The Spitfire Grill (musical)

The Spitfire Grill
Original Cast Recording
Music	James Valcq
Lyrics	Fred Alley
Book	James Valcq Fred Alley
Basis	1996 film The Spitfire Grill
Productions	2001 Off-Broadway
Awards	American Academy of Arts and Letters Richard Rodgers Production Award

The Spitfire Grill is an American musical with music and book by James Valcq and lyrics and book by Fred Alley, based on the 1996 film of the same name by Lee David Zlotoff. The Off-Broadway production by Playwrights Horizons began previews at the Duke Theatre on 42nd Street on September 7, 2001 and concluded its scheduled run on October 14, 2001. It won the Richard Rodgers Production Award, administered by The American Academy of Arts and Letters. The musical depicts the journey of a young woman just released from prison who decides to start her life anew in a rural Wisconsin town. She participates in a journey within the town itself toward its own tenuous reawakening.

Authors James Valcq and Fred Alley had been friends since high school music camp in 1980, but it wasn’t until 1994 that they collaborated on The Passage for Alley’s American Folklore Theatre in Wisconsin. New York-based Valcq was seeking a follow-up project for the pair after his Zombies from The Beyond closed Off-Broadway in 1995. They wanted to create a piece of populist theatre with elements of myth and folktale. Upon seeing the film The Spitfire Grill, they had found their vehicle. Actual writing of the musical commenced in October 1999.

A demo tape of a few songs from the score found its way to David Saint, Artistic Director of the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey. The theatre presented a workshop of the show in June, 2000 featuring Helen Gallagher as Hannah, and produced the world premiere production in November 2000 featuring Beth Fowler as Hannah. Throughout the process, Arthur Laurents mentored the creative team, encouraging them to find their own emotional truth in the material. The ending of the musical is entirely different from the ending of the film.