Paper Mill Annoucnes Community Event To Ring In Season

Paper Mill Playhouse (Mark S. Hoebee-Artistic Director, Mark W. Jones-Executive Director) is proud to announce a community event to celebrate the opening of the 2008-2009 season.  The Paper Mill Playhouse Oklahoma Hoe-Down will be held in Taylor Park and Main Street in Downtown Millburn on Sunday, September 14th from 1:00pm until 5:00pm.  This is truly an event for the entire family featuring a live blue-grass band, a live country-rock band, professional and amateur square-dancing, free pony rides, free petting zoo, free hayrides, a chili cook-off, a pie baking contest, a western themed costume contest, specialty food, a live and silent auction and much more.

Bring your favorite lawn chair out to Taylor Park for four hours of continuous country music. The Lewis Brothers are the tri-state area's best known bluegrass band. The current incarnation is a five piece band featuring banjo, dobro, mandolin, guitar and stand up bass. The group heavily influenced by Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe, features along with Wanamaker Lewis on banjo, Peter Lorch on guitar and vocals, Jim Heffernan on dobro-the area's best-Larry Hunsberger on mandolin and vocals and Lewis Brothers stalwart Ron Greenstein on bass. Outstanding instrumentals and great vocals with tight three-part harmony highlight this top-notch band's profile. The Lewis Brothers will alternate sets with The Classix. With their big blues, country, southern rock and classic rock sound, The Classix have been launching crowds throughout the United States onto the dance floor since 1999. The Classix play all the popular favorites plus a sophisticated selection of original tunes that will leave the crowd begging for more. Band photos available upon request.

For the kids, Paper Mill Playhouse is offering, free pony rides, a large petting zoo, and (surrey) hayrides. Happy Tales is New Jersey's original traveling petting zoo & farm with friendly farm animals, pony rides and horse-drawn hay rides.  There will be a children's area set up on the Main Street side of Taylor Park.  Kids should also prepare their best western out-fits for the costume contest with fun prizes for kids of every age.

For the adults, there are two delicious contests featuring great prizes.  First, put on your baking gloves and get ready for Millburn's Premier Pie-Baking Contest with multiple prizes for best looking pie and best tasting pie. Then, get out your biggest pot as Millburn residents compete for the title of Millburn's Best Chili for the Oklahoma Chili Cook-Off.  To register your participation for both the Pie Baking Contest and/or the Oklahoma Chili Cook-Off please call Amanda Householder at Paper Mill Playhouse, 973-379-3636, ext. 2645.

In conjunction with The Paper Mill Playhouse Oklahoma Hoe-Down a live and silent auction featuring picnic baskets with merchandise, gift cards, and even ready made meals from your favorite Millburn/Short Hills businesses will take place on Main Street through out the day.  All proceeds will go to help defray the costs of the event.

Food vendors will be selling refreshments on Main Street throughout the day or make it a picnic and bring your own meal.   

To open the 70th Season, Paper Mill takes a fresh look at Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma, a true musical theatre classic.  Arguably the most brilliant musical ever created, Oklahoma! changed the face of American musical theatre forever.  The high-spirited rivalry between the local farmers and cowboys provides the colorful background against which Curly, a handsome cowboy, and Laurey, a winsome farm girl, play out their love story. With these headstrong romantics holding the reins, love's journey is as bumpy as a surrey ride down a country road! That they will succeed in making a new life together we have no doubt, and that this new life will begin in a brand-new state provides the ultimate climax to the triumphant Oklahoma!

Single tickets for Oklahoma! are now on sale! The performance schedule for the 2008-2009 season at Paper Mill Playhouse is: Wednesdays at 7:30PM, Thursdays at 2:00PM & 7:30PM, Fridays at 8:00PM, Saturdays at 2:00PM & 8:00PM and Sundays at 2:00PM & 7:30PM.  For ultimate flexibility, Paper Mill subscribers can now choose the new FLEX PASS option to tailor dates that best suit their schedules. Choose your dates now, or closer to the performance when you know your schedule. When you call for your seats, you'll get the best available seats in the section you've reserved. Student rush tickets are $20 and are available the day of performance in person with current student ID. Tickets may be purchased by calling 973-376-4343, or at the Paper Mill Box Office on Brookside Drive in Millburn, or online at www.papermill.org.  Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express accepted.  Groups of ten or more can receive up to a 25% discount on tickets and should call 973-379-3636 ext. 2438.  Paper Mill's 70th Season is sponsored in part by Investors Savings Bank.

PAPER MILL PLAYHOUSE, a not-for-profit arts organization, is one of the country's leading regional theatres. Paper Mill's programs are made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, A Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional major support is provided by funding through a grant from the New Jersey Department of State, the National Endowment for the Arts, and generous contributions from many corporations, foundations, and individuals. Paper Mill Playhouse is a member of Theatre Communications Group, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Council of Stock Theatres, and the New Jersey Theatre Alliance

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