Pilgrim Festival Singers Summer Concert

Pilgrim Festival Singers, a small

ensemble drawn from the Pilgrim Festival Chorus (PFC), the region’s principal

community choral group, present their summer concert series, Broadway Melodies, on Sunday, June 29, 7:30

pm at Spire Center for Performing Arts, 25 ½ Court Street, Plymouth. The concert

consists of highlights from the American musical theater tradition, directed by

William B. Richter and accompanied by pianist Elizabeth Chapman Reilly.

Music

from four of the greatest Broadway shows will be presented in concert

performance.  Each show represents a

different period or style from this rich tradition.  The earliest, George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), takes place in

1920’s Charleston, South Carolina.  Frank

Loesser’s Guys and Dolls (1950) is

based on several short stories by Damon Runyon and follows a number of colorful

characters from New York’s underworld.  West Side Story, a collaboration of

Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, was produced in 1957.  A re-telling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in a modern setting, West Side Story tells the story of rival

gangs whose warfare leads to tragedy.  The

1996 production of Ragtime, based on

a novel of the same name by E. L. Doctorow, takes place in the first decade of

the 20th century.  Many of its

songs are in the “ragtime” style popular at that time, perfectly capturing the

excitement and heartache of a turbulent era.

This

fast-paced concert will include many of the popular solos and duets from these

shows, sung by members of the chorus, such as “Summertime,” “Tonight,” “Fugue

for Tinhorns,” “Guys and Dolls,” and “Make Them Hear You.”

Tickets

for the performances are $10.00 and may be purchased at the door, by calling

Gail at 781-826-8416, or online at www.pilgrimfestivalchorus.org.  Additional performances of this concert will

be held on Saturday, June 28, 7:30 pm at Central Congregational Church in

Middleboro, and Sunday, July 6, 7:30 pm at First Trinitarian Congregational

Church, Scituate.  For more information

on the concert or PFC, please visit their website at www.pilgrimfestivalchorus.org,

or follow Pilgrim Festival Chorus on Facebook.