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Original Cast Recording/Order Info

Reviews

"The Oil City Symphony Photo Album"

Upcoming and Recent Productions

Licensing

Sheet Music

Links

DRG Records has released "SHOW STOPPING PERRFORMANCES" - a 25th Anniversary collection of the best songs from its catalog of Broadway, Off-Broadway and touring company original cast albums. "Beaver Ball" from OIL CITY SYMPHONY is included. Selections from almost 30 shows are included in the 2 disc set, which also features the 1999 Tony Award-winning smash hit revival of Kiss Me, Kate, The Act starring Liza Minnelli, Rodgers & Hammerstein's State Fair, the Forbidden Broadway & Nunsense anthologies as well as all seven recordings for the City Center's Encores! series. FMI

Interesting profile of OCS from NYTIMES Archive

Winston Salem Festival Stage, Winston Salem, NC -- with Mary Murfitt, Mike Craver, Molly Wassermann and Randy Glass -- Feb. 3-19. 2011
Fullerton Civic Light Opera, Fullerton, CA. July 11-27, 2008
Stebens Children's Theatre, Mason City, IA
Oklahoma City University's Opera and Music Theater Company in the Bass Music Center Atrium - March 2007
The Humane Society of North Iowa, charity performance, Mason City, IA. January 12, 2007 FMI
Jesters Roving Players, Fort Jennings, OH
Manheim Central High School, Manheim, PA
Door Off-Broadway Dinner Theatre, Sturgeon Bay, WI - Performances are June 17 – Aug 27, 2005
Flat Rock Playhouse, Flat Rock, NC. December 1-19, 2004, featuring Klea Blackhurst, Mike Craver, Darcie Deaville and Michael Rice. "Flat Rock finishes season with rousing 'Oil City Symphony'" -- ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES -- (full review)
>>> profile in Hendersonville News
Chanhassen Dinner Theatre, Chanhassen, MN. Directed by Mary Murfitt and featuring Kathy Beaver, Richard Long, David Lohmann and Molly Wassermann. Through Jan. 23, 2005. Star Tribune Review
Totem Pole Playhouse, Chambersburg, PA. August 12-24, 2003, with Mike Craver, Tom Kenaston, Emily Mikesell, and Molly Wasserman. Directed by David Caldwell
Florida Studio Theatre, Sarasota, FL. Directed by Mary Murfitt, and featuring Randy Glass, Emily Mikesell, Mary Murfitt, George Tenegal and Molly Wasserman June 10th-July 5, 2003
Milwaukee Rep, featuring Mike Craver, Marcy McGuigan, Emily Mikesell and Shawn Stengel. Directed by David Caldwell, musical direction Emily Mikesell.
Taproot Theatre, Seattle, WA. Featuring Kendra Bigley, Rob Bigley, Rachel Hornor and Jared Lyn Madsen. Directed by Karen Lund, musical director Edd Key.
Cape Playhouse, Dennis, Massachusetts, featuring Klea Blackhurst, Mike Craver, Emily Mikesell and Michael Rice

Clive Barnes of the NEW YORK POST said Oil City Symphony's "a gusher! Better than John Philip Sousa played on massed kazoos with free ice-cream and bubble gum." VARIETY called it "an endearing slice of nostalgic Americana that few will resist." And the NEW YORK TIMES wrote "more than a tinge of moon madness, "Oil City Symphony" is its own refreshment. A musical with charm and a sure sense of its own identity." full review by Mel Gussow

"In a pennant-festooned high school gymnasium in the imaginary Midwestern town of Oil City, four musicians who grandly call themselves the Oil City Symphony have come together for a reunion concert. There is Mark, the pianist and accordionist, with glasses and a white dinner jacket and purple slacks, who is also the minister of music at his church; Debbie, the drummer, an ex-prom queen in a strapless gown who exchanges one pink pump for a running shoe, the better to thump her bass drum: Mary the violinist, of stern Scandinavian stock, uptight, humorless, and "best remembered locally for her portrayal of Anita in West Side Story"; Mike, the gentle, wistful synthesizer player who found himself in the Summer of Love and once played with an acid rock band called Thursday's Grief. The Oil City Symphony is very funny indeed! Whether grimly trying to keep up with the quickening abandon of a mock Hungarian czardas, or haplessly seguing from Verdi's "Anvil Chorus" to Iron Butterfly's "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida" or just getting down and funky with a little tune of their own called "Beaver Ball at the Bug Club" the Oil City Symphony lets the good times roll and in the process skewers every high school music program in the country... but fondly!".....................................................Michael Walsh, TIME Magazine -- full article

OIL CITY SYMPHONY Original Cast CD $15.95--Free Shipping to all U.S. locations. For international shipping see International Rates page.
by check $15.95 Sapsucker Records, 841 S. NC Hwy 150, Lexington, NC 27295

With Debra Monk, Mark Hardwick, Mary Murfitt and Mike Craver. SONGS INCLUDE: COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, CZARDAS, ANVIL CHORUS, IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA, OHIO AFTERNOON, BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE, THE HOKEY POKEY, BEAVER BALL AT THE BUG CLUB, BEEHIVE POLKA, A PATRIOTIC FANTASY, DIZZY FINGERS, GETTING ACQUAINTED, IRIS, THE END OF THE WORLD, DEAR MISS REEVES, COAXING THE PIANO, BUS RIDE, IN THE SWEET BYE AND BYE, MY OL' KENTUCKY ROCK AND ROLL HOME, AND EXODUS, plus SLEIGH RIDE, THE CHRISTMAS MEDLEY, and THE SUMMER MEDLEY.
Sheet music for "Beaver Ball at the Bug Club", "Bus Ride", "The Hokey Pokey", "Iris", "Old Kentucky Rock and Roll Home", "Coaxing the Ivories," and "Ohio Afternoon"

Links: Moonstruck Drama Bookstore
"Radio Gals"

"OIL CITY SYMPHONY" is licensed through Music Theatre International -- telephone: 212-541-4684; fax: 212-379-4684

For more information, email mcraver at ptmc dot net
Updated April 1, 2011