A revival of the Cloris-award winning production, back for just three weekends!
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Noce is proud to present 'Souvenir,' a musical play starring Gina Gedler as Florence Foster Jenkins & Max Wellman as Cosme McMoon, her faithful accompanist. Max Schaeffer directs, with musical direction from Ben Hagen.
“Souvenir” is a reinterpretation of the real life story of Florence Foster Jenkins (Gina Gedler), a wealthy socialite and a real life historical figure who became famous for trying to be an opera star and failing badly. She is completely tone deaf, but she is convinced that she can sing! Using her own droves of money, she hires an accompanist, Cosme McMoon (Max Wellman), the narrator of the play, and designs her own extremely florid dresses. McMoon needs money, and thus he is willing to play for a woman who cannot sing to save her life. As the play continues, the audience enters Florence's world completely, finding there the beauty she'd heard in her head all along.
Souvenir finds McMoon some two decades after Jenkins' death, performing in a Greenwich Village piano bar and reminiscing about the dozen years he worked with "Madame Flo." The play takes a humorous look at the true meaning of music and the art of performing. Is "exactitude" of technique the real goal, or is it the honest expression of the artist's soul? Jenkins is depicted as blissfully incapable of hearing her own vocal inadequacies, and McMoon gradually moves from being an incredulous paid accompanist to standing by her as a faithful and supportive artistic partner. While audiences will come to Souvenir expecting to laugh (and goodness knows there is laughter aplenty here), they will also find themselves touched by a surprisingly appealing story of two people finding friendship.
Directed by: Max Schaeffer
Music Direction by: Ben Hagen