Modern Island Life

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Lloyd J. Schwartz isn't leaving "Gilligan's Island: The Musical" stranded back in 1963.

"Gilligan does something particularly horrendous and someone says, 'Can't we vote him off the island?' " said Schwartz, whose father created the seemingly timeless TV sitcom 46 years ago. "I thought about adding a GPS in there, but I didn't. 'Gilligan' itself is pretty timeless."

So it is that "Gilligan's Island: the Musical," which Schwartz co-wrote in 1991 with his father, Sherwood, and occasionally updates, has sustained the show's legacy.


It's a goofy- yet philosophically opposite - precursor of contemporary stranded-on-an-island TV concepts ("Survivor" and "Lost").

"Gilligan's Island: the Musical," with 19 songs written by Lloyd Schwartz's sister, Hope, and her husband, guitarist Laurence Juber (once a member of Paul McCartney's Wings), will be staged Friday and Saturday as part of its first national tour at Tracy's Grand Theatre Center for the Arts.

Though "Gilligan's Island," in which seven shipwrecked strangers become marooned and must learn to get along on an uninhabited island, lasted only three seasons (1964-67) on CBS, "it's never been out of re-runs," Lloyd Schwartz said.

"It's a little bit of wish fulfilment," said Lloyd Schwartz, 62, who also directed "The Brady Bunch," another ageless series created by his father. "The idea of being stranded on an island is attractive historically. It's always been an interesting background.

"Dad had bigger ideas. He believed the basic themes were people have to learn to get along together. If you had a place where they couldn't get away, they'd have to get along. You know, a millionaire would never be with a farmer. A sea captain never would be with a professor."

Kevin Spencer, who was born 17 years after the original show ended, can relate to that.

"It's not complex," said Spencer, 25, who's playing the Professor in his first role on a national tour. "It's humor that's universal. Everyone gets it. Everyone grew up with the characters, and there's definitely nostalgia involved.

"With seven people on an island, everyone can identify with somebody. It's just really a fun, warm show. People, especially nowadays, really want that."

Lloyd Schwartz agreed, recalling that the original program's pilot was filmed during the period surrounding the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy,

"It's the opposite of 'Survivor,' " Lloyd Schwartz said from his home in Studio City. "We don't wanna have one (person) left at the end. No, no. We wanna have everybody work together.

"It's slapstick, fall-down kind of humor. That has resonated. There's always somebody you can identify with, like Gilligan. But maybe the billionaires have gone back to being millionaires."

Not much has changed in the stage version of the TV show that featured Bob Denver (Gilligan), Alan Hale Jr. (The Skipper), Jim Backus (the rich guy, Thurston Howell III) and Tina Louise (Ginger Grant).

While singing and dancing, the stage cast endures a hurricane, quicksand and a UFO with an alien monitor.

"Honestly, it's one of the favorite characters I've played," said Spencer, a native of Cheshire, Conn., who originally auditioned for the Gilligan role. "It's such a fun part. It's fun being the guy who is the straight man to everybody else's craziness. It's a blast."

Which is what he's had in mind since he started acting in high school, doing the Cary Grant role in "Arsenic and Old Lace."

"I think I wanted to be everything and every job from president of the United States to an ice-cream man to a bus driver," Spencer said. "I figured acting would be the ticket to do every job at least once."

While he said the show is more "acting-based," he's featured in two songs: "The Legend" and "The Professor's Lament," when he's "breaking down about why he can't get these people off an island."

Lloyd Schwartz was born into TV production, hanging around the "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch" sets with his dad and eventually becoming TV's youngest director when he took over the "Brady" show at 25.

"That was like a big electric train for me," said Lloyd Schwartz, who still does the "grunt work" for his dad, now 92, who's been married to his mom, Mildred, 90, for 67 years. "I was too young and too stupid to realize I was the youngest.

" 'The Brady Bunch' was not the most successful show originally. It became part of the American fabric when it went into syndication."

It seems as if it's always on somewhere now.

As an ABC network executive, the University of Californita, Los Angeles, graduate also worked on hit series such as "Happy Days," "Laverne and Shirley," "Three's Company" and "Harper Valley PTA."

A successful playwright, Schwartz has continued working on various "Brady Bunch" and "Gilligan's Island" projects (TV and stage) and hopes the "Gilligan" musical makes it to Broadway.

Maybe with a few more contemporary tweaks here and there?

"It's fun. I took him to see it in Glendora," Schwartz said of his dad, who recently got his star on Hollywood Boulevard and was named to the Television Hall of Fame. "He loved it. I told him it's the best production we've had.

"Of course, he always wants to rewrite. When you ask him about the show, he says, 'When's the next one?' "