Harry Williams

Tickets for Forever Plaid went on sale this week!  Here’s the information for the show:

This timeless musical tells the tale of The Plaids, a 1950s male singing group who were killed on their way to their first big gig. Miraculously, they come back to earth for a chance to fulfill their dreams of fame and fortune - albeit, posthumously. This review features some great songs of the 1950s: “Catch a Falling Star,” “Three Coins in the Fountain,” “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,” “Magic Moments,” among many others.

Directed by
Roberta Koch

Starring
Josh Kensinger, Eric Keysor, Jimmy LaHood, and Harry Williams

Tickets:
$17 for adults, $12 for youth 18 & under

Show Dates:
November 7-8 and 12-15 at 7:30 pm
November 9 & 16 at 2:30 pm

Tickets went on sale on October 27, 2008.  For tickets, you can either stop by the Peoria Players box office, call 309-688-4473, or visit the web site at:

http://www.peoriaplayers.org

Get your tickets soon because this show has sold out each time that we’ve performed it.  Hope to see you there!

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I found a great clip of Forever Plaid highlights on YouTube, and thought I’d post it here:

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Well, we have been rehearsing Forever Plaid for the past month and a half, and it’s coming together nicely.  It’s really weird how easily the music, movies and whole show in general come back to you after doing a role 3 times!

For those of you who haven’t seen the show before, we first did the show at Peoria Players Theatre in May, 2004.  That was my last year in college and was a really busy time for me.  But it was also an amazing few months as I got to be in my dream show.

Forever Plaid was the first professional show that I saw.  My uncle took me and my sisters to Chicago for the day (I think I was around 18 at the time), and he got us tickets for a show called Forever Plaid.  I had never heard of it, but I thought, “Cool!  We’re going to see a real professional show!”  Little did I realize what sort of an effect it would have on me.

We walked into the small cabaret theatre, and sat down around a table facing a small stage.  The room was very intimate, and very different from anything I had ever experienced.  I had always seen productions where you are seated in a large audience and the actors are far away on stage.  In this cabaret setting, the actors entered and we could have almost touched them.  It really drew me into the show.

Plus, it was a great show.  Great music, good tight harmonies, a funny but simple story, and funny characters that you really cared about and felt for at the end of the show.  I remember that I just sat there throughout the entire show, mesmerized by this whole new experience of theatre.  I was simply blown away by a show that could transport you away for a couple of hours, and really make you feel that strongly for the characters.

When we left the theatre, Forever Plaid had made it’s mark on me.  I remember thinking to myself, “I don’t care how I do it, but I HAVE to get involved in theatre.”  That was it.  End of story.

I was pretty busy with college for a while after that, but one summer I saw that Peoria Players Theatre was holding auditions for its Youth show, West Side Story.  I thought, “This is my chance!” and auditioned with some of my sisters.  I landed the role of Bernardo, and have been singing and acting (and now dancing) ever since.

Fast forward a few years, and you can imagine my excitement when I saw auditions posted for Forever Plaid for May, 2004!  I HAD to audition for that show, the show that inspired me to start performing in theatre.  After really working on audition material, I audition and landed the role of Sparky.  It was a dream come true!  We performed the show that May, audiences loved it, and we sold out.

Since May, 2004, I’ve had the priviledge of performing the role 2 more times for New Years Eve performances at Peoria Players Theatre in 2004 & 2005.

So, it’s been almost 3 years since we have done the show, and I’m really excited to be doing it again!  They’ve brought back the “original cast” of Forever Plaid to perform this November of:

Eric Keysor - Frankie
Harry Williams - Sparky
Jimmy LaHood - Smudge
Josh Kensinger - Jinx

This is the cast that performed in May and December 2004.  The show is coming along great, and It feels like we never even took a break.

We’ve mostly been working on music for the past month, and this month we started rehearsing back at Peoria Players Theatre and working our way through the show.  I’ll be posting show and ticket information soon, so stay tuned!

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