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Denise Fraser
(September 2005 Issue)
Perfecting Her Gilligan Grooves Denise Fraser's
drumming career has involved some
serious island-hopping. When last we
spoke with her, she was on the island of Manhattan, playing for
Sandra
Bernhardt's Broadway show at the Booth Theater. The success of that
show led to a taped version that won
raves when it aired on HBO.
When Sandra took a hiatus to have her daughter, Denise moved home to
Los Angeles,
where she soon found herself performing on another island.
Gilligan's Island.
Yup, you read it right. The
cherished '60s sitcom (still popular in
reruns thirty-five years later) has been turned into a live musical
show.
Gilligan's Island'the Musical
features a script by Sherwood Schwartz (who created the original TV
show) and
a score by former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber and his wife
Hope.
"The show played at the Civic Arts Plaza in
Thousand Oaks, just north
of LA," explains Denise. "It's a real light-hearted production - quite a
bit different from the
harder-edged, more satirical material that
Sandra does. I had a ball doing the drums and percussion, and we
received very
positive audience response."
Positive enough, in fact, to merit an original cast recording. "We went
into Capitol
recording studios on September 1 to record the album,"
says Denise. "That will get the show out to an even larger audience.
If
it proves one tenth as popular as the original TV version, who knows? I
might be back on Broadway soon!"
Gilligan and his pals may be eternally stuck on their island, but Denise isn't. After recording the
Gilligan's Island cast album, she accepted the percussion spot for a touring company of the hit R&B musical
Smokey Joe's Cafe. Denise will play several western-US cities with the show through
January.
Rick Van Horn
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