Keeping You Informed (COVID-19 Update - August 10, 2020)
In response to COVID-19 (also known as Coronavirus) and for the safety of our audiences, our community, performers, and staff, Riverside Center for the Performing Arts is amending the production schedule as detailed below effective, Monday, August 10, 2020.
Our mainstage production of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s Bright Star that was slated to open once it was safe to do so has been postponed. Although Forward Virginia’s Phase III guidelines allow us to resume operations, the restrictions still prevent us from presenting a show with the size and scope of Bright Star the way it was intended at this time. After careful consideration, Riverside Center has postponed our production of Bright Star until March of 2021. We are optimistic that conditions will improve by the spring and that we will be able to present this beautiful production at that time.
Our originally scheduled holiday production of Meet Me in St. Louis, slated to run from November 11 to December 27, 2020 has been postponed to the 2021 holiday season. Riverside Center is looking forward to presenting a smaller production for the 2020 holidays with further details to be announced at a later date.
Souvenir.png
In the meantime, we still would like to safely continue to bring Broadway’s Best to Virginia. We are excited to announce that on September 23, Riverside Center will reopen its doors to present Stephen Temperley’s Souvenir, A Fantastia about the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins. Starring Riverside Center’s own Andrea Kahane as Florence Foster Jenkins, Carson Eubank as Jenkins’ faithful accompanist, Cosmé McMoon, and directed by Riverside Center’s Producing Artistic Director, Patrick A’Hearn, audiences are in for an evening full of side-splitting laughter.
Souvenir tells the enchanting and hilarious true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy society eccentric who suffered under the delusion that she was a great coloratura soprano when she was in fact incapable of producing two consecutive notes in tune. Nevertheless, her annual recitals in the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton hotel brought her extraordinary fame. Her growing mob of fans packed her recitals, stuffing handkerchiefs in their mouths to stifle their laughter—which Mrs. Jenkins blissfully mistook for cheers. Souvenir, by turn hilarious and poignant, tells her story through the eyes of her accompanist, Cosmé McMoon. With each new imagined triumph Florence’s confidence soars. Faced with her boundless certainty, Cosmé comes to revise his attitude, not only towards her singing but to the very meaning of music itself.
Cast.png
Fans are sure to recognize the hilarious and heartwarming story which was the basis for the 2016 major motion picture, Florence Foster Jenkins starring Academy Award® winner, Meryl Streep as Florence Foster Jenkins and star of CBS’ The Big Bang Theory, Simon Helberg as Cosmé McMoon.
“If you’re lucky enough to see Souvenir….you’ll have one distinct advantage over Jenkins’ audiences. You won’t have to try to keep your body from shaking or stuff your handkerchief into your mouth to hide your laughter. And laugh you will. Till you cry. Souvenir is downright hilarious…” – Boston Globe
Tickets for Souvenir go on sale this week. Check our website (riversidedt.com) or our Facebook page (facebook.com/riversidecenter) for updates. To purchase tickets, please contact our Box Office at (540) 370-4300 or visit www.riversidedt.com.
Patrons holding tickets for our postponed and cancelled productions may contact the Box Office to reschedule your tickets for a new date or another production. Inquiries regarding refunds will begin being processed on Monday, September 28, 2020.
These are difficult and ever-changing times for theaters nationwide. In lieu of refunds, we would ask for your support and reschedule your tickets for a future performance.