Buddy's Tavern, With Shuler Hensley, Farah Alvin, Laura Osnes, Will Get Four NYC Readings

By Adam Hetrick
04 Jan 2011

Laura Osnes
Laura Osnes
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

John Jellison and Farah Alvin will join Tony Award winner Shuler Hensley, Laura Osnes and Andrea Burns for the upcoming industry readings of Buddy's Tavern, a new musical by Raymond De Felitta, Kim Oler and Alison Hubbard.

As previously reported by Playbill.com, Warren Carlyle (Finian's Rainbow) will direct a series of four staged readings that will be presented throughout January in Manhattan.

Completing the cast for the readings are Alison Briner, Alan H. Green, Mark Lotito and Steve Routman. Ray Fellman will serve as music director.

Buddy's Tavern is based on filmmaker De Felitta's 2000 romantic comedy "Two Family House." De Felitta penned the book for the musical, which has music and lyrics by Oler and Hubbard.

The work was developed during the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's Music Theater Conference last summer. Conference artistic director Paulette Haupt is guiding the further development of the musical through the New York-based musical theatre development company Premieres.

Here's how the creative team bills the work: "Staten Island -- the forgotten borough. The 1950's -- the era of prosperity and hope. And a factory worker named Buddy Visalo who wants to open his own bar where he can sing to his customers. But Buddy finds he must risk everything for something worth having even more…"