James Valcq and Fred Alley both grew up in Wisconsin, Valcq in big-city Milwaukee and Alley in rural Mount Horeb. Both were drawn to music and theatre at a young age. During the summer of 1980, while Valcq was attending a summer music camp in Madison and Alley had dropped in to visit a friend at the same camp, the sixteen-year-olds met and became friends almost immediately.

Valcq’s musical background consisted of early training and performance. By age seven he had appeared at the Skylight Opera Theatre in Milwaukee. He later went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in music and theatre from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, as well as a master’s in musical theatre composition from New York University. The accomplished composer, conductor, and musician now lives in New York City.

Alley, considered more of a renegade, had a background in folk music and theatre. As an adult, he joined a folk singing group called the Heritage Ensemble in Door County, Wisconsin. In the early 1990s, Alley and Frederick “Doc” Heide decided to steer this group in a more theatrical direction and renamed it the American Folklore Theatre (AFT). The artistic director was Alley’s lifelong friend, Jeffrey Herbst, who, incidentally, was the friend he was visiting at the Madison summer camp when he met Valcq. For this organization he wrote an original musical based on local folk stories and myths every year for ten years, including Guys on Ice, Lumberjacks in Love, and Belgians in Heaven.

The two men’s collaboration began following a trip to New York City with AFT, where they were inspired by their visit to Ellis Island to write their first show together. A musical called The Passage for AFT was the result. Alley wrote the lyrics and book while Valcq composed the music. The show premiered on AFT’s outdoor stage at Peninsula State Park in Door County in 1994.

Several years passed before Valcq and Alley found a project that was of interest to both of them. The two men agreed to adapt The Spitfire Grill, a 1996 independent film written and directed by Lee David Zlotoff that won the Audience Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.  (some material originally written by Marlo M. Ihler for Utah Shakespearean Festival)

Lee David Zlotoff is a producer, director and screenwriter best known as the creator of the TV series MacGyver. A graduate of Brooklyn Technical High School (1970), he studied pattern-making, machine shop, mechanical drawing, and foundry.  He started as a screenwriter writing for Hill Street Blues in 1981. He became a producer of Remington Steele in 1982, and also produced The Man from Snowy River TV series.

He wrote and directed the 1996 film The Spitfire Grill, which won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.  (some information published on Wikipedia)