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TONY AWARD-WINNER JUDY  KAYE TO STAR IN BROADWAY’S

SOUVENIR

A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins

ALSO STARRING DONALD CORREN

A NEW PLAY WITH MUSIC BY STEPHEN TEMPERLEY

DIRECTED BY VIVIAN MATALON

OPENING AT THE LYCEUM THEATRE ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10 AT 7 PM

PRODUCED BY TED SNOWDON

Judy Kaye, whose Broadway triumphs include Phantom of the Opera (for which she received a Tony Award), Mamma Mia (Tony nomination) and On The Twentieth Century (achieving overnight stardom), returns to Broadway as the legendary musical sensation Florence Foster Jenkins in SOUVENIR, a new play with music written by Stephen Temperley.  Directed by Tony Award-winner Vivian Matalon, SOUVENIR opens at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street) on Thursday, November 10 at 7 pm.  Preview performances began on Friday, October 28.

In SOUVENIR, playwright Temperley imagines events surrounding the funny and poignant story of the musical career of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy society eccentric of the 1930s and 40s who suffered under the illusion that she was a great coloratura soprano – when in fact the opposite was true.  Nevertheless, her annual charity recitals at the Ritz Carlton and performances at other venues brought her cult status, especially as news of her unfortunate singing spread, culminating in her legendary sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. 

SOUVENIR is directed by Vivian Matalon, for whom the Lyceum Theatre has special significance -- it is where he directed the landmark production of Morning’s at Seven, for which he won a Tony Award.  Also starring in SOUVENIR will be Donald Corren, who won acclaim as Harvey Fierstein’s replacement in Torch Song Trilogy and who recently appeared off-Broadway in The Last Sunday in June.  Bringing SOUVENIR to Broadway is producer Ted Snowdon.

Musical supervision for SOUVENIR is by Tom Helm.  The production has set design by R. Michael Miller; costume design by Tracy Christensen; lighting design by Ann G. Wrightson; and sound design by David Budries.  The production stage manager is Jack Gianino.  Casting is by Barry Moss, C.S.A./Bob Kale.

About the Play

An earlier staging of SOUVENIR had a critically-acclaimed, extended run at off-Broadway’s York Theatre Company last season.  The play had a triumphant run at this summer’s Berkshire Theatre Festival, where it broke box office records.  Ed Siegel of the Boston Globe raved, “There aren’t many theatrical experiences as good as SOUVENIR!  So go laugh to your heart’s content.  SOUVENIR is downright hilarious!”

SOUVENIR is told through the memory of Jenkins’s long-time pianist Cosme McMoon (played by Donald Corren), reminiscing from his piano bench at a Greenwich Village supper club in 1964.  He takes us back 30 years to the period when he became the accompanist---and reluctant admirer---of the “dire diva of din”.  Together, they formed a bizarre musical partnership that earned Jenkins extraordinary fame, making her one of New York’s most treasured and unique personalities.

It takes one of Broadway’s best singing actresses, Judy Kaye, to play the famously tone-deaf soprano who couldn’t carry a tune.  Kaye, one of Broadway’s musical treasures, exclaims, “It’s hard work to sing badly!  What’s the dramatic license playing Florence Foster Jenkins?  Be passionate.  Get loud or soft suddenly.  Don’t be afraid to hoot and holler, especially in delicate arias like Verdi’s ‘Caro Nome’.  Don’t laugh no matter how hard the audience does.”  No matter how deluded Jenkins may have been, Kaye makes you believe that the woman’s earsplitting sounds are, to her ears at least, beautiful music.

It was 25 years ago when director Vivian Matalon first suggested to playwright Stephen Temperley that there might be a play in the life and career of Florence Foster Jenkins.  Temperley explains the genesis of SOUVENIR:

“Vivian played me a recording of her singing.  Well, let’s be charitable and call it singing.  I wrote a full-scale play about her but abandoned it.  I tried writing it later for one woman but couldn’t find a way to make it work and put it aside again.  Then three years ago I decided to approach it through the eyes of her accompanist, Cosme McMoon.”

About the Cast and Creative Team

JUDY KAYE garnered three off-Broadway award nominations (Lortel, Drama Desk and Drama League) for her performance as Florence Foster Jenkins in SOUVENIR at the York Theatre Company in December 2004.  Her multifaceted, nearly four-decade-long career has taken her from Broadway to the nation’s leading theaters, opera houses and concert halls.  Her Broadway credits include Mamma Mia!, Ragtime, On the Twentieth Century, and Phantom of the Opera, for which she won a Tony Award for best featured actress in a musical.  Among her numerous stage performances are leading roles in Candide, The Pajama Game and Brigadoon at New York City Opera, and Sweeney Todd and Annie Get Your Gun at Paper Mill Playhouse.

DONALD CORREN, who plays Cosme McMoon, most recently appeared as Charles in Jonathan Tolins’s The Last Sunday in June.  He is well remembered as the first replacement to Harvey Fierstein in the Broadway company of Torch Song Trilogy, and he also starred in its national tour (winning both the Los Angeles and San Francisco Drama Critics’ Circle awards).  In addition to his acting career in both theater and television, Corren has been a TV writer (“Martha Stewart Living”) and a cabaret pianist. 

Director VIVIAN MATALON won the Tony Award for best direction of a play for his 1980 staging of Morning’s at Seven.  He has had a long and successful career in London’s West End, on Broadway and in regional theaters.  Other Broadway credits include After the Rainwith Alec McCowen and Nancy Marchand; Noel Coward in Two Keys with Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn and Anne Baxter; Brigadoon in its last Broadway revival; and Arthur Miller’s The American Clock.

Playwright STEPHEN TEMPERLEY has written Beside the Seaside (Hudson Guild Theatre), Money/Mercy (Chelsea Theatre Center), and Dance with Me (18th Street Theatre).  As an actor, Temperley has appeared on Broadway in Crazy for You, in the West End in Happy End, and across the U.S. and U.K. in many plays and musicals, most recently in Call Me Madam and Me and My Girl at Goodspeed Musicals.

Producer TED SNOWDON is thrilled to bring the amazing tale of Florence Foster Jenkins to Broadway.  His many producing credits extend back to the 1979 Tony winner The Elephant Man and include other commercial ventures such as Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, Snakebit, Mere Mortals, Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight, and Virgins & Other Myths.  He was a co-producer of Broadway’s controversial The Twilight of the Golds by Jonathan Tolins, which has since been seen around the globe; and two seasons back was the sole producer of Tolins’s The Last Sunday in June at the Century Center.  Developmental productions have included Marc Wolf’s Obie Award-winning Another American: Asking and Telling, directed by Joe Mantello, with the New Group; and, more recently, A.R. Gurney’s The Fourth Wall (starring Sandy Duncan) and Terrence McNally’s The Stendhal Syndrome (starring Richard Thomas and Isabella Rossellini), both at Primary Stages.  

Preview performances for SOUVENIR began Friday, October 28; the play opens Thursday, November 10 at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street) at 7 pm.  SOUVENIR is performed on the following schedule:  Tuesday though Saturday 8pm, Wednesday and Saturday 2 pm, Sunday 3 pm.

Tickets are $46.25-$86.25 (ticket price includes $1.25 facilities fee) and may be purchased by phoning 212-239-6200 or telecharge.com.  Group tickets are available by phoning 212-398-8383 or 800-223-7565.  Telecharge and telecharge.com open Friday, September 23.  Box-office opens Friday, October 14.  More information can be seen at the website: www.SouvenirOnBroadway.com.