Happy Days Musical, With McIntyre, Returns to CA's Falcon This Summer

The musical version of Happy Days will return to the Falcon Theatre in Burbank, California, this summer. The majority of the original cast, including Joey McIntyre, will reprise their roles for the engagement.

Happy Days previously opened at the Falcon on February 24, 2006, and closed on March 12, 2006. Series creator and Falcon Theatre founder Garry Marshall had been developing a musical version of the hit television series for many years. He wrote the book for the show and directed its world premiere. Paul Williams best known for writing the songs "We've Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days and Mondays," "You and Me Against the World," "I Won't Last a Day Without You" and "An Old Fashioned Love Song" provided the music and lyrics for Happy Days.

In addition to Joey McIntyre as Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli, the cast features Rory O'Malley as Richie Cunningham, Cynthia Ferrer as Marion Cunningham, Christine Lakin television's Step by Step as Joanie Cunningham, Joseph Leo Bwarie as Chachi Arcola, Robert Petrarca as Potsie Webber, DeQuina Moore Little Shop of Horrors as Lola, Matt Merchant as Count Jacques Malachi and Anna A. White as Lori Beth Allen.

In his review of the first engagement, Steven Oxman of Variety wrote: "Maybe the best comparison to watching this would be to sitting in on the early meetings of a team of sitcom writers, as they throw out all sorts of ideas, put them on their feet, and reject none of them. This is musical theater as brainstorming session, whose primary purpose is to see what they've got. Right now, that's a whole lot of not much. Marshall and Williams simply haven't determined what they're going for. Do they want Happy Days to be sincere, winkingly self-referential, campy? Right now it's all of that and more, depending on the scene, the actor, the song, the line, which means really it has no voice at all."

Happy Days is scheduled to run at the Falcon from June 23 through August 13.