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FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #57 Broadway in Fredericksburg: The Hidden Gem of Performing Arts
Ever wondered what it takes to bring Broadway-quality theater to a community without the hassle of big-city traffic? The Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast pulls back the curtain on the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts with special guest Allison, Director of Development and Marketing.
Nestled just off I-95, this cultural gem has been serving the Fredericksburg area for 26 years, though many locals still remember it as Riverside Dinner Theater. The recent transition to nonprofit status marks an exciting new chapter for the organization, opening doors to enhanced community engagement through educational programs, sensory-friendly performances, and a vision for a future performing arts school.
What makes Riverside truly special is the leadership of Patrick Ahern, a Broadway veteran who performed in the original cast of Les Misérables, bringing world-class theatrical expertise to the local stage. The Center consistently delivers productions that rival those in major metropolitan areas, featuring both exceptional local talent and occasional guest performers from Broadway and London's West End. Current and upcoming shows include the Tony Award-winning "Next to Normal," which thoughtfully addresses mental health issues, the beloved "The Sound of Music," and the holiday classic "White Christmas."
Allison dispels common misconceptions about dinner theater quality, highlighting the Center's commitment to excellence in both performance and dining. With a talented chef creating beautifully presented meals, patrons can enjoy a complete evening of entertainment without having to brave the notorious I-95 traffic to DC or Richmond.
Whether you're a longtime theater enthusiast or someone looking for a new cultural experience, discover why Riverside Center for the Performing Arts at 95 Riverside Parkway deserves a place on your must-visit list. Stop by for a show and ask for Allison—she'd love to personally welcome you to this magical place where Broadway meets Fredericksburg!
Allison Mayberry
Riverside Center for the Performing Arts
riversidedt.com
boxoffice@riversidedt.com
+1 540-370-4300
95 Riverside Pkwy, Fredericksburg, VA, United States, Virginia
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, where we feature the stories of local legends in the Fredericksburg area. I'm excited to introduce you to my guest today. She is the Director of Development and Marketing at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, Allison. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Hi Dori, Thanks for having me. I'm excited to get to chat with you for a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm excited to get to know you and learn more about the Riverside Center. So let's start there. Can you share with us a little bit about the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts?
Speaker 3:Sure, so most people might know us as Riverside Dinner Theater. They became the Dinner Theater 26 years ago, but it was rebranded in 2016 as Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, looking more for getting towards not totally away from food service, but having people have the focus of. You can come here and see an incredibly great Broadway quality production and on top of it, you can have a meal beforehand if you don't want to go somewhere else. But we do work with a lot of people in the community, so we always, you know, encourage people. There's great restaurants in Fredericksburg to go to beforehand if you don't want to eat here.
Speaker 3:We also a wonderful thing that happened in January of 24 is we just became a 501C3 nonprofit, so we are super excited about that. That opens the door for us to be able to apply for some grants in the area where we can really dig into the community. You know we want to be at the schools, we want to be out and helping the community, so through grants, we're able to do some sensory friendly shows. We're able to take our actors into the schools and qualify for some other things. And then also, you know you have great people that want to support the theater, and now it's a tax write-off for them, so it's a win-win for us.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Congratulations on earning that status. I know that takes a lot of hard work, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Our CEO and our producing artistic director, patrick Ahern, has worked countless hours and timeless hours with people on our board and our board president, dorothy Mondack, to make that happen. And when they finally got there and got to sign it and knew that it was official, we were like, yes, we did it. You know. So it is a lot of hard work but it's worth it because you know you can do really great, great theater. But we also want to be part of the community. We hope someday that we'll be able to take our building that we have now and it'll end up being two stories and it will be a performing arts school so we'll be able to work with the kids in this area, train them up, work alongside other kids groups in the area and then send them off to college or Broadway, broadway tours. And so we have lots of dreams and visions here that are coming down the pike that Mr Ahern's working on.
Speaker 2:That is really cool. Thank you for giving us that sneak peek into what's to come. That's really exciting for our community. I love it.
Speaker 3:It is Well, why not? You know, we're a regional Broadway theater here, so why not be able to use it for the community, along with other groups as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we don't have to travel. So you know, otherwise we would have to go to Richmond or go to DC. It's so nice to have something that that great of quality of show right here in Fredericksburg is really cool.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Obviously I work here, so I definitely agree with you. And as I look out the window here and see 95 traffic stopped this afternoon, we do joke when we do bus conventions and things like that because we offer group discounts and whatnot, I always tell them when they're on I-95 going from you know, new York to Florida, that when you hit the exit where there's the traffic, if you get off, we have a great theater, we have a great relationship with the hotel down the road. So when you hit the traffic, get off and come see a show and hang out with us for a while.
Speaker 2:Amazing. I love it. So tell me a little bit about you. How did you get into this line of work? You? How did you get into this line of work, wow.
Speaker 3:So I grew up on Long Island in New York and we would go into New York City quite a bit to see different shows and I just fell in love with theater. And then I'm a mom of four and all of my kids loved theater. So they were part of a Christian theater group for probably close to 10 years and I was working with them. I started volunteering with them but then they hired me to do their advertising and their publicity. And you know, when you have a passion for something, it's really easy to talk about it. And I just I fell in love with theater more and more and we would take the kids to the city or we would come here to Riverside and see shows. We'd go and go down to Richmond in DC and see the tours and I just knew this was like a passion of mine. So to be able to call it a J-O-B is an honor. And then when Patrick Ahern had called and said, hey, we'd love for you to come work here at Riverside, I was I don't want to say I was speechless, but I was really excited.
Speaker 3:You know that he wanted me to join the team and a funny thing with him and I is. You know he used to be on Broadway so he was in the original cast of Les Mis. He's done Phantom, he's done Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. But I actually got to see him on stage in the original Broadway cast of Les Mis and obviously didn't know that because that was back in like 1989. You know, I'm going to age both of us. But when I found out that he had worked here years ago, I actually brought my playbill with me from 89 and had him sign it and it was funny. So it's neat to work with him and it is so cool to work alongside him because he's got so much knowledge from being in the industry. He's built an incredible team here and the talent that is in this building. I just love being around it because I can just sit and listen to them sing all day or go in and watch them dance and I just love it. It's so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I had no idea that he was on Broadway himself. What a cool, fun fact that is. I love it, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and once in a while. So we do a Riverside Christmas show every other year and every now and then he'll he'll sing a song or two in it and people that know that he was in Broadway are like please sing, please sing. You know, and people will ask him in the community and Fredericksburg or Stafford, you know to come and sing and and he does, but it's not, it's not that often, but it is very cool when he has friends that come by that you know, played Phantom on Broadway or sang and did this and he's like oh, this is my friend, and if you're a theater person like me, you're like oh, my God you know you're trying to keep your inner child calm, so it's.
Speaker 2:I love it. So do you find that there are any myths or misconceptions about the Riverside Center?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, there's so many. Dispel a few for us. Well, of course, dinner theater. You know everybody says, oh, it's a dinner theater, you don't want to go there. Or like, oh, my grandma took me when I was five and I haven't been back, you know. And so it's funny because the generational gaps we're starting to see. Some of the younger kids and I don't know if it was, if it has to do with COVID or not but you know, the older people love to come. I think some people, you know middle age, are like, oh, no, it's a dinner theater, I don't want to go. But then the younger people are like this is really cool, like let's go and grab a drink at the bar before the show and go see the show.
Speaker 3:But we do the myths of. You know, the food is horrible. We've worked really, really hard to find good chefs. We have an incredible chef right now and he's making food. How we're doing the plates that we're doing for the cost right now, I have no idea. Oh, it's beautiful. You know, some people still want, like their chicken fish steak and you're still you're getting it, you know. But he's he's making delicious meals, like we have cocoa on on this menu that we're doing for next to normal. There's a salad that he's got, that's got salmon in it and it I saw it yesterday looked absolutely amazing, so have definitely stepped up our game in that aspect, that's awesome, yeah, so what are some shows that we have to look forward to in the next few months?
Speaker 2:Are you able to give us a little sneak peek? Of course?
Speaker 3:of course. Well, right now we actually just opened Next to Normal, which not very many people know about, but in 2009, it won three Tony Awards and in 2010, it actually won a Pulitzer Prize. And the great thing about this show it's a heavy show, but the great thing about this show is it touches on mental illness. It touches on mental health and when we became a nonprofit last year, we really wanted to be an organization that walks the walk and not just talks the talk, and so we said we're going to put a show in that we know is important to our community, important to parents, important to businesses. And then this year alone you know, look at there's been so many shootings and just things that our kids should not be having to worry about. You know, they can't even go to a park and play anymore. And it's more, obviously, we're a theater, so we can't cure everybody. We don't even know how to do that, but we know that a theater, you know, there's so many studies that say that music just soothes the soul and it's good for your brain and it's good for your mental health, and so what better way than to take an incredibly beautiful show? And we're working with different organizations in the area. As a matter of fact, this evening we have a wonderful man that was raised in this area that just wrote a book when a man Exhales, I believe is the title of it. His name is Antoine Carey Gay and he is Marvin Gaye's brother and he's kicking off our series. And you know, most people know, you know that his brother was shot by his dad and that was mental health related. So you have a music legend, you know, and so we're going to have his brother come in tonight and talk about that.
Speaker 3:So that's a short run. It only goes for five weeks. Our cast is phenomenal. They are just incredible. They'll take you on an emotional roller coaster. And the music we have a live orchestra here, which is absolutely incredible as well.
Speaker 3:But you know, you've got every genre of music. You've got a lullaby, but then you've got like a Metallica break. But you know, you've got every genre of music. You've got a lullaby, but then you've got like a Metallica break moment. You know where. You've just got the guitars and the drums. So so that one we've got going on now until August 3.
Speaker 3:And then one of everybody's favorites, we have Sound of Music and yep, that'll open in the middle of August and because it's such a favorite and lots of people come to it, we're actually running that show for 10 weeks. So that'll run Yep, that'll run until the end of October. And then, of course, the Christmas season comes and we're doing White Christmas this year and that'll open November 5th and run until after Christmas. And Riverside is really a special place at Christmas time. The whole building is decorated beautiful, the outside's decorated great and you just have so many generations of families that come in. There's always reunions, somebody's getting engaged, you know, there's lots of different things going on, so it's a pretty magical place to be here at the holiday time.
Speaker 2:So fun. I love that. Thank you for sharing that with us. Oh thanks, yeah, and so are. I'm curious are most of the, the cast and the musicians, are they mostly local, or do they come in? Are they like traveling groups? Talk to me a little bit about how that works.
Speaker 3:Sure. So we have most of our cast is local and that's where I was saying earlier, the talent in this area is incredible. I mean, you come see our shows and I will say it publicly. You know most people are. I know Patrick will obviously say it too. You know, we are so confident in our shows. You can put it up against a Broadway show or a Broadway tour show and you wouldn't even know. And we do have some kids. I say kids, they're all kids.
Speaker 3:We have some of the actors that come through here and they do a couple of shows with us and then they end up out on a Broadway tour. Yeah, everybody's favorite, sally Struthers. She comes in every now and then she just did Love Letters last year with us. So we do have people that that come and go. I won't mention her name, but we do have an actress who's actually been performing over in London and who's been in some shows on the West End and she's going to be here for Sound of Music. So people will yes, people will have to either check out our socials when we announce it in a few weeks or come see the show and just be mesmerized by her voice.
Speaker 3:But we're again lucky, you know, because Patrick has that connection with people in the industry, so we do have people that come in from time to time. Adrienne Hick, who is playing the mother in Next to Normal right now her and her husband are not from this area but she has been in three of our shows. So whenever we have a role that Patrick knows is just right for her, he always gives her a call and she comes in. And some of our patrons are season ticket holders that have seen her in other shows. When they know she's coming, they're buying the ticket right away just because they want to see her. So it's nice to have those familiar faces too that's so cool.
Speaker 2:I love that, yeah, so what is something that you wish the listeners knew about? The riverside?
Speaker 3:Something I wish they knew. Well, you heard me say it's a magical place at Christmas time, but I wish the listeners actually knew about Riverside. So many people will drive by our building and not have any idea what it is. We're right off of I-95, and since they've been doing construction, you can actually see our building now. So for me, I would love people to just know that we're here.
Speaker 3:Um, you'd think after 26 years, we had saturated the market, but as the marketing director, I can't even tell you how many people I've met that have said oh, I didn't even know you were here, and we're always in the newspaper, we do tv interviews, we're always in the newspaper, we do TV interviews, we're on the radio.
Speaker 3:So I'd love for people to know just the great quality theater that we have and the staff here, the passion that the staff has for the people in this community to be able to come and have a five-star rating, from the moment they walk in the door and have a meal or just get a drink at the bar until they walk out of the theater.
Speaker 3:We want this to be a memorable moment for them, without having to get on a bus or a train or a plane to get to New York City. Richmond and DC are an hour away, but with traffic on 95, you never know how long it's gonna take you. So just know that you've got an amazing performing arts center that's here and, obviously, with us being a nonprofit, you know that you can. You can future support us for the future and become, say, a legacy donor or a sustaining member with us. And we're hoping for, you know, another 26 years to see where it leads us. And I can only wait until we become a performing arts school to really see the kids grow and then see them be on our stage and then go, say, be on a Broadway tour. That's going to be, that's going to be incredible, amazing.
Speaker 2:So if the listeners don't know where you are or don't know where to find you, give us the address and your website.
Speaker 3:Sure, so we are at 95 Riverside Parkway. We're kind of a special kind of a building because we are a Fredericksburg address but a Stafford zip code, I mean a Stafford County zip zip code. You know, um, but we are located right off of I-95 and our website is riversidedt. com. And of course I always say, like dog Thomas, not dinner theater, it's so bad, um, but riversidedt. com. And of course you know, if you look up Riverside, you can find us on Facebook, instagram, twitter or X. Now we're there and we hope that if there's some listeners of yours that you have that didn't know about us, that they'll find us and come see us. And if you come to the theater, ask for me so I can say hi and introduce myself in person, Amazing Allison.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing the Riverside with us.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to fxbgneighborspodcast. com. That's fxbgneighborspodcast. com, or call 540-534-4618.