Florence Foster Jenkins play in Glendora Aug. 20 and 21

It’s an odd subject for a play – a woman who, convinced she was a great coloratura soprano, was in fact incapable of producing two consecutive notes in tune.

Souvenir, A Fantasia on the Life on Florence Foster Jenkins, by Steven Temperley, traces the real-life career of Jenkins, who was convinced of her greatness, despite her distinct lack of pitch and rhythm. Her annual recitals in the ballroom of New York’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel where she resided, brought her extraordinary fame. As news of her terrible singing spread, so did her celebrity. Her growing mob of fans packed her recitals, stuffing handkerchiefs in their mouths to stifle their laughter, which Mrs. Jenkins blissfully mistook for cheers. The climax of her career was a single concert at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 25, 1944. So anticipated was the performance that tickets for the event sold out weeks in advance. She died a month later.

Souvenir will be staged Friday, Aug. 20, and Saturday, Aug. 21, at 8 p.m. at the Village Book Shop, 123 N. Glendora Ave., Glendora, CA 91741. Tickets are $20.

Presented by SanZman Productions, the play stars Ovation Award-winner R. Christofer Sands as Mrs. Jenkins and Paul Wong as her long-suffering and very accommodating accompanist Cosme McMoon, and is directed by Ken Salzman. Together they present an evening of magical theatre and a story of friendship, humor and music and what one hears in one's head.

As stage critic Ben Brantley wrote: “Mrs. Jenkins, who died in her mid-70s a month after making her Carnegie Hall debut to a sold-out house, exists in the footnotes of cultural history as a perfectly self-contained walking joke, rather like the American Idol reject William Hung. Her appearance was the setup; her voice was the punch line.”

“O singer, if thou canst not dream…..Leave this song unsung.” No one can say Florence Foster Jenkins couldn’t dream.

For tickets and more information, call Village Book Shop at (626) 335-5720.