Buddy – the Buddy Holly Story, presented by La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts and McCoy Rigby Entertainment, opens April 17; plays Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 pm; Fri., 8 pm; Sat., 2 and 8 pm; Sun., 2 and 7 pm; through May 2. Tickets: $35-$50. La Mirada Theatre, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada; 562.944.9801 or 714.994.6310 or lamiradatheatre.com.

For baby boomers, what became of Richie Valens, the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly often is tidily summed up in Don McLean’s anthem “American Pie.”

And the three men I admire most:

The father, son and the Holy Ghost,

They caught the last train for the coast

The day the music died.

Buddy Holly’s death on February 3, 1959, at age 22, arrested a career that, if it were a firework, had just exploded in the inky sky. The initial burst of light and energy had just escaped the rocket. If we slow that explosion down enough and look at its components – the rocket casing, the fuel, the fuse – we can see Buddy Holly’s life and extremely short career.

But what a spectacular firework it was.

Glenn Casale

Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story is written by Alan Janes and Rob Bettinson. Director Glenn Casale says just a few scripts are approved by Holly’s wife and licensor, Maria Elena, now 75. “I chose the one with the fewest scenes which retains all the songs,” Casale says, “so we get to the music faster. That’s what people want.” The show includes 20 of Holly’s hits.

If this sounds like a Jukebox Musical, it mostly is. “There’s a place for that,” Casale believes. “Mama Mia is a phenomenon for a lot of reasons. People need to see a show like that because they want to find relief. Same with Rock of Ages – it’s comfortable. Jersey Boys, too. So is Buddy Holly. It’s fun and comfortable.”

Casale embraces musicals that bounce from song to song to song with just enough story mixed in to inform. “Think about what we do when we hold a dollar bill in front of us,” says Casale, a big Stephen Sondheim fan. “We look at that dollar bill and ask ourselves, ‘Am I going to take this dollar to go out and think, or am I going to take this dollar to go have a good time?’ I think most people say, ‘Please let me go and have a good time.’”

Sondheim, he adds, forces us to think, “and to pay attention.” Here, in the story of Buddy Holly, we can relax in music that excites and comforts. “This brings me back to an early age of innocence,” Casale explains, believing other baby boomers will readily identify.

The story itself is mostly familiar. Charles Hardin Holley was born in 1936, lived in Lubbock, Texas, and took up guitar, piano and violin as a child. His parents were musical. The kid sang his way to the top of a talent contest at age five.

He took the nickname Buddy and, at 18, saw Elvis Presley sing in Lubbock in 1955. To his own bluegrass sound, Buddy incorporated rockabilly. He opened one night for Bill Haley and His Comets, got signed by Decca and accepted Holly as his last name – a record company misspelling.

Brandon Albright

Brandon Albright reprises his role as the gangly musician after a three-month engagement in Las Vegas. “It’s hard to talk about Buddy Holly and not sound all cliché but it’s amazing what he did for rock and roll. A lot of people think of the Beatles when they look back at the origins but Buddy was the one who started using reverb, overlaying tracks – it all started with this tall, skinny kid from Texas.”

Albright took up the acoustic guitar and began writing songs in a Las Vegas junior high school – songs about skateboarding and unfair teachers. Those lyrics evolved, as they ideally do, through poems he says dotted his home. Today, he says, his writing stems from emotions that reflect life’s ups and downs; perhaps, a more complex journey than Buddy Holly had a chance to take.

But, oh, Buddy’s writing. “I’ve talked to other musicians doing this show,” says Albright, “and you realize Buddy didn’t write in the simple C, G, D, arrangement a lot of country music writers did, and still do. He’d throw in an E-sharp and you’d wonder, ‘Man, what was that?’ He was so creative, so innovative.”

Buddy’s group, the Crickets, was small. “So that meant Buddy had to play rhythm and lead guitar. He was an accomplished guitarist but didn’t read music very well – he had it all in his head. And I don’t think the songs that come to mind are necessarily his best. I think ‘My Baby’ is a great song. So is ‘Rave On’ which was released after he died. We end the show with it.”

What if Buddy Holly’s life had not ended so soon? Albright can only imagine. “He was so talented. His ideas were used by others and made into hits. He wanted to produce and write for other singers. He would’ve been a huge songwriter for other musicians.”

“His lyrics were simple but we could all relate to them,” Casale adds. “His guitar playing was terrific. ‘Peggy Sue,’ for example, touched people. People thought, ‘I could be Peggy Sue’.”

Buddy Holly was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s inaugural group in 1986. Rolling Stone lists him 13th in its countdown of The 50 Greatest Artists of All Time. “But he was also a perfectionist,” Casale says, “which sometimes got him in trouble.” He was brash. “He would stand up to people who’d been in the business far longer than he had been.”

Albright as Buddy Holly

Buddy also knew how to “work it.” Casale remembers a clip of Holly at Lawrence Welk’s Dance Party. “You can see how he almost makes love to the microphone. That’s what Sinatra had. And in that same program, Buddy also shows off his guitar. He was a showman.”

Casale faced a number of challenges in mounting this La Mirada Theatre production. Foremost was finding the right Buddy, then searching for everyone else and organizing the casting, which took two months.

As for the other 15 cast members, he essentially had a checklist. “For one thing, each one has to be a musician. Christia Mantzke (Broadway credits include Smokey Joe’s Café and Fame) plays a mean piano and I knew if she could act, I could use her later in the show as Vi Petty. Jennifer Leigh Warren is an Apollo Theatre singer. We’ve worked together a lot – she was an original in Little Shop of Horrors and did Big River on Broadway – fantastic talent. Thankfully she wanted to do it. One by one, we got everyone in and figured who could do what.”

It all had to start with Buddy. “He’s the glue,” Casale says. “I saw a clip of Brandon Albright on YouTube and liked him a lot. I knew people in Las Vegas who gave him rave reviews.” Albright has his own memory of that first Buddy audition. “My background is musical theatre and as a singer/songwriter on acoustic guitar. But I had to audition on an electric guitar which has steel strings and a very different finger feel.” He made it, he says, in part because he’s 6’3″ and thin. You should see him in dark rimmed glasses. “I was able to convince them I could do it.”

One of the other challenges was getting the cast to truly put themselves in the shoes of their characters, remembering these kids were 19 years old. “I told them to play the anger, play the excitement – I mean, these kids were going to New York! Play with that!”

Casale has directed shows at La Mirada since 1986 and hopes this show will spawn a national tour. He also works in Europe and was called upon a couple years ago to fix a “$30 million disaster.” He describes Udo Jürgens as Germany’s Barry Manilow. Jürgens has enjoyed a 50-year career, a bit longer than Manilow. So far. He’s written about 900 songs and sold 100 million units, according to Internet searches. “The guy’s 75 years old and everyone there knows his songs. I got a call one day from the producer of the show about Udo. He said the show was a $30 million disaster – and could I help? I flew over there and saw it. It was all in German, of course, but very heavy, very German emotionally.” Think adult contemporary music Wagnerian style. “So I flipped it around, made it like Buddy Holly, and it’s been running for two years and is about to open in Stuttgart.”

A success, in Casale’s mind, and not unlike what we look for in the U.S. “Here, millions find relief in Barry Manilow. It’s why I’m looking forward to Come Fly Away because that’s Sinatra – it’s comfortable. And I find relief in that.”

Albright as Buddy Holly

The musicians in this run of Buddy may be relieved to perform indoors. Brandon Albright’s three-month run in Las Vegas took place in an amphitheater. “The stringed instruments went out of tune pretty fast,” he remembers. “But, here, we’re inside and the stage is much wider so we can run around more which energizes the audience.”

He and the others will have to watch their steps. The cast uses authentic stand-up microphones. Instruments are plugged in to amplifiers. “With all those wires,” Casale warns, “backstage looks like a jumble of spaghetti on the floor.”

For Casale, the highlight of the show may be its final 22 minutes. It recreates Buddy Holly’s very last concert in Clear Lake, Iowa, just hours before he died, along with the Big Bopper (played by T.J. Dawson, Grease in Europe) and Richie Valens (Manuel Romero, International Trebby Award winner). “Waylon Jennings was supposed to be on that plane,” Casale notes, “but the guys rolled dice to see who’d get the last seat.” Waylon lost – or won. “But I think putting all that concert music at the end is why the show ran so long in London.”

Holly’s widow, Maria Elena, has publicly blamed herself for Buddy’s death. She has claimed had she been there, she would have talked him out of taking that fateful plane trip. Last week, she auctioned off many of her late husband’s artifacts, including clothes, photos and instruments.

Images by PS Productions

Article by Steve Julian