Beautiful Dreamer
Phone: 256.536.3117
Website: http://www.renaissancetheatre.net/

The play is written by A. E. Elmore, Professor of Drama at Athens State University. The Huntsville performance will be previewed by the Gaylord Corporation, owner of the Grand Ole Opry, and by the Barter Theater of Virginia. Gaylord sponsored the original run of Lonesome Highway in the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and Barter sponsored another staging after its New York run.

Beautiful Dreamer: The Life of Stephen Foster, will be performed at the Renaissance Theatre from February 22-28 and March 1-3, 2013. Directed by Ron Harris with Musical Direction by Terry Jackson. Marianne Windham will choreograph the play.

Renaissance Theatre presents a brand new musical based on the short sad life of America’s greatest songwriter, Stephen Foster, will star Jason Petty, who won the prestigious Off-Broadway award (The Obie) for his multiple-nominated creation of the role of Hank Williams in Lonesome Highway in 2003. Afterward Petty took the play for a successful run to the Schubert Theater on Broadway as well. The show is directed and designed by Ron Harris, with a beautiful set, costumes and of course, the music America loves.

Stephen Foster died an alcoholic in the Bowery at the age of 37 at the height of the Civil War in January, 1864. He was living a subsistence life in a combination grocery-liquor store, writing songs for his next drink. He died a gentle but broken man who had never made much money from writing America’s most popular songs of his day, some of which have remained our most popular ever since. These include “Camptown Races,” “Oh, Susannah,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Way Down upon the Swanee River,” “Old Black Joe,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and “I Dream of Jeanie.” Some of Foster’s greatest songs are almost forgotten today. These include “Nelly Bly,” “Old Uncle Ned,” “Nelly Was a Lady,” and a stirring Civil War marching song called “We Are Coming, Father Abraham.”