Bedford Village Hosts Free Summer Concert

Westchester's impresarios of the free entertainment, Sam Morell and Donna Garr, are taking their shows on the road this year—and making Bedford the first stop.

Their Armonk-based Small Town Theater Co. is scheduled to open its admission-free Summer Concert Series Saturday at Bedford Village Memorial Park. The kickoff show, Cabaret Classics, will have an encore performance Sunday at Wampus Brook Park in Armonk. 

Saturday's show will be the first of four admission-free concerts in Bedford, jointly sponsored by the town's Recreation & Parks Department and Small Town Theatre. Bedford Recreation & Parks Superintendent William Heidepriem "heard what we were doing in Armonk," Morell recalls,  "and thought it would be an excellent complement to their parks as well."

"What we were doing in Armonk" was re-creating a bygone day, when Garr was growing up in Armonk, and when no-charge music, singers and even a barbershop quartet were the toe-tapping backdrop for family picnics in Wampus.

Now a Katonah resident—and head of the guidance department at Westlake High School in Thornwood—Garr still vividly remembers the sights and sounds bound up with the gazebo in the park. And on daily walks with Morell, she would recount the magic of those musical summer evenings for her longtime friend, a relative newcomer after a dozen years in Armonk.

"We decided to rekindle those times," says Morell, a chemical engineer and owner of S.P. Morell & Co. Inc., a chemical sales and marketing company.

With an engineer's inherent self-discipline, he blended his own organizational knowhow with Garr's singing and dancing background to synthesize the non-profit Small Town Theatre Co. in 2008. They've expanded their original concert-in-the-park concept to include readings at the Hergenhan Recreation Center in North Castle.

Other Saturday/Sunday concerts are scheduled for Bedford/Armonk, respectively, on the weekends of July 24-25 at 6:30 p.m., Broadway Bound; Aug. 6-7 at 6 p.m., Our Town Quartet; and Aug. 21-22 at 5:30 p.m., Jump, Blues, and Swing.

Both of this weekend's shows are scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and include performances by Vanessa Racioppo, Gregg Shults and Cheryl Krebbs.

Bedford Village Memorial Park is located at 65 Greenwich Road in Bedford Village. Bring folding chairs, picnic basket and blanket.