York Theatre to Host Composer Harvey Schmidt's Times Square Memorabilia Collection

The York Theatre Company is presenting some of composer Harvey Schmidt's collection of Times Square memorabilia at the company's home at Saint Peter's Church in Citigroup Center (619 Lexington Avenue, enter on 54th Street).

In honor of Times Square's 100th Anniversary, the collection will be displayed during the Off-Broadway company's world premiere of Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins starring Judy Kaye (now through January 2).

Included in the York Theatre display are a handbill for the movie Hitler's Children at the Paramount (with Henny Youngman and Xavier Cugat's orchestra live on stage), copies of Cecil Beaton sketches of Lynn Fontaine and Helen Hayes, and a Vodka advertisement of Moss Hart throwing a "Smirnoff Party" for the cast of Camelot.

While pursuing a dual career as a composer and graphic artist, Schmidt has also been an avid collector of visual materials relating to the evolution of Times Square and its environs, in all of its aspects: architecture, advertising, theater, and street culture. The York Theatre showing represents only a small portion of the many thousands of images he has amassed over the past 50 years.

"The display is a scrapbook, really, of random images that have caught my eye over the years; Times Square has always been a fascination of mine," says Schmidt, who now lives in his native Texas.

"Harvey and I have talked about doing this exhibit for quite a while," says James Morgan, the York's Producing Artistic Director. "When I heard that the New-York Historical Society had cancelled its Time Square Centennial Exhibit, I thought this would be the perfect time. Luckily, Harvey agreed."

Composer Schmidt and his partner, lyricist/librettist Tom Jones, wrote The Fantasticks, which opened Off-Broadway at the Sullivan Street Playhouse on May 3, 1960. It went on to become the longest running show in American theater history, and the longest running musical in the world, completings its 42-year run at the same theater in January 2002. Other shows of theirs include 110 in the Shade, I Do! I Do!, and Roadside. Schmidt and Jones appeared together at the York in their sold-out revue The Show Goes On in 1998.

For more information on the exhibit or Souvenir, please contact The York Theatre at (212) 935-5820 or www.yorktheatre.org.