Michael A Termine (1947-2023)
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Michael Termine - Founder/Artistic Director of Bugle Boy Productions and longtime musical theater director, choreographer, writer and producer known for his infectious energy and bright spirit - has passed away.
Michael worked as an actor and director at Forest Park’s Circle Theatre during its start in the mid 80s & 90s, and went on to work with the River Forest Village Players, directing the 1990 ''Kick Up Your Heels,'' about the long-forgotten theater impresario Grace Hayward. The show focussed on her time making theater in Oak Park. A member of AEA and SAG/AFTRA he began his career as an actor/dancer and graduated to director and producer. He went on to found Berwyn-based Bugle Boy Productions which was known for its numerous nostalgic musical revues. Michael’s musical revue "Any Bonds Today?," a WWII-era USO-esque review, debuted in 1988 at the Arts Center in Oak Park, and went on to be a big hit. Michael conceived the revue as a showcase for his favorite big band standards of the 1940s, ranging from "Stardust" and "In the Mood" to "Take the A Train" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." There are a half-dozen songs by Glenn Miller, a staple in the Termine household when young Michae was growing up on Taylor Street in Chicago's Little Italy in the 1950s. "I don't apologize for it. I just love Glenn Miller," said Michael. "At one point in the second act of this show we play `Moonlight Serenade' and invite couples onstage to dance. Audiences love that." They loved it in the numerous well-attended stagings that ran for three years until 1991. There was a short-lived revival of the show in 1995 at the Olympic Theatre in Cicero, with added new tunes and a couple of tap numbers, then Michael remounted the revue in 1997, its original home of the Oak Park Arts Center. A testament to the loyalty and admiration shown by the cast for both Michael and his work, the majority of lead performers from the 1988 original returned to headline the 1997 re-mount. In 2016, Michael collaborated on the book and lyrics for “Hedda! A Musical Conversation” at Oak Park’s Paradise Playhouse, the one-woman show about Hedda Hopper, the hat-crazed gossip columnist and political pundit of Hollywood's Golden Age - which went on to tour Chicago, Northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana. Film/TV credits: Brat 2 (2000), Scrooge & Marley (2012), Pale Blue Eye, short (2017), Mills and Somerset, short (2017) |