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The New York
Gilbert and Sullivan Players to Honor Tony Award Winner and
Show Business Tour de Force Rupert Holmes
At Annual
Gala Wednesday, June 12 at The Players
The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players’ annual Gala will
honor multiple Tony®Award-winning author-composer and show
business tour de force Rupert Holmes, Wednesday, June 12, at
the city’s The Players, 916 Gramercy Park South, starting at
6:30 PM. The event supports the theatrical company’s
performances and arts education programs.
The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players (NYGASP) will
present Holmes with its second “Albert Bergeret Living
Legacy of Gilbert and Sullivan Award.”
A lifelong NYGASP devotee, Holmes created the book, lyrics,
music and orchestrations for The Mystery of Edwin Drood,
set in the time, milieu and idioms of Gilbert and Sullivan.
He was influenced by Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic
operettas and his brother Richard’s performances in NYGASP’s
“impeccable and inspiring productions, under the visionary
leadership of Albert Bergeret.” Rupert Holmes was the first
person in theatrical history to solely win Tony awards for
Best Music, Best Lyrics and Best Book of a Musical for a
show, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which also won the
Tony award for Best Musical. It was fitting that, after Drood’s Broadway
triumph, it made its London premiere at Gilbert and
Sullivan’s own Savoy Theatre. It later was revived on
Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre.
Bergeret, who has dedicated his professional career to the
works of Gilbert and Sullivan, founded NYGASP in 1974. For
45-years, he has been its guiding light as both artistic
director and general manager. “I am deeply honored to
present the wonderfully-talented Rupert Holmes with an
award, in my name, for his dedication to sustaining the
living legacy of Gilbert and Sullivan,” he said.
Highlights of the gala include dinner, a concert in honor of
Holmes and a live auction. Tickets are $250 ($100 is tax
deductible). For tickets and more information, please
contact the NYGASP office at 212-769-1000or
online at www.nygasp.org.
The Los
Angeles Times described Holmes as “an American
treasure.” Newsweek deemed him “the true Renaissance
man,” Holmes being an award-winning composer, playwright,
lyricist, mystery novelist, arranger-conductor,
screenwriter, record producer and hit singer-songwriter. In
honor of the range and depth of his remarkably diverse
career, the American Society of Composers and Publishers
(ASCAP) presented him with its prestigious “George M. Cohan
Award” in 2014.
While still in his teens attending The Manhattan School of
Music, Holmes was already breaking into the music business,
arranging recordings for The Drifters and The Platters while
writing songs for The Partridge Family. But it was his own
first album as a solo singer-songwriter, the
critically-acclaimed Widescreen, that earned him the
attention of Barbra Streisand. He consequently wrote,
arranged and conducted her platinum Lazy Afternoon album.
He also contributed songs to the Golden Globe-winning score
of Streisand’s A Star is Born. His
songs have been recorded by vocalists, ranging from Barry
Manilow to Judy Collins to Renée Fleming to Dolly Parton and
Britney Spears, among others.
In the ‘80s, he had his own Top 10 hits as
both a singer and songwriter. They included the
iconic Billboard #1
recording, “Escape,” known to most as “The Pina Colada
Song,” which has been heard through the decades in
innumerable films and TV shows, including Guardians
of the Galaxy, Deadpool 2, True Blood, The Secret
Life of Walter Mitty, Grownups and Better
Call Saul.
Growing restless with the three-minute story form, Holmes
spent three years single-handedly creating the book, lyrics,
music and orchestrations for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, his
first theatrical work. He has written seven more Broadway
productions to date. His script
and additional lyrics for Kander and Ebb’s Broadway score
of Curtains won him the Drama Desk award for Best
Book and two further Tony nominations. His comedy-drama, Say
Goodnight, Gracie, earned Holmes the National Broadway
Theatre Award and a Tony nomination for Best Play. He has
since adapted works by John Grisham, Paddy Chayefsky, Agatha
Christie, Oscar Wilde and Jerry Lewis for major stages
around the world.
Holmes considers himself to have been “environmentally
blessed.” His father was a Julliard graduate who played lead
alto in the big band era, conducted Toscanini’s string
section and was head of auditions for NBC. His literate,
witty British mother raised him to appreciate the lyrics of
Noel Coward and Lorenz Hart. His younger brother, Richard
Holmes, is an internationally-renowned vocalist from
Glimmerglass to Glinka Concert Hall, a fixture of the
Metropolitan Opera from boyhood (featured prominently
throughout the PBS documentary The Opera House) and a
pillar of NYGASP.
“Richard has delighted audiences and critics alike for
decades,” the elder Holmes said. “It was Richard who turned
our family’s home into a nonstop Savoyard festival, steeping
me in everything from Trial by Jury through The
Grand Duke.”
As a mystery writer, Rupert Holmes has twice
received the Oscar of Crime, the coveted “Edgar” award, for
his comedy thrillers. His first novel, Where the Truth
Lies, earned him a Nero Wolfe nomination for Best
American Mystery Novel. It became a motion picture starring
Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon. Holmes also created and
scripted all 56 episodes of AMC's acclaimed TV series, Remember
WENN. He is now working on commissioned musicals about
Andy Warhol, the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers and the Japanese
occupation of Shanghai while also completing his latest
novel for Simon and Schuster.
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