Cast Set for G.I. HOLIDAY JUKEBOX at Bridgetown Portland Musical Theatre

Bridgetown Portland Musical Theatre announces its cast for G.I. Holiday Jukebox, its first dual-city musical theater production: Portland and Salem. G.I. Holiday Jukebox will open in Portland for one week of performances and transfer to Salem for a second week. G.I. Holiday Jukebox was written and arranged by Bridgetown's founder and artistic director, Rick Lewis, in 2010 and was originally produced at the Broadway Rose Theatre in Tigard.

G.I. Holiday Jukebox is a musical tribute to the American Theatre Wing's (ATW) Stage Door Canteen of WWII, an entertainment venue for American and Allied servicemen that operated in the Broadway district of New York City. The American Theatre Wing founded the Stage Door Canteen in 1942 as a way of supporting the morale of American troops during the war. Entertainers at the Canteen were unpaid and sometimes included Broadway and Hollywood names. G.I. Holiday Jukebox's Stage Door Canteen is hosted by four fictitious Hollywood "stars" as they entertain the troops in an evening of 1940's holiday music and standards.

"The popular music of the 1940's and World War II is singular as a musical genre. I don't believe another time period had such an impact on popular music and lyrics as the 1940's did. Some of the last century's most beautiful lyrics and melodies were written during one of the darkest moments in history," said Rick Lewis. "These are the songs that our grandparents grew up with; the music that got us through WWI."

The G.I. Jukebox cast features Sarah Maines, Marin Donohue (Bridgetown's Sondheim Tribute Revue), Jeremy Buxton (Bridgetown's Dogfight and Ludlow Ladd) and David Mitchum Brown as the singing quartet of Hollywood "stars." The Salem production opens up to feature seven young mid-valley performers, direct from their fictitious feature film: The Kids, the Kit and the Kaboodle! Those talented young performers are: Coleman Casebeer, Allison Hall, Emily Irvin, Tyson Miller, Aven Thornhill, Theo Ueng and Neil Yeh-Crawford.

Portland performances are in the Bridgetown Black Box Theatre. Thursday/Friday December 5 and 6 at 7:30pm, and Saturday/Sunday December 7 and 8 at 2:00pm.

Salem performances are in the Verona Studio Theatre at the historic Reed Opera House. Thursday/Friday December 12 and 13 at 7:30pm, and Saturday/Sunday December 14 and 15 at 2:00pm.

As the Blue Ridge Now review of the show wrote: "The world is at war, but for a brief 90 minutes, America is at peace"

Tickets for Portland performances: https://www.simpletix.com/e/g-i-holiday-jukebox-a-holiday-stage-door-c-tickets-189970

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