Souvenir
Opening Night: November 10, 2005
Closing: January 8, 2006
Theater: Lyceum Theatre
This bittersweet comedy with music follows the career of Florence Foster Jenkins, classical music’s most notoriously bad singer. In 1932, Jenkins was a wealthy tone-deaf widow whose passion was singing. Nothing could stand in her way of becoming a famous coloratura soprano, least of all her obvious lack of talent. Her pianist Cosme McMoon, equally hapless though more aware of the fact, tells the story of a fascinating woman who shockingly sold out Carnegie Hall. Starring Tony Award-winner Judy Kaye.
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November 11, 2005
Even though you’ve been waiting for it, the first squawk is still a shocker. Stephen Temperley’s "Souvenir," the sweet but none-too-short love letter of a play that opened last night at the Lyceum Theater, is a portrait of a lady who became a legend for singing badly, after all. For her to make anything approaching a pretty sound would be blasphemy to the cultists who continue to worship at the shrine of the real woman named Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944).
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