For Immediate Release: August 16, 2006
Media Contact: Chuck Reece, Bristol Riverside Theatre, 215.785.0100

September 26, 2006 will mark the first performance of Bristol Riverside Theatre’s twentieth season producing professional theatre in Historic Bristol Borough, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The Grand Opening celebration of the 20th Anniversary Season will be held on Opening Night of Around the World in 80 Days Thursday, September 28. An announcement of VIP attendants will be released at a later date.

The year kicks off with Mark Brown’s play Around the World in 80 Days, based on Jules Verne’s classic novel, which runs September 26 through October 15. The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge also by Mark Brown is a twist on the classic Charles Dickens novel set one year after A Christmas Carol and will be performed from November 14 to December 10. The first regular season production of the new year, January 23 through February 11, 2007 will be Ethel Waters, His Eye Is On The Sparrow, a musical celebration of the life and career of the Chester-born, Philadelphia raised jazz singer who went on to Broadway and Hollywood success. Playwright/actor Michael O. Smith brings his one-man play The Bully Pulpit, the story of the United States’ twenty-sixth President to Bristol from February 27 to March 18. Closing out the season, back by popular demand, will be the musical hit Forever Plaid which played for seven years in Las Vegas and as a part of Bristol Riverside Theatre’s 2000-2001 Season. As an additional attraction during the holiday season, BRT will present its Fourth Annual Winter Musicale from December 14 to 24.

Since its inception Bristol Riverside Theatre (BRT) has been led by Founding Producing Director Susan D. Atkinson, who grew up in Bucks County and attended George School before moving to San Francisco to hone her craft as a director and producer at the famed American Conservatory Theatre. After moving back to the area in the early 1980s, she founded the Repertory Theatre of Bucks County (REPCO), a company dedicated to developing new plays and playwrights, and began producing plays at a variety of Bucks venues in Doylestown, Newtown, New Hope, and eventually in Bristol.

In 1984, The Grundy Foundation, located in Bristol, purchased an old movie house on the Delaware River, and invested over one million dollars to transform it into a state-of-the-art theater in the riverfront park. The finished theater combined the exciting possibilities of a large stage with the intimacy of a 300-seat theater, along with outstanding lighting and sound technology. The Grundy Foundation offered the theater to REPCO, and Bucks County's premiere not-for-profit Regional Theatre was born as Bristol Riverside Theatre.

“It hardly seems believable that it was twenty years ago our doors opened,” said Ms. Atkinson about the theatre’s landmark. “It has been twenty years spent with some of the most creative artists, supportive Board of Directors and one of the most appreciative audiences that a Producing Director ever could have imagined when setting off to live out a dream.”

In 1995 Ms. Atkinson invited regular BRT actor and director Edward Keith Baker to assume the role of Associate Artistic Director, and, in 1998, he was promoted to Artistic Director. Mr. Baker found early success in his new role, garnering a nomination as Outstanding Director for The Balkan Women, which went on to receive the Outstanding New Play award at the 1998 Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia’s annual Barrymore Awards. Also winning that year was country singer/songwriter Larry Gatlin for Outstanding Original Music in BRT’s world premiere production of Texas Flyer. Since the inception of the Barrymores in 1995, Mr. Baker has guided BRT to more than 50 nominations: no small feat for a theatre that operates at a significantly lower annual budget than most Center City theatres with a comparably sized venue, but whose locations offer greater exposure for charitable foundations and corporate sponsors. BRT has also been named “Best of Bucks” for “Best Theatre Group” by the readers of the Bucks County Courier Times for the last eight consecutive years, since the honor’s inception.

One of Mr. Baker’s other significant contributions has been to push forward BRT’s increasingly popular Summer Musicale Series, which has experienced a threefold increase in attendance over the past 7 summers. The success of the summer series prompted BRT to add a Winter Musicale in 2003. All four Musicales are conceived, written, and directed by Mr. Baker, who also volunteers his time and talents leading the annual Bristol Lions Community Chorus concert hosted by BRT in early December. Recent additions to BRT’s summer schedule have included a weekend of Jazz music and a weeklong presentation of The Amazing World of Magic this past July.

“I am greatly looking forward to our twentieth season,” Mr. Baker said recently. “I believe we have a wide variety of offerings this year, from the retelling of classic works of literature, to stories of inspiring and legendary Americans, to again presenting our audience’s favorite musical of the past nineteen seasons, Forever Plaid, which transports us back to the glorious sounds of the 1950s.”

Around the World in 80 Days premiered at the Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival, Florida in 2004. In the Philadelphia region, it was produced in the summer of 2005 at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival in Center Valley, PA. Playwright Mark Brown has managed to craft a script for five actors who portray 39 characters from Jules Verne’s classic novel set in 1872. Phileas Fogg, the protagonist in the story, places a wager at his London social club that he—using the very modern modes of steam ship and train, and following a precise and exacting schedule—can traverse the globe in a mere eighty days. Things go awry, however, when he must dodge Hindu priests seeking revenge for his rescue of an Indian Princess set for sacrificial death, Chinese Opium dealers, marauding Apache Warriors, and an ever vigilant Detective of Scotland Yard who has mistaken Fogg for the thief who robbed the Bank of England on the day of his departure. In a review of the world premiere production, the Orlando Sentinel wrote, “Writer Mark Brown has taken Jules Verne's century-old comic novel and made it gallop across the stage. If this show doesn't make you laugh, you'll have to look hard for something that will.”

Mark Brown’s other recent work gaining national notoriety, The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, will get BRT audiences in the holiday spirit. The play revolves around Mr. Scrooge’s attempt to bring charges against Jacob Marley and the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet-to-Come for “attempted murder, kidnapping, breaking and entering, trespassing, stalking, slander, theft, pain and suffering, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.” Mr. Brown’s script “offers a fresh spin on beloved characters, revealing new facets of their personalities while honoring familiar source material…You can't see it without reacting. You can't watch it without laughing. You can't leave it without thinking.” To keep the holiday laughter rolling well into December, BRT has added a week to the run of this production extending it to a total of twenty seven performances. Returning to BRT to play the role of Judge Stanchfield R. Pearson will be renowned Shakespearean actor and director Douglas Campbell. Mr. Campbell last appeared at BRT in 2004 as Jean-Paul Sartre in Tête-à-Tête, previously directed BRT’s 2003 production of Hamlet and received the 2002 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Actor in The Dresser at BRT.

Opening in late January, 2007, and running into Black History Month, BRT pays tribute to the phenomenal Ethel Waters, an African-American whose mother was a 12-year old rape victim, born in horrendous conditions in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1896. Despite numerous hardships—at times living on the streets of Philadelphia during her youth—she triumphed over all adversity with the sheer power of her will and talent to rise to stardom on Broadway stages and the silver screen. Ethel Waters, His Eye is On the Sparrow, by Larry Parr premiered in October of 2005 at Florida Studio Theatre. This musical production includes many of the songs Ms. Waters helped make classics: “Stormy Weather,” “Black and Blue,” and of course her signature number “His Eye is On the Sparrow.”

February 27 through March 28, 2007, another historical American figure, President Theodore Roosevelt takes the stage at BRT, portrayed by actor/playwright Michael O. Smith in his one-man play The Bully Pulpit. A war hero in the Spanish-American war, he negotiated U.S. control of the construction of the Panama Canal, and was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his diplomatic efforts at peace conferences for the Russo-Japanese War. “Teddy” is probably best known for his saying “speak softly and carry a big stick,” but upon acceptance of the Nobel Prize, preferred to dwell not on his often tough public persona, instead upon his role as family man stating, “I have the happiest home life of any man whom I have ever known.”

Directed by Edward Keith Baker in 2001, BRT’s first mounting of Forever Plaid received standing ovations and rave reviews. The Philadelphia Inquirer said, “If you were around and listening to music in the 1950s, the entire show will strike a responsive chord. It will also make you appreciate how much director Baker and these youthful performers get right about the sound and feeling of the period.” The cast of the production was nominated for the Outstanding Ensemble Barrymore award for their work, and the popularity of the production prompted BRT to extend the production for an additional fourth week of performances. Back by popular demand, and in anticipation of rekindled interest in the production, the 20th Anniversary Season remounting will also be for an extended four week run from April 17 to May 13, 2007.

The first two performances (Tuesday and Wednesday) of each regular season production are considered Preview performances, available at a discounted rate ($29 for plays, $34 for musicals, with a $94 reserved seat Season Membership option for the entire five show season). These initial performances offer the audience the opportunity to see the production as a “work-in-progress” and engage in a post-performance “talk back” with the director, cast and creative team of the show. BRT is pleased to announce that for its 20th Anniversary Season, these performances will be offered to the community as “Pay What You Can” Previews. Special tickets for the performances will be released at 7:30pm—half an hour before show time—the day of the performance in question at the BRT Box Office. These seats are only available to walk-up customers, first come-first served and based on availability. Phone and internet orders, and previously paid for reserved-seat purchases are not eligible for this offer, and BRT unfortunately cannot guarantee any “Pay What You Can” seats will be available for those performances. In past years BRT offered this event on the first Friday performance, but is pleased to change this to a two-night event instead.

The official Opening Night performance of each production will again be held on the first Thursday performance at 8:00pm, and will include a post-show buffet and reception with the cast, creative team and BRT staff in the lobby at no additional charge. Tickets for Opening performances are $37 for plays, $42 for musicals and are available at a Season Membership price of $110 for all five productions.

Other special performance series for each of the five regular season shows include the popular “Friday Festival” Series ($37 plays, $42 musicals, $120 Series Membership), the second week of each production offering complimentary wine, hors d’oeuvres, and dessert with a guest speaker providing background information about the show prior to the 8:00pm performance. The third week of the run will again host the “Wine Down Wednesday” Series ($34 plays, $39 musicals, $106 Series Membership). An 8:00pm performance will be preceded by a 7:00pm hors d’oeuvres hour with complimentary wine, crudités and desserts. Other special events for each production will be announced in later news releases.

Numerous full-season, reserved seat Memberships are available ranging in price from $94 to $120, dependant on the day of performance. BRT has also found that in this day and age of ever-changing schedules and difficult long-range planning, that more patrons are turning to BRT’s Flexible Membership plans. Available in five, six, or eight ticket increments, these reduced rate packages offer audience members the opportunity to select any performances of their choice for just the productions they are interested in seeing. All of these tickets can be used for a single production, or spaced out throughout the duration of the season as time and interest dictate. Flexible Membership plans range in price from $125 to $173 ($25 down to $21 per ticket), up to a 50% reduced rate from individual ticket purchases.

The 2006-2007 Season has been made possible in part through the generous support of Verizon, who has been named BRT’s 20th Anniversary Grand Season Sponsor. All this information and more about ticket pricing, production content and behind-the-scenes interest, including the convenience of online ticket reservations, on BRT’s website: www.BRTstage.org. The BRT Box Office is typically open from 9:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday, with extended hours on performance dates, and can be reached at 215-785-0100.

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