Published: June 26, 2008 06:12 pm            

Parke Players to conduct sign ups for Ritz Follies

Parke Players will be conducting sign ups for the fourth annual Ritz Follies at 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at the Ritz Theater in RockviIle.

The 2008 Ritz Follies will be presented at 8 p.m. Aug. 2 at the historic theater located one-half block west of the square on U.S. Highway 36 (Ohio Street) in Rockville.

The first follies event was presented on July 30, 2005, to an enthusiastic audience by a line-up of more than a dozen of the Wabash Valley’s entertainers.

Singers, dancers, musicians, actors and puppeteers, all provided an evening of entertainment to help raise funds for the ongoing restoration of the historic Ritz Theater, built in 1912, as the New Rockville Opera House.

The two subsequent follies events have drawn even larger crowds as the annual event grows in popularity.

This year’s proceeds will go toward the recent replacement of the theater’s 60-year-old Simplex XL projector.

The sign up evenings are not auditions but organizational screenings for placement in the production and to confirm that a proposed performance is not inappropriate.

Those interested can pick up a sign up sheet in advance at the Ritz during regular cinema business hours or wait until the sign up dates to fill one out. More information will be appearing on the Parke Players Web site at www.parkeplayers.com in the future. More information about Parke Players and the Historic Ritz Theater can also be found on the Web site.

This year’s production will again feature popular regional club act “Wildfire” as a house band to accompany any of the singers that wish to perform any of the three dozen vintage Rock and Roll, Blues, and Country songs in their repertoire.

Otherwise, they need only supply their favorite music background CD or musician for their accompaniment.

The Ritz Theater’s state of the art facility will enable even the most inexperienced of interested participants to present themselves in a professional setting with a minimum of pressure.

        

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