Souvenir, With Judy Kaye, Heads to Los Angeles in October

Judy Kaye will reprise her Tony nominated performance as Florence Foster Jenkins in a Los Angeles mounting of Stephen Temperley's Souvenir. The show is scheduled to run at the Brentwood Theatre from October 5 through November 5.

In Souvenir, Temperley imagines events surrounding the story of Florence Foster Jenkins Kaye, a wealthy society eccentric of the 1930s and 40s who suffered under the illusion that she was a great coloratura soprano—when, in fact, the opposite was true. Nevertheless, her annual charity recitals at the Ritz Carlton and performances at other venues brought her cult status, especially as news of her unfortunate singing spread, culminating in her legendary sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.

Souvenir played at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre from November 10, 2005, through January 8, 2006. Kaye had previously appeared in the show off-Broadway and at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. In his Broadway.com Review of the Broadway engagement, William Stevenson wrote: "It isn't easy to play a bad singer convincingly. But Judy Kaye does it brilliantly in Stephen Temperley's comedy about the legendarily rotten singer Florence Foster Jenkins… The play isn't really the thing; it's Kaye's hilarious, delightfully pitch-imperfect performance."

Before she does Souvenir again, Kaye will sub for Patti LuPone in Sweeney Todd from June 20 through June 25 and for the first two weeks in August.