Alec Cuddeback

Alec has been a performer since the second grade, where he played the part of Captain Hook in a musical version of "Peter Pan".

In high school at Canandaigua Academy, Alec was in varsity chorus for two years, with various solo parts, and was chosen as All-County and All-State, as well as leader of the tenor section. He portrayed Lieutenant Shrank in "West Side Story" and Tom Keeney in "Funny Girl" in two summer productions at the old Playhouse Theatre in Canandaigua.

While majoring in broadcasting at Indiana University, Alec was in the chorus for the operas "Il Trovatore" and "Andre Chenier" performed by the Indiana University Opera Theatre, which also toured the state, giving performances in five cities.

At the same time, he was a member of Indiana's School of Music choral group "The Singing Hoosiers". Alec also appeared in the chorus for a summer production of "Camelot", and in his senior year at Indiana, he won the annual award for Radio Broadcast Performance, appearing in many radio plays during his time at the university.

While in graduate school at Syracuse University, Alec gave performances in scenes from "La Boheme" and "Carmen." He also hosted a weekly opera radio program on station WAER during one summer.

He did local television production work as writer, producer, and director at General Electric Cablevision, in Biloxi, Mississippi, where he originated a series entitled "Encore!", which featured scenes from local theater productions. Then, Alec returned to upstate New York and worked as an on-air performer, writer, producer, and director at WXXI-TV in Rochester.

After moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in screenwriting, he performed opera arias and popular songs in various local showcases, including the famous La Scala restaurant. Alec also wrote for the tv show "Grizzly Adams", had a screenplay optioned, did some ghost writing, and developed a screenplay project for a co-producer of the film "The Neverending Story".

At the same time, he wrote the libretto for an original opera, "Cold Genius", based on the last days of the pop-cult figure Klaus Nomi, composed by Eberhard Schoener, which was recorded on Ariola Records, featuring operatic bass Kurt Moll. He also worked on parts of the libretto for another Schoener opera, "Palazzo dell' Amore", which starred tenor Andrea Bocelli and was recorded along with "Cold Genius", the two works appearing as the cd "Short Operas".

During this same period, Alec divided his time between Los Angeles and the Finger Lakes area. He began writing rock songs, and he ultimately released a cd, "Glass onions - Original Songs, 60s Style", where he performed vocals to ten of his original tunes.

Following the release of the cd, he started a four-piece rock band, which did originals as well as cover tunes, concentrating on the British Invasion era of the 1960s, with Alec doing vocals and playing rhythm guitar as well as keyboards. In 2008, the group was re-organized into a duo, consisting of Alec and lead guitarist Bob Fischetto, with the name "Vintage". His bands have performed at many local venues, including "The Bayside Pub", "Smokin' Joe's", "The Flipside" and "California Brew Haus" in Rochester, along with the Naples Grape Festival, Canandaigua's Harvestfest, Livonia's Vitale Park Summer Festival, Hilton's Applefest, and the Naples Spring Artisan Showcase.

Along with his rock gigs, Alec performed for seven years doing operatic tenor arias, at the Ontario County Arts Council's annual "Spaghetti Opera".

I am what my mom used to call an "old fart" - I'll be 72 next April, so I'm retired. A lot of my previous jobs were in market research and social science research, having worked for the think tank RAND Corporation and the NIELSEN Company (home of the Nielsen TV ratings).

I graduated from Indiana University with a B.S. and got an M.S. at Syracuse University, both degrees in broadcasting. While at Indiana, I was an engineer for WFIU-FM radio, won an award for Broadcast Performance, and wrote and broadcast news and radio plays. I produced two radio documentaries For WFIU-FM about labor union disputes involving the New York Metropolitan Opera and interviewed Francis Robinson, assistant manager of the Met, Lester Solomon of Musician's Union Local 802, and opera star Cornell MacNeil, among others. Directed the first late-night news program for WTIU-TV. Also was in the chorus for operas "Andre Chenier" and "Il Trovatore", as well as a production of "Camelot", and was a member of Singing Hoosiers choral group.

At Syracuse, I was a production intern at PBS station WCNY-TV, directed a choral Christmas show at that same station which was re-broadcast by five regional PBS stations, was a part-time film editor at WSYR-TV, and performed solo and ensemble pieces from operas "La Boheme" and "Carmen" through the Syracuse University School Of Music. Also produced and was on-air talent for a weekly opera radio show on WAER-FM.

Was a writer-producer-director-cameraman for General Electric Cablevision in Biloxi, Mississippi, which did 40 hours of local origination programming per week, including a nightly news program and a series "Encore", featuring scenes from local theater groups.

Served as on-air talent as well as writer-director for PBS station WXXI-TV in Rochester, New York.

Moving to Los Angeles in 1974, I wrote for the Jerry Lewis Telethon, and "Grizzly Adams" TV series. Did some ghost writing and had "The Klingsor Initiates" optioned twice. I co-wrote a libretto for a one-act opera, and ghost-wrote part of another libretto which were both recorded as "Short Operas" on Ariola Records, featuring Metropolitan Opera singer Kurt Moll and tenor Andrea Bocelli.

I also worked on a project for several years, for a co-producer of "The Neverending Story", doing about ten screenplay adaptations of the novel "The Satanic Mill" by Otfried Preussler.

Ultimately, I began to write original rock songs, turning 10 of them into a CD, and forming a rock group, "Glass onions", which performed in various versions for 16 years, eventually writing 22 tunes.

In between all of this, I wrote a total of 17 feature screenplays, five being co-written, plus one screenplay ghostwritten, and numerous treatments and story pitches.

I think most of my stuff is pretty good and definitely commercial. What has been lacking is a stroke of good luck. Through the years, I had four agents - none of them were any good, however.

Since retirement about five years ago, I hadn't looked at any of my scripts until 2019, when I decided to concentrate on perhaps eight or nine of them, see if I can improve them and re-submit them, hoping for better luck this time.

Oh, I forgot to add – from 2003 through 2009. I performed tenor operatic arias at the annual “Spaghetti Opera”, a major fundraiser to benefit the Ontario County Arts Council in Canandaigua, New York – specializing in Italian opera of composers such as Verdi and Puccini.