Peterborough, NH--Following its highly successful opening performance in October, the town of Frost Heaves, NH returns to the Peterborough Players on Friday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m. with "Harvest Hijinks", a cornucopia of Thanksgiving silliness.
Frost Heaves, an old-fashioned radio-style variety show, is the brainchild of musician and author Ken Sheldon, who headlines the show as Fred Marple, the self-appointed representative of Frost Heaves, "the most under-appreciated town in New Hampshire."
"We didn't know what to expect with our first show," says Sheldon, who had hoped for an audience of 80 or 100 people. Instead, 200 people came to the historic Peterborough Players theater. "And the Red Sox were playing that night," he notes.
Sheldon credits the success of the show to the talented professionals collaborating on the project, including actors Kathy Manfre and Jon Egging of the Peterborough Players, and the Speed Bumps band: Mike Rousseau, Mark Crory, and Tom Bielecki, musicians with decades of musical experience in everything from top-forty bands to classical performances.
The November 7 show will feature a Thanksgiving theme, with turkeys discussing "the present crisis" and Fred Marple's announcements from Frost Heaves, including a report on the recent Hay Festival. "Song on the Spot" will also return, in which Sheldon and the band write and perform an entire, original song based on suggestions from the audience. Their instant song "Twist Ties"—about bread bag closures that no one ever throws out—was among the most popular segments of the first show.
Response to the first Frost Heaves show was so great that Sheldon plans to make it a regular part of the Monadnock region arts scene.
"It seems as if people are looking for alternatives to 'Dancing With the Stars' and 'Desperate Housewives'," says Sheldon, who promises that Frost Heaves will contain "nothing racier than you might find in the Old Farmer's Almanac."
Tickets to Frost Heaves: Harvest Hijinks are $12, general admission, and can be purchased at the door and at the Toadstool Bookshop or Steele's in Peterborough, and at Rousseau's Music on Route 124 in Jaffrey, by cash or check. To order by credit card, call the Peterborough Players ticket office at 924-7585. For more details and clips from the first show, go to www.frostheavescom.