In Honor Of Veterans Day First Flight Presents FORGOTTEN SOLDIERS FROM OUR FORGOTTEN WAR

Veterans Day is on Sunday, November 11 this year. Performance dates for the world premiere of First Flight's Forgotten Soldiers From Our Forgotten War are on Saturday, November 10 at 7pm at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Harlem, 521 W 126th St, New York, NY 10027 (a benefit for the church) and Friday and Saturday, November 16 & 17 at 7pm at Our Savior's Atonement Lutheran Church in New York City's Washington Heights neighborhood, 178 Bennett Avenue, New York, NY 10040. Tickets are $15 and $10 for seniors and students. Reservations can be made by ticket requests by email at firstflight2018@gmail.com and tickets are also available at 6:30pm at the door on performance dates. Forgotten Soldiers From Our Forgotten War is written and directed by Frank Farrell featuring actors Danny Beaton, Charlie Gillette, Charles Kennedy and Stephen Kime and the stage manager for this production is Claudia Egli.

Frank Gossett, Eddie Hines and Jimmy Cumisky were childhood friends in Washington Heights in New York City in the early 1950s. Eddie and Jimmy went off to fight in Korea. Eddie never came back, and Jimmy returned to New York City after he served in Korea, but he was never the same. Frank Gossett saved letters and photos from his buddies serving in Korea in a small green tin canister in his closet for over 60 years. These letters were found after Gossett's death four years ago and his son Frank published them in a book called Forgotten Soldiers From Our Forgotten War.

"When I found the letters, envelopes and photos that my father had saved for over 60 years, I immediately knew what I had to do with them," said Gossett's son Frank Farrell. He published them and began visiting vet and senior homes in New Jersey and Illinois reading the letters and researching the forgotten war along the way. "There was never any mention of the Korean conflict of the early 50s when I went to school. After my final readings of the letters at the National Korean War Veterans Museum in Springfield about two year ago, I met a man who served in the same regiment as Eddie Hines. He told me that he did not know Eddie, but he knew exactly where he was the day Eddie was killed in action. From him I got in touch with a group that works with the 180th Regiment that he and Eddie were part of, and from there I received a phone call from Eddie's commander. He was seriously wounded on the morning Eddie was killed and was flown out of Korea that morning. It was not until 20 years later that he found out what happened that day, that 11 young men under his command, including Eddie Hines, were killed in action."

First Flight is a new theater company presenting theatrical productions in New York and New Jersey. Their first production was a staged reading of Maxwell Anderson's 1936 play Valley Forge last May at The Hermitage, a historical landmark house and museum in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ. Valley Forge was again presented at Earl Hall on the campus of Columbia University in New York City this past September followed by a stage reading again at Earl Hall of Maxwell Anderson's 1930 play Elizabeth the Queen on October 11th of this year. Forgotten Soldiers From Our Forgotten War is First Flight's first fully mounted production. First Flight will continue its two-year series of staged readings of plays by Maxwell Anderson (1888 - 1959), American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist, with its presentation of two more of Anderson's plays at Earl Hall on the campus of Columbia University. Mary of Scotland will be presented at 6pm on March 7 and The Masques of Queens at 5pm on June 6, 2019. Find us on Facebook at "Forgotten Soldiers."

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