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Photo by Tom Schopper
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Gregory was born in Denison,
Texas….a small town known by few as the birthplace of Dwight
D. Eisenhower. He gave his first performance on stage as
a 5 year old, but has also been writing as long as he can
remember. A story would come into his head and he would
have to write it down. Stories of friendship, travel,
scripts for television shows…so many ideas flooded his brain
as a child. Without ever taking music lessons (beyond
singing in the school choir), Gregory taught himself how to
plunk out notes on a piano and began writing songs by the 9th
grade. The artistic director of a local children's
theatre company noticed his |
| talent, saying “he had a knack
for writing the way people spoke.” Gregory’s first
musical, Dracula Bites at Dusk was produced when he was
14, and he went on to write book, music and lyrics for
three more musicals which were all produced during his
high school days in Texas. Even though Gregory planned
on heading to New York to become an actor, that same artistic
director was quoted in the press saying she wasn’t sure
where his talents would take him…and believed he would
continue writing.
While in New York, Gregory
worked on Saturday Night Live at NBC, toured the country as a
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, performed in summer and dinner
theater…but still had dreams of writing the great American
Musical. He learned the hard way about adapting source
material into a musical without obtaining rights and then
began working on original works. He wrote songs
for a children’s theatre company in New Jersey as well as
jingles for Macy’s & McCall’s Magazine for events and
corporate meetings. Inspiration came from the
strangest of places: a story seen on the Discovery Channel, a
trip to a museum in Atlanta, a favorite childhood memory.
 Gregory produced a concert
version of his musical Destiny & Dreams in New York
and was told by a reviewer to get involved with the BMI
Musical Theatre Workshop…immediately…and he did. There he met a collection of writers, composers, and lyricists
leading him towards several wonderful collaborations on
different projects including the twice produced Invisible
Fences written with Stephen Kitsakos.
Gregory is a member of the
Dramatist Guild, ASCAP, and The Theatre Communications Group.
He is an award-winning musical theatre writer (Peter
Filichia's Straw Hat Award in Theatre Week Magazine for Best
Score in 1995 for River Divine); and has had over ten
original musicals produced on which he has worked as a
librettist and/or composer/lyricist. Gregory has been a
recipient of grants and awards for his writing from the
Catskill Watershed Corporation, the ASCAP foundation, and the
BMI foundation.
In addition to producing
musicals, Gregory has produced several recordings of his
original musicals, written songs recorded by singers from New
York to Nashville to Vegas, and served as executive producer
on an R&B recording in Dallas, Texas summer of 2005. 
All the while, he has continued writing several short stories,
poetry, plays and has turned his attention to writing novels
as a way to continue his love of story telling.
Gregory has been very
involved in the arts since moving to New Jersey. He
has directed and produced musicals and plays for numerous
theatre companies; served on several boards and committees of
regional arts organizations including the Bloomfield Cultural
Commission and BloomfieldArts.org; served as Artistic
Director for 4th Wall Theatre 2004-2010; performed the duties
of company manager of a professional children’s theater, and
is the Managing Director of the Westminster Arts Center at
Bloomfield College as
well as serving on the Essex County Advisory Board for the
Arts. He studied at the American Musical Dramatic Academy and Hunter
College in NY and received a management certification from the
Harvard Business School while spending over 13 years working
at a Big Five Financial Services Firm.
Gregory’s varied
background has added to his tenacity and drive. From a
10 year old boy caught in the largest tornado that Texas had
seen at that time, to an 18 year old leaving home and moving
to the largest city in the country, to a young 20-something
just started out a job on the 98th floor of the World Trade
Center when the 1993 bomb hit…and walking down all those
flights of steps…he has relived every moment in his life in
order to bring emotion, insight, and bare truth to his
writing.
Gregory lives in New Jersey with
his partner, Anthony and Kitty. |
