Stage Theatre Company Opens “Souvenir”

Claire Morkin plays Florence Foster Jenkins in Stage Door Theatre Company’s “Souvenir.”

The second production of the Stage Door Theatre Company, Souvenir, opened on July 19 at Third Avenue Playhouse (TAP).

Souvenir is a musical play written by Stephen Temperley. It tells the real-life story of Florence Foster Jenkins (played by Claire Morkin), a New York socialite and her accompanist Cosme McMoon (played by TAP’s Managing Director James Valcq).

Set in a Greenwich Village supper club in 1964, it flashes back to the musical career of Jenkins, a wealthy socialite with a famously uncertain sense of pitch and key. In 1932, she met mediocre pianist McMoon, and the two teamed up in the hope of achieving success. Over the next dozen years, their bizarre partnership yielded hilariously off-key recitals that became the talk of New York, earned them cultish fame, and culminated in a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall in 1944.

Performances will be held nightly through August 12 (except Saturdays) at 7:30 pm. A special matinee performance will also be held August 5 at 2 pm. For more information visit http://www.thirdavenueplayhouse.com.