John Foley News

Porchlight Music Theatre has announced its return to live performance with its 27th season that includes the 2021 – 2022 Mainstage, Porchlight Revisits and New Faces Sing Broadway seasons. 

Welcoming guest contributor David Appleford to review The Phoenix Theatre Company's production of PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES. Runs through August 23rd.

The cast for Pump Boys and Dinettes at The Phoenix Theatre Company includes Nick Moulton as Jackson, Cassie Chilton as Rhetta Cupp, Emily Mulligan-Ferry as Prudie Cupp, Cody Craven as Jim, Alex Crossland as Eddie and Alan Plado as L.M.

They say you've got to know the past to move forward, and in Eric Peterson's stage adaptation of Yvonne Daley's book Going Up the Country  with music by John Foley, we get to do just that!

TADA Productions, Inc. presents the musical Pump Boys and Dinettes opening at The TADA Theatre April 15 as part of TADA's 2021 Season: Entertaining Safely, Wisely and Enthusiastically.

Lost Nation Theater will present an online reading of new play Going Up the Country. The reading will take place on Sunday, November 15, 2020 at 2pm.

Ocala Civic Theatre presents Pump Boys and Dinettes beginning tonight!

PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES is a Tony nominated 1981 musical written by the performance group of the same name. The group, Pump Boys and Dinettes, consisted of John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann. The members also jointly directed and starred in the original Broadway production. The show is basically a series of standalone songs rather than a conventional story tied together with music. The book for this musical is very thin and really only exists to get to the next song. Each song represents some element of small-town life: the sacredness of fishing, the fun of owning a pair of "Drinkin Shoes," and other assorted blue collar tales including growing up with with their grandma, whom they called Mamaw. The company tosses off 21 short-form songs with performances that harken back to simpler, more straight forward times with good natured knee-slapping, song, dance and humor. They shatter the fourth wall by talking directly to the audience and eventually coming right out into it and the end result is a refreshing blast from the past.

The Winter Park Playhouse continues to delight audiences with its new 2019-20 Series of professional Mainstage musicals.

Growing up in a small Southern town with fewer than 1,000 people, the prevalent thoughts tend to be centered on how to get out of that stifling, archly conservative community, in order to search for the proverbial greener pastures and to find like-minded people who will make you feel more "at home" with yourself and in your own skin. While that may well be the honest-to-God true story of my youth, nonetheless it always startles me when my emotions are stirred up by a stage musical set in the years long before my birth, with a show that fairly reverberates with the heart and soul, memories and nostalgia usually associated with a trip back home.

One thing's for sure - country musicals are an awful lot of fun. There aren't very many of them and, if you can name one at all, it's most likely THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS or THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM. But there is another rarely produced gem that is just as enjoyable - PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES - the fun-loving retro revue written by its original cast (John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel, and Jim Wann).

PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES was my first Broadway musical, so it not only holds a special place in my heart, but I still remember most of the lyrics. Running for 577 performances in 1982-83 and earning a Tony nomination for Best Musical, PUMP BOYS was 'the little show that could' with just six cast members and a small set. But the characters and songs captured many fans who came out to relive the experience at Feinstein's/54 Below July 22.

Next week, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club & Private Event Destination, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond.

Next month, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club & Private Event Destination, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond.

FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents Pump Boys And Dinettes: Reunion Concert featuring original cast/creators Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, Jim Wann,John Foley, and John Schimmel, with Bob Stillman. Pump Boys And Dinettes ran for 577 performances on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony for Best Musical in 1982. It was the first Broadway hit written and performed by Actor-Musicians and is considered a pioneering work in that regard. The London/West End production was nominated for an Olivier for Best Musical, 1985, and the Toronto version won Canada's Dora Award for Best Musical shortly after. Since then it has been produced across the country and around the world, became Chicago's longest-running musical for decades and remains a perennial favorite. This concert version will feature the entire score and is directed by JoAnn M. Hunter.

Birmingham musician and storyteller Norton Dill, of local favorite The Dill Pickers, headlines TNT's next offering, 'Pump Boys and Dinettes.' The musical is the fifth production of the theatre's 32nd season and runs April 19 through May 4.

Birmingham musician and storyteller Norton Dill, of local favorite The Dill Pickers, headlines TNT's next offering, "Pump Boys and Dinettes." The musical is the fifth production of the theatre's 32nd season and runs April 19 through May 4.

PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES is an amazing country musical with comedy and a talented cast who play their own instruments, telling the story, mostly through song. The Connecticut Cabaret Theatre, in Berlin, CT, has once again put together a first rate cast. For a night of great music and entertainment, I highly recommend PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES.

Artistic Director Carol Piersol and 5th Wall Theatre in partnership with The American Theatre in Hampton, Virginia are thrilled to announce their co-production of Pump Boys and Dinettes, a musical that brought the warmth and heartfelt storytelling of country music to Off-Broadway, Broadway, and West End audiences for years.  Directed by Richard M. Parison, Jr., this show features a talented cast from Virginia and beyond that includes locals Mike Bamford, Rachel Marrs, and Desiree Roots along with New York performers Mike Cefalo and John Mervini as well as North Carolina performer Sean Powell with music direction by Storm Burks and choreography by Karen Getz.  Pump Boys and Dinettes is set on a lonely stretch of Highway 57, where the Pump Boys -- Jackson, Jim, Eddie, and L.M. -- fill the gas tanks of weary travelers while the Cupp sisters, Rhetta and Prudie, serve up comfort food and slices of their famous homemade pie in the Double Cupp Diner next door.  Together, they fashion an evening of down home country music delight with tales of both hilarity and heartbreak played on everything from guitars and pianos to kitchen utensils.

Updated this week! Check out upcoming Non-Equity Auditions from Sunday, September 10, 2017 for productions in your area and around the country.