Brian John Shucker

Brian John Shucker (May 29, 1958 – April 12, 1991) with his partner William “Bill” Sawyer (March 28, 1953 – August 12, 1991) were the authors of the musical Babes, a 1940s-style musical that opened in Los Angeles just before their deaths due to AIDS complications. Biography Shucker grew up in Huntington Beach, California. Sawyer was from Camas, Washington. Shucker worked as a vocalist and then became the musical director of the Curtain Call Theater. Later he toured the country with vocalists for whom he did musical arrangements. In March 1991, Shucker, visibly weakened, attended the audition session to select the cast for the second run of Babes. From the hospital, he rewrote one of the songs, Give It a Whirl. At the same time, the second run for Babes in Los Angeles, at the Maxim Theater, was opening. On Friday, April 12, 1991, Shucker died in Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, California. Sawyer who was completing their second full musical together and at Shucker’s death said “I have several more years left”, Shucker and Sawyer are listed side by side on the AIDS quilt project. His friend Michael Michetti, art director of Babes, References