FLYING, ALMOST HEAVEN, and More Lead Chenango River Theatre's 2017 Season

The greater Binghamton area's longest running Equity theatre will kickoff its 11th season with a world premiere production, followed by the regional premiere of a musical featuring the music of John Denver, plus a classic comedy and finally a compelling drama about a quintessential American family caught in an unexpected situation.

FLYING, by Sheila Cowley, May 27 - June 19. WORLD PREMIERE PRODUCTION. Co-produced by Edward Jones Investments and NBT Bank.

Drawn from oral histories and memoirs of women who served as WASP's (Women's Air Service Pilots) in WWII, Flying is based on the women who flew fighter planes and bombers to help train male pilots in the art of aerial dogfighting. Susan and her co-workers are pilots first, mechanics second, and of course women in what was a very man's world. Now, with the war over, Susan's back home, while the town waits for her hero husband, an accomplished fighter ace, to also come back home. As the town tells glory tales of Bob, Susan tries to put away her love of flying and keep the family airfield going until his return. Then Bob's war-wounded gunner shows up looking for a job and Susan feels compelled to hire hiM. Fisher struggles with his war injuries and an airfield run by women. An often funny, heartfelt and historically significant new play that celebrates the quiet, daily acts of heroism that never earn a medal.

In 2015, Flying received developmental readings at Chicago Dramatists and at Tristan Bates Theatre, London, and was a semi-finalist for the prestigious O'Neil Theatre Center. CRT will be producing the world premiere of this new play.

ALMOST HEAVEN, SONGS OF John Denver, July 6 - 30. REGIONAL PREMIERE. Music by John Denver, Book by Peter Glazer. Co-produced by The Raymond Corporation.

This show ran for TWO years at the prestigious Denver Center Theatre, their longest run for any show. A true American troubadour and early environmental activist, John Denver's songs were a rich part of the soundscape of the '60s and '70s with their honesty, passion and love of nature and mankind. Many, such as Rocky Mountain High, Sunshine on My Shoulders, Leaving on a Jet Plane, Take Me Home, Country Roads and Thank God I'm A Country Boy are rediscovered in this lively look at Denver's life, his two marriages and his musical career. From his childhood growing up as a "military brat" to his days as a struggling singer/songwriter working with the Chad Mitchell Trio, Almost Heaven traces Denver's impact as he reached worldwide super-stardom on his own. Featuring many of Denver's most memorable songs, Almost Heaven is a high-energy journey through the life and times of an accomplished, often underrated artist (4 Platinum, 12 Gold albums!), whose career spanned some of the more challenging times in American history.

BLITHE SPIRIT, by Noel Coward. Aug. 18 - Sept. 10. REGIONAL PREMIERE. Co-produced by Pete & Karen Raymond and Jim & Debbie Dyal.

Written in just 5 days in 1941, Blithe Spirit remained the longest-running comedy in British theatre for over three decades. A frequently revived smash hit of the London and Broadway stages, this classic from the playwright of Private Lives offers up fussy, cantankerous novelist Charles, re-married but haunted (literally) by the ghost of his late first wife, the clever and insistent Elvira. When a visiting "happy medium," one Madame Arcati, calls up Elvira through a seance, both worldly and unworldly personalities clash in one of the most refreshing "menages a trois" in modern theatre as Charles' current wife Ruth battles Elvira for her husband's attention. A great classic comedy, and audience favorite around the world, Coward's play about marriage invokes laughter throughout as his current and former wives vie for his favor.

THE SPEED OF DARKNESS, by Steve Tesich, Sept. 29 - Oct. 15. REGIONAL PREMIERE. Co-produced by Anonymous.

A defiantly old-fashioned drama, big-boned and aflame with passion. Joe is an unsung Vietnam war hero, one of many who served his country and came home to find that his country had turned its back on those who'd served. After floundering to adapt, Joe steadies his life, so much so that now, twenty plus years later, he's one of four finalists for "South Dakota Man of the Year." And that's when Lou shows up, his long-ago Vietnam war best friend, who Joe rescued in combat and is godfather to Joe's 18-year-old daughter Mary. Lou's been following the traveling exhibit of "The Wall" as it tours the country. Penniless, homeless, possibly unstable, Lou knows secrets about his and Joe's past that could forever change Joe and his family's life in his community. Written by the author of the films Breaking Away, The World According to Garp, Eyewitness and Division Street, The Speed of Darkness is a powerful statement on the American Dream.

Season tickets start as low as $70 to see all four of the shows. Season tickets are available starting April 5 online at www.chenangorivertheatre.org, using any credit card or PayPal. Individual tickets will go on sale May 1.

To request a season brochure, email info@chenangorivertheatre.org or call 656-8499 and leave your name, address and phone.

Chenango River Theatre's intimate, air-conditioned 99 seat theatre is just 15 minutes north of Binghamton at 991 State Highway 12, Greene, NY. CRT was the greater Binghamton area's first professional non-profit theatre company to operate under annual contract with Actors' Equity Association, the national association for professional actors and stage managers in the United States - the same actors you see on television, in film and at major theatres across the country.

Chenango River Theatre's 2017 season is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

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