The professional Equity summer theatre welcomes Stritch and her Broadway and London show, At Liberty, for three gala performances. Musical director Rob Bowman conducts the revue (written with John Lahr) based on Stritch's life and work. Tickets are scarce.
Stritch helped launch ATF in 1995 with a performance of Love Letters with Jason Robards.
At Liberty represents the first production at the new ATF Charles R. Wood Theatre, a 280-seat proscenium space built out of a former Woolworth's dime store in the upstate New York town of Glen Falls.
What follows Stritch is a season of four productions including the world premiere of Mimi Le Duck, a musical comedy "about love, ducks and Ernest Hemingway."
Mimi Le Duck has music by Brian Feinstein, book and lyrics by Diane Hansen-Young. Thomas Caruso directs. The show focuses on Miriam, a wife and mother who lives in Idaho and paints ducks for the QVC network "but dreams of the artist's life she never lead," according to the announcement. "She flees to Paris and begins a bohemian existence among a group of colorful characters. What will her accountant husband do now?" Performances play July 21-31. *
The season includes David Mamet's Boston Marriage, about the relationship between two women in Victorian Boston (June 23-July 3); Stones in His Pockets, Marie Jones' London and Broadway comedy-drama about an Irish town captivated by a visiting movie company (July 7-17); Coast to Coast: On the Road Home, a solo performance by Marc Wolf, a developmental peek at the writer-performer's "experiences driving home to New York City in the days following 9/11" (July 26 & 27).
ATF is run by artistic director Martha Banta and producing director David Turner. The Charles R. Wood Theatre is located at 217 Glen Street (Route 9) in downtown Glen Falls, in the Lake George area of upstate New York.
ATF is committed to new and recent works, and hopes to continue nurturing world premieres and new voices. For more information about the company, visit www.ATFestival.org or call (518) 798-WOOD.
