Photo Preview: 'Back Home' Begins NYMF Performances 9/24

Back Home: The War Brides Musical, part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), begins performances tonight, Monday September 24 at The Sage Theater (711 Seventh Avenue), and will continue through Sunday, September 30.

"Back Home aims to shed light on a war story that is rarely told.  During World War II, over 70,000 British Women met and married American servicemen stationed in Great Britain.  After the war, husbands and wives were separated when the husbands were shipped home.  The separations, in most cases, lasted more than a year due to governmental indifference to the plight of the War Brides on both sides of the Atlantic.  The musical is based on true events and follows the journey of Maureen (Mo) Gubbins, a London postal worker and Ivy Hennessy, a mill worker from Leeds in their fight to be reunited with their husbands," explain press notes.

The schedule will be as follows: Monday, September 24 at 8PM; Tuesday, September 25 at 1PM; Wednesday, September 26 at 4:30PM; Friday, September 28 at 1PM; Saturday, September 29 at 8PM and Sunday September 30 at 1PM & 4:30PM

Tickets are $20 and may be purchased by calling Theatermania at 212-352-3101, or online at www.nymf.org.

Photos by Ellis Gaskell

Vanessa June Marshall, Kristin Maloney, Raissa Katona Bennett, Danielle Erin Rhodes, Christina Morrell as British War Brides celebrating passage of the War Brides Act by the US Congress

Kirstin Maloney and company at the cinema, watching the newsreels of VJ Day

Kristin Maloney as a Cockney Postal Worker at the beginning of a whirlwind romance with WWII GI played by Jeff Scot Carey

Kristin Maloney and Danielle Erin Rhodes as British War Brides, who await reunion with their GI Husbands

Danielle Erin Rhodes plays a mill worker from Leeds who dreams of a better life in America

Christina Morrell, real life granddaughter of a British War Bride, as Alice

After nearly two years' separation from the GI husbands, British War Brides arrive in New York Harbor