Berton Averre, American guitarist and songwriter
Berton Leslie Averre (born December 13, 1953) is an American guitarist. He was the lead guitarist and one of the founders of the band The Knack. That group had a No. 6 UK / No. 1 US hit with "My Sharona", which sold 10 million copies in the US. Averre is also a vocal arranger, and has toured with Robby Krieger, Bette Midler, The Cowsills and Sarah Brightman.
In the 1990s, he turned his creative energies towards the theater and developed a screenplay with Tom Schulman, screenwriter of Dead Poets Society and What About Bob?. In 1993, he joined the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles, where he met Rob Meurer. As a duo with Averre as composer, Meurer as lyricist, and both as book writers, they have written three musical comedies. The first, The Party's Over, received productions in Chicago and La Mirada. The second, Jungle Man!, has had two hit productions at Stage One in Wichita, in 2000 and 2002. The third, Robin Hood: The Untold Story, was the hit of the ASCAP/Disney Workshop in 2001, and has been seen in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Long Beach.Averre and Meurer have written two more shows in collaboration with playwright Mark Saltzman. Setup & Punch premiered in the summer of 2009 at The Blank Theater in Hollywood, and received a nomination by L.A. Weekly for Best New Musical. The show featured in a public staged reading on October 13, 2010 at the York Theater in New York. The trio's other show, the musical Vrooom!, had readings in New York in early 2011.
1953Dec, 13
Berton Averre
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Events on 1953
- 28Feb
Francis Crick
James Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April's Nature (pub. April 2). - 6Mar
Joseph Stalin
Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. - 8Apr
Jomo Kenyatta
Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta is convicted by British Kenya's rulers. - 19Aug
1953 Iranian coup d'état
Cold War: The CIA and MI6 help to overthrow the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran and reinstate the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. - 30Oct
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.