Josh Grisetti, Nicole Parker, John O'Hurley & More Ready To 'Succeed' at L.A. Reprise

Josh Grisetti will play J. Pierrepont Finch in the Reprise Theatre Company’s staging of How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, running May 11-23 at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse in Los Angeles. Directed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge, the show will also feature Nicole Parker as Rosemary, John O’Hurley as J. B. Biggley, Vicki Lewis as Smitty, Simon Helberg as Bud Frump, and Melissa Fahn as Hedy LaRue, with Ed Asner as the Voice of the Book, the offstage narrator. Opening night is May 12.

The cast will also include E. E. Bell, Ruth Williamson, Larry Raben, Michael Kostroff, and Ray Wills.The ensemble features Matt Bauer, Bradley Benjamin, Matt Crabtree, Melissa Lyons, Jeff Marlow, Elisa Nixon, Annie Ramsey and Michael Justin Wilcox.

Based on a satirical self-help book, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying has a book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert and a score by Frank Loesser. The show centers on a young window-cleaner, J. Pierrepont Finch, who begins a meteoric rise from the mail-room to Vice President of Advertising at the World-Wide Wicket Company. Finch’s unorthodox and morally questionable business practices jeopardize not only his career but also his romance with Secretary Rosemary Pilkington.

How to Succeed originally opened on Broadway in October 1961 and won seven Tonys and became one of only eight musicals to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A 2011 Broadway revival starring Daniel Radcliffe is currently in the works.