The Spitfire Grill Starts July 10 At Garry Marshall Theatre In Burbank

Garry Marshall Theatre presents the off Broadway musical The Spitfire Grill, one of the most popular recent musicals with over 600 productions worldwide including in Germany, South Korea, Japan, Australia and London.

The winner of the 2001 Richard Rodgers Production Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Stephen Sondheim, chair), The Spitfire Grill has music and book by James Valcq - who is currently artistic director of Third Avenue Playhouse, the regional theatre of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and has lyrics and book by the late Fred Alley. It also received Best Musical nominations from the New York Outer Critics Circle and Drama League as well as two Drama Desk nominations.

The Spitfire Grill is based on the film by Lee David Zlotoff, which won the 1996 audience award at Sundance. Garry Marshall Theatre's artistic director Dimitri Toscas directs this new production. There are 25 performances only, July 10 to August 11 (the press opening is July 12).

For tickets and information, please visit www.garrymarshalltheatre.org or call 818-955-8101.

The cast includes Ashley Argota, Nicu Brouillette, Rachel Sarah Mount, Joey Ruggiero, Sarah Saviano, Erich Schroeder and Diane King Vann.

The Spitfire Grill takes place in Gilead, Wisconsin - a bucolic place for those who have dreamed of a town so small they roll the sidewalk up at night; a place where you can walk a hundred miles and leave the trees. At least that is how it seems when Percy, a feisty parolee following her dreams, arrives. She based her living there on a page from an old travel book, as she stumbled into Hannah's Spitfire Grill.

The Grill, the only eatery in this quiet town, is for sale but there are no takers; so newcomer Percy suggests to Hannah that she raffle it off. Entry fees are one hundred dollars and the best essay on why you want the grill wins. Soon, mail is arriving by the wheelbarrow full and things are definitely cookin' at the Spitfire Grill.

This stirring musical erupts when Hannah's troubled past is confronted with Percy's struggle to start again, making everyone's life in this small town anything but quiet. A searching wife, a mysterious vagrant, a gentle sheriff, a brutish husband, and an irritatingly irresistible busybody collide in a musical that bubbles over with toe-tapping fun and soaring, heartfelt melodies accompanied by mandolin, accordion, guitar, violin, and cello - and the musicians step forward to play many of the characters.

"In our new production of this beloved musical, we visit an America that never was - but somehow we always hoped it would be, an optimistic story of the American Dream," said director Toscas. "This show taps into a nostalgia that feels familiar, like a place where we thought we lived, yet feels hopeful and new at the same time. The place we've yet to find; the place where our children will belong: some kind of proof that a new beginning could be as close as your back porch."

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