Updates from the Fort

FORT SALEM THEATER presents Souvenir: The Florence Foster Jenkins Musical July 14-16 • Friday & Saturday at 8 PM • Sunday at 2 PM CoProduction with Bridge Street Theatre, Catskill (performed 3/16-26, 2017) J. Peter Bergman, Berkshire Bright Focus http://www.berkshirebrightfocus.com/bridgestreettheatre/souveniratbridgest.html    At the Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill, New York three people have taken center stage, each in a different way. Florence Foster Jenkins, the almost imperturbable diva of the 1930s and 1940s hates to give center to anyone else and, as portrayed in the Florence Hayle directed version of her story, she and her accompanist Cosme McMoon vie for that position like prizefighters in the match of their lives. It is a fight to the death and what happens here is a no-fail situation as both characters and their director never leave that position and they survive together for eternity.       This play had its true premiere at the Berkshire Theatre

CALIFORNIA’S ROSE REPERTORY TROUPE  PLAY AT FORT SALEM THEATER SALEM, NY — The players from Westminster, California’s Rose Center Theater have arrived early this week to perform their brand new old-fashioned musical comedy, Rip Van Winkle, on Fort Salem Theater’s Mainstage. Rip opens Friday, June 23 at 8 PM, with subsequent performances Saturday, June 24, at 8 PM and Sunday, June 25, at 2 PM. Director Tim Nelson, who lives in Huntington Beach, California, and has a summer home in Salem, drove the deconstructed set along with costumes and wigs across the country. An instructor at the Huntington Beach Academy for Performing Arts, a public charter high school, he is also Executive Director at the professional Rose Center Theater, which is owned by the town of Westminster. The Rose Repertory Troupe consists of professional actors and theater educators. Nelson has moonlighted during the summer for almost thirty years, working in the Capital District as a director and musi

GARDENWORKS AND FORT SALEM THEATER  COLLABORATE FOR THE SIXTH YEAR SALEM, NY — For the sixth season in a row, two Salem businesses, Gardenworks Farm, located at 1055 County Route 30, and Fort Salem Theater, 11 East Broadway, will be collaborating on Farm-to-Table Dinner Theater and Cabarets, a package that offers special dinners and musical and theater productions at discounted prices. Starting with a Gardenworks dinner on Saturday, June 24, paired with Fort Salem’s original musical, Rip Van Winkle, the events will span the agricultural and cultural summer season, from blueberry picking to fall harvest; from the annual visit from California’s Rose Center Theater to an onsite live multimedia musical event at Gardenworks at the end of the season. Each evening begins with a cheese tray appetizer in the Gardenworks gallery at 5:30 PM. Wine is available for purchase. Dinner is served at 6 PM, including salad and artisan bread, a main course, and dessert. For Rip Van Winkl

FORT SALEM THEATER  ANNOUNCES ITS SUMMER SEASON SALEM, NY — Fort Salem Theater, Washington County’s Theater Home for Music, Musicals, and Cabaret, has announced its summer schedule for 2017.  The Rose Center Theater, from Westminster, California, artistically directed by part-time Salemite Tim Nelson, returns for the ninth year to the Fort Mainstage on June 23-25, with his Rose Center adult repertory company, including Mary Murphy-Nelson, Melissa Cook, and Chris Caputo, with their second entry in the season, his original adaptation of Washington Irving’s classic tale, Rip Van Winkle: The Musical. Nelson’s  research took him to the Catskills, where he steeped himself in oral history of the nineteenth century, and many of his characters are based on the twenty-first century locals whom he met. On July 14-16, in a co-production with Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill, NY, opera diva Alison Davy plays Florence Foster Jenkins, the role that won Meryl Streep her latest Osca