the right people never saw it the ones with the deep pockets who take things to broadway this kind of miss happens all the time the great white way is littered with wannabe musicals and plays that inched toward the ultimate goal and just didn t quite make it the resurrection of jackie cramer was one of those gems it began at the university of texas at austin s drama department in 1974 i had completed my freshman year and was three months shy of turning nineteen during that summer season the department put on the e p conkle workshop for playwrights which at the time was a presentation of three new plays in repertory penned by new york professional playwrights directed by new york professional directors and featuring two new york professional actors and supplemented by drama department student actors and crews the workshop at that time was produced by department chairman webster smalley and playwriting professor frank gagliano at that time i had my sights set on being a director but i was also a fledgling composer i had dabbled in composing music for a show or two during my high school drama years in fact i was voted most musical male my senior year if i say so myself my piano skills were pretty good during the 1974 conkle workshop i had been assigned to be assistant stage manager to one of the shows but during a production meeting with all the directors playwrights and stage managers it was discovered that the composer tagged for one of the other shows was suddenly unavailable they needed a composer it was for a play called out of gas by michael robert david and the director was j ranelli that s right just j no period does anyone know any composers j asked i meekly raised my hand and said i could probably do it since they were desperate i got the job it turned out that out of gas needed four tunes three of them set to lyrics that michael had in the script i wrote the songs everyone was pleased and i accompanied the actors on the piano during each performance this established the musical side track of my college career alongside working toward becoming a director later during the fall semester of 1974 frank gagliano approached me with a proposition apparently he had been impressed with what i d done for out of gas he had written a musical theatre piece as he called it that needed music too it was to be entirely sung like a rock opera i asked he shrugged if that s what it turns out to be he said i said i d give it a go this was the resurrection of jackie cramer a wacky fantasy comedy drama about a fifteen year old boy jackie cramer who slips on dog doo hits his head on a volkswagen fender and dies that s in the first few lines of the script the problem is that jackie could never take life seriously he was always laughing laughing at his family his town and at the ridiculousness of life when he tries to get into heaven he finds that god is a board of directors a bod and they won t let him in until he learns to become serious and that s the plot of the story i composed the score much of what i wrote that fall remained in every production except for a couple of pieces that eventually were cut and replaced by different text and music it was close to being a 90 minute show with no intermission however i didn t know how to write the music on paper it was all in my head frank and i sent a tape of me singing the whole thing to j ranelli and he loved it the lineup of the 1975 conkle workshop had already been decided and j would be back to direct a show but he wondered if perhaps we could do jackie cramer as an after hours production a sort of midnight performance after one of the main conkle shows as it turned out one of the main conkle shows in 1975 hugo martyr by jeffrey kindley was being directed by j and it was something that needed several pieces of music sung to lyrics in the play so i was hired to compose those and once again i played the piano during the performances of hugo martyr but my main focus that summer was on jackie cramer one of the new york actors hired for hugo martyr david berman was tapped by j to play the lead role of jackie cramer we cast it with other ut drama department students teaching the music to the actors was a matter of them learning it by ear me playing the piano and singing and them recording it on portable tape recorders or just memorizing it one unusual section of the piece featured a deaf character benjy a boy who is one of jackie s friends in the show jackie sings a song as benjy signs it we cast a local deaf boy that a teacher found for us kelly abell and he was great the first workshop production of the resurrection of jackie cramer was in early july 1975 two performances i believe as after shows during the conkle workshop it was a hit the audiences loved it some said it was better than any of the other three main conkle shows frank and i knew we had something and so did j j ranelli besides directing professional theatre at many venues taught directing at the university of rhode island uri in kingston ri he thought he could get cramer on the main season bill for the following year and he did it was slated to be an early 1976 production since the music was not written down they couldn t do it without me there but i would be in the middle of my junior year of college i couldn t miss what would amount to two months of the semester i would have to take a gap semester and then resume my studies the following fall after talking to my dean my directing professor and my parents we all came to the conclusion that it would be good experience for me yes it would put me behind from graduating by an entire year because the second half of some of my junior year classes were taught only in the spring semester and i d have to wait until spring 1977 to take them and then i d have the whole senior year to do too i decided the experience would be worth the extra year at school so at the beginning of january 1976 i flew to providence rhode island from austin texas and lived in that state for two months frank j and i shared a rental house on the beach in galilee a bus ride away from kingston i was twenty years old and i was a guest artist at another university weird the second production of jackie cramer at uri theatre played at the end of february 1976 and was a full production with sets and costumes david berman a rhode islander once again played jackie his girlfriend jane macdonald played the chorus a key role in the show that serves as a sort of narrator a couple of faculty members played adult roles the priest and jackie s pop and students filled out the rest of the cast this time benjy was played by phyllis frelich dressed as a boy a broadway deaf actress who would later win a tony for her lead role in children of a lesser god for this production the entire finale was scrapped and re written with better material we also added two new scenes songs that were always among the strongest parts of the show the ballad of miss lulu and no legs willy once again the show worked it was a hit i had a wonderful time being in rhode island and as predicted it was a great experience at one point we took the production for a one time performance at the eugene o neill theatre center in waterford connecticut when the show closed i spent one week in new york city getting to know that wonderful place knowing that one day i would come back to live and work there back in austin in march 1976 i figured i d have to get a job and wait it out until the fall of 76 to resume school again but i wasn t home two weeks when frank called we had an opportunity to put on jackie cramer at the new dramatists inc an off off broadway theatre in new york city j would direct it again could i go could i get lodging for another two months away from home again after convincing my parents that this was an opportunity i couldn t pass up i was on my way frank and i drove together from austin to new york the third production of jackie cramer was cast with all new york equity actors except for a couple of pitch hitters from the rhode island production who came in for two weeks to repeat their parts or perhaps do another one they could learn quickly david berman again played jackie jane macdonald again played the chorus and phyllis frelich again played benjy another piece was added i wanted to live in a time a ballad sung by characters other than jackie the show opened in april 1976 and played the given run of a little over a week standard for off off broadway it was a good production but in my opinion not as stellar as the first two it was good enough the audience still loved it back in austin i was gearing up for the fall semester to do my junior year mach ii frank was no longer teaching at ut he was now the playwriting professor at west virginia university in morgantown wv he arranged for a production of cramer to kick off that fall season of shows in his department i simply couldn t take off again i had to finish college and get my degree this fourth production of cramer was the only one of the six with which i was not involved the department hired a music director robert schultz to transcribe and arrange my music so that other musicians could play it i went to west virginia for a few days during rehearsals to consult it was indeed strange hearing my music for the first time interpreted and re arranged by others i never saw a performance but apparently it was very well received hearing a recording of that fall 1976 wvu show i can say they did a fantastic job re imagining my music it was directed by john whitty and starred michael brungo as jackie some time passed i graduated from ut austin s drama department in may 1978 with a bfa in directing i spent the 1978 1979 season working as an apprentice director at the alley theatre in houston texas and then finally in the summer of 1979 i moved to new york city right off the bat frank arranged for another production of jackie cramer again at the new dramatists inc it had been three years since the last time it was there and new management ran the place this time though i would direct the show wearing the director s hat the composer s hat and the musical director s hat was quite the feat of a juggling act but i did it i have to say that i do believe this fifth production of cramer which opened in late september of 1979 off off broadway was the best one in my opinion the cast was fabulous barry tarallo played jackie jane macdonald once again played the chorus this time benjy was played by peter frechette who had been in the rhode island production as one of the bod but he had bloomed into a fine new york actor and he knew sign language as a result of this production two men who wanted to be broadway producers latched onto the show jack dana and murray kagel wanted jackie cramer to be their first foray into theatre producing it was fortunate for frank and me that we gained producers who could raise some money and launch the show in a more prestigious off off broadway or even off broadway theatre on the other hand they were first time producers with no experience the american theatre of actors was technically an off off broadway theatre but certain shows were classified as off broadway depending on the number of seats in the room jackie cramer produced in the spring of 1980 for its sixth and final production was an off broadway showcase i was once again directing and playing the piano too this time a very pro actor scott ellis later a big time broadway director played jackie peter frechette once again played benjy the chorus was played by beverly robinson an actress i had known from ut austin the producers wanted the production to be big they raised enough money to develop an imaginative set and lighting design that frankly may have been too big for the kind of show cramer really was i got caught up in the concept not realizing the folly until it was too late additionally we messed around with the script and music frank added more scenes that may or may not have helped the production we cut some stuff including one of the supporting characters who had been in it from the beginning and the show was a bit longer we built up the role of remo jackie s brother it was the most additional music and material we had added since the 1976 rhode island production don t get me wrong the sixth production of the resurrection of jackie cramer that opened in april 1980 was very good it was a beautifully and professionally sung and acted show with great sets lights and costumes scott ellis was amazing as jackie but something was off ultimately it was the size of the production that dwarfed the simple story it was in a big room with a big set and it should have stayed in a smaller more intimate setting but audiences seemed to like it all the feedback was good but no broadway producers came to see it no press came to see it so there were no reviews that kind of thing constantly happened in the theatre scene in new york in those days you put on a showcase off off broadway or even an off broadway production advertise the heck out of it and the important people you want to come do not show up it was disappointing after that monster of a production frank and i were tired well i was directing and musical directing at the same time is a lot of work it was a very stressful production and at that point i think i was done with jackie cramer after it had occupied my life for six years but in 1981 frank and i decided to at least get the thing on tape for posterity me playing and singing alone the final script as it existed so that maybe maybe in the future we could do it again so i spent some time recording the piece again we also auditioned the piece for a couple of big theatres including the kennedy center in washington dc david berman and jane macdonald rejoined us to help out with the auditions but nothing ever came of it jackie cramer had finally really died and descended to heaven poorly recorded cassette tape renditions exist for the 1976 rhode island performance the 1976 new dramatists performance and the 1980 american theatre of actors performance a good recording exists of the 1976 west virginia performance sadly the two productions for which we are missing recordings are the first 1975 one and the one i felt was the best the 1979 new dramatists edition frank now in his nineties still loves the piece i will always love the piece too now over 45 years after its last production we both have strong memories and affection for cramer yes it would be nice to see another production done not with me directing or playing the piano though frank and i thank all the casts and crews and ...