Steve Gunderson (actor)

{{Short description|American actor and performing arts professional}}

Steve Gunderson is an American actor, singer, composer, arranger and playwright. As an actor, he has appeared off-Broadway, with regional theatre companies, and on film. As a composer, arranger and/or playwright, his works include Suds: The Rockin’ 60s Musical Soap Opera, Back to Bacharach and David, Dixie Highway, an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and music for the TV series Romancing America.

Career

Gunderson made his off-Broadway debut as Daniel Buchanan in Kurt Weill's Street Scene with the Equity Library Theatre in 1982.{{cite journal|title=Legitimate: Off-Broadway Reviews - Street Scene|author=MADD|journal=Variety|volume=306|issue= 1|date=February 3, 1982|page= 130}} In 1983 he performed in the off-Broadway musical revue I'll Die If I Can't Live Forever by Joyce Stoner,{{cite journal|title=I'll Die If I Can't Live Forever|journal=Back Stage|date=March 4, 1983|page= 75}} and in 1987 he portrayed Joseph Keyston in Simon Gray's play Butley at The Courtyard Playhouse (39 Grove Street, New York, NY).{{cite journal|title=Reviews: Butley|author=Sheward, David|journal=Back Stage|volume=28|issue= 1|date=January 2, 1987|page= 12A}} In 1991 he portrayed Sparky in Forever Plaid at the Triad Theatre.{{cite news|title=Bistro Bits| author=Bob Harrington|work=Back Stage|volume=32|issue=27|date=July 5, 1991|pages=11, 23}}

Gunderson co-created an original cabaret show with actress Melinda Gilb titled The Melinda and Steve Show, for which he arranged extant musical material by other composers and wrote original music. The duo performed the work periodically at the Manhattan cabaret restaurant Don't Tell Mama in 1984, 1985, and 1986 among other venues.{{cite journal| title=The Melinda and Steve Show|journal=Back Stage|volume=27|issue=46|date=November 14, 1986|page=11A}}{{cite news|title= Going Out: The Melinda and Steve Show| author=Stephen Holden| work=The New York Times|date=2 September 1985|page= 35}}{{cite journal|title=The Melinda and Steve Show|journal=Back Stage| volume=25| issue=9| date=March 2, 1984|page=13A}} Cabaret critic Bob Harrington wrote the following in his Back Stage review:

Melinda Gilb and Steve Gunderson exhibit a very limited range: from very funny to outrageously funny as comics, and from interesting to exciting as musicians! And if you are going to have limits, these are ones to have. Their broad zany behavior neatly underscores some magnificent arrangements by Gunderson, and both he and Gilb have the voices to carry them off.{{cite journal|title=Bistro Bits: The Melinda and Steve Show| author=Bob Harrington|journal= Back Stage|volume=26|issue=46|date=November 15, 1985|page=17A}}

Gunderson and Gilb collaborated again to create the musical parody Suds: The Rockin’ 60s Musical Soap Opera together with Bryan Scott. The three co-authored the musical's book, and wrote spoof lyrics to 1960s popular songs, with arrangements by Gunderson. The work was commissioned by the San Diego Repertory Theatre (SDRT) after one of the SDRT staff saw Gunderson and Gilb's cabaret show in New York.{{cite journal|title=Bistro Bits|author=Harrington, Bob|journal=Back Stage|volume=29|issue= 29| date=July 15, 1988| page=11A}} It premiered there in October 1987.{{cite journal|title=Legitimate: 'Suds' at Lyceum Spoofs '60s Tunes| volume=328| issue=12| date=October 14, 1987|page=227|journal=Variety}} Well received by San Diego audiences, it was revived just a few months later at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.{{cite journal| title=Legitimate: Tea, Suds Fill Out Old Globe's Lineup|journal=Variety|volume=329|issue=5|date=November 25, 1987|page= 129}}{{cite news|title=Why the Old Globe Decided to Use Suds on Its Boards| author=Nancy Churnin| work=Los Angeles Times|date=31 Mar 1988|page= AB1}} The production moved off-Broadway at the Criterion Theatre where it ran from September 25 through December 4, 1988.{{cite book|page=435|chapter=Suds|title=The Best Plays of 1988–1989: The Complete Broadway and Off-Broadway Sourcebook| year=1989| publisher=Hal Leonard|isbn=9781557830562 | editor=Jeffrey Sweet, Otis L. Guernsey|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LoMrnezE8D8C&dq=%22Steve+Gunderson%22+%22san+Diego%22&pg=PA435}}
{{cite journal|title=Legitimate: Off-B'way Review – Suds|author=Meyr|journal=Variety| volume=332|issue= 10|date=September 28, 1988|page= 81}}
{{cite journal|title=Theatre reviews: Suds|author=Scheck, Frank|journal=Back Stage|volume= 29| issue=42| date=October 14, 1988|page=25A}}
{{cite news|title=Life and Love at the Laundromat|author=Mel Gussow|work=The New York Times|date=28 September 1988| page=C20| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/28/theater/review-theater-life-and-love-at-the-laundromat.html}}

1990s and later

In January and February 1992 Gunderson returned to San Diego to portray Peter in Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre.{{cite news| title=Gaslamp's Heidi Captures Everywoman With Ease| author=Nancy Churnin|work=Los Angeles Times|date=18 January 1992|page= SDF1}}{{cite journal|title=West Coast Stages| author=Stevens, Rob| journal=Back Stage|volume=33|issue=8|date=February 21, 1992|pages=7, 34}} Later that year, he co-created and starred in another original cabaret revue, Back to Bacharach and David, which featured music by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, arranged by Gunderson. The revue's script was written by Gunderson and Kathy Najimy, who directed the revue.{{cite journal|title=Cabaret Reviews: Back to Bacharach And David|author=Sander, Roy|journal=Back Stage|volume= 34|issue=18|date=April 30, 1993| page= 11}}{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/04/theater/reviews-theater-one-foot-in-motown-the-other-in-suburbia.html|title=One Foot in Motown, The Other in Suburbia| author=Stephen Holden|work=The New York Times|date=4 September 1992| page= C2}} He and Najimy also appeared together in the film Topsy and Bunker: The Cat Killers (1992).{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

In 1993 Gunderson created and starred in another musical revue, "24 Hours From Tulsa", co-starring Lillias White.{{cite journal|title=Foreign News: MACC awards highlight cabaret month in New York|author=Kerensky, Oleg|journal= The Stage and Television Today|issue= 5843|date=Apr 8, 1993|page= 6}} Gunderson's other stage works include the musical Dixie Highway (1994){{cite news|title=Ambitious Highway Dead-Ends|author=Nancy Churnin|work=Los Angeles Times|date=11 June 1994|page= OCF2}} and a musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol (1994), both for the San Diego Repertory Theatre.{{cite news|title=San Diego Rep's Staging of Carol|author=Nancy Churnin|work=Los Angeles Times|date=8 Dec 1994|page= F11}}