Buddy¹s Still Rockin'!

Huge ideas can be conceived in the strangest places. The idea for BUDDY ­ THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY came to Englishman Laurie Mansfield in 1988 as he was sipping a pint in an old countryside pub. Laurie pitched the idea to West End producer Paul Elliot, who took it to Paul McCartney (who owned the copyrights to Holly's music and objected to inaccuracies in the movie made 10 years earlier). His support ensured the show's creation. The first production of BUDDY ­ THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY opened on London's West End on October 12, 1989, at the Victoria Palace Theatre to great acclaim. The show ran there for six years before moving to the Strand Theatre where it ran another six and a half years and a total of over 5,000 performances, making it one of the longest-running musicals in London history. Obviously, this kind of success does not go unnoticed in New York. After a very successful tryout in Toronto, BUDDY opened at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway. A reviewer for The Associated Press captured the spirit of the Broadway run well when he said, "The audience worked themselves into a hand-clapping exhaustion during the final concert sequence. It would be wise for the Shubert to have its house physician in the theatre during all performances."

Then the tours began. Productions were mounted in Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Finland, Ireland, Japan and Singapore. A 27-city U.S. tour was mounted with Bennett Dunn, the guy you will see in our production, starring as Buddy. "We traveled with the show all over North America in most of the U.S, including Alaska, and parts of Canada," Bennett related in a recent conversation, "It was an amazing experience. To be honest, it was a fluke that I auditioned. I was just a few months out of the Air Force, working at a hospital getting ready to go back to school, when out of the blue I received a phone call from the producer of the tour. I had never even heard of the stage version of the Buddy Holly story (though I was a huge fan of his music). Back then, I couldn't possibly have imagined that by 2010 I'd have hundreds of performances under my belt and my own Buddy Holly tribute band!"

Check out buddythemusical.com and you will see that the show is currently playing or scheduled in theatres in Germany, Canada, South Africa, Great Britain and all across the U.S., including right here at New Theatre. It seems the musical, like the music, will never die.

Rob McGraw - Vice President of Sales and Marketing

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Pasta is the Tops

It never ceases to amaze me how many different shapes of pasta are on the market and available to foodservice establishments. We are able to get ten times the variety found in the grocery stores. To me it is massive overkill and silly, however there is a reason for having the various shapes of pasta even though they all taste the same. My youngest son would argue that the different shapes have different flavors, but that would be a different story for a different purpose.

I have never been a big fan of the long, straight pastas. Yes, it is fun as a kid to slurp them up, leaving your face covered in sauce as it whips from cheek to cheek, but I don't do that as often as I used to. Here at the theatre we have always used more bite-sized shapes of pasta so that it is easier to serve. We also are careful to select pasta varieties that contain as many pockets and folds as possible without being too delicate in order avoid breakage. The reason we do this is that those types of pasta hold much more sauce that their long, straight counterparts. We pride ourselves in our sauces and want you to get as much in each bite as is humanly possible.

We came across a new shape, or at least new to us, at a chefs' meeting a few weeks ago that we hope you enjoy this visit with us. It is called "trottole," or "tops" in English. At first I thought, "Tops of what?" Then I realized it was referencing the toy tops I used to play with as a kid. This one, however, is tube of pasta twisted and turned wrong side out to resemble the cone shape of a top. The trottole shape holds a lot of sauce and it's a fun new look on our buffet.

We get excited about little things like this all the time, most you won't notice. But we believe the details are very important to your overall experience whether you notice them or not.

Mark Rohman - Vice President of Culinary & Restaurant Services