The Full Monty was originally designed to have music and lyrics by Floyd Collins' Adam Guettel. Matching the often sombre, classically influenced composer with that material may strain the imagination — it did Guettel's. So the grandson of Richard Rodgers suggested a friend better suited for the musical comedy, rock and pop songwriter David Yazbek.
The marriage of man and matter was perfect that time, and so the multi Tony Award-nominated Broadway show was born, traveling from San Diego to New York to national tour in only a few months.
Composers Yazbek and Guettel will join together to write a song in honor of The Full Monty's director Jack O'Brien for the Sept. 22 Globe Theatres gala, thrown to celebrate 20 years of O'Brien's artistic leadership at the San Diego venue. Dakin Matthews and Jonathan McMurtry will perform with appearances by Marsha Mason, Harry Groener and Marion Ross.
In Broadway's 2000-01 season, O'Brien took the raunchy, raucous Full Monty from a sold-out run at the Globe directly to Broadway's Eugene O'Neill and then turned around and staged Tom Stoppard's difficult and extremely quiet The Invention of Love at the Lyceum, receiving two Tony Award nominations. After the awards hype ended, O'Brien went right back to the Globe, where he directed Twelfth Night with Groener and Paxton Whitehead during the summer. For the company, O'Brien has staged world premieres (Pride's Crossing, Getting Away With Murder, The Cocktail Hour ), Shakespeare's canon (Hamlet, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice) and musical chestnuts (Broadway's Damn Yankees) throughout his long career.
A silent auction will accompany the dining and dancing. Among the items on the block are walk-on cameo in the Globe's production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and a trip to New York City, including two tickets to The Producers. Tickets to the gala, billed as Voila! — An Evening Extraordinaire, are $500 to $1,500. For reservations, contact Elisabeth Loeffler at (619) 231-1941 or by e-mail at [email protected].
— By Christine Ehren
