Godfrey Daniels brings back a classic hit and Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival opens its 2025 season with an original musical.

“An Evening at a British Music Hall Reunion Show” comes to Bethlehem’s Godfrey Daniels, 8 p.m. May 23 and 24.

“Penelope” runs May 28 to June 8, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival at DeSales University, Center Valley.

Bethlehem resident Chris Simmons, who first staged “An Evening at a British Music Hall” in 1974, wanted to do a reunion of the show that once toured northeast United States. He says Godfrey Daniels has been the unofficial home of the show since its beginning.

“I grew up singing music hall songs and attending music halls in London since I was a kid and became determined to produce one of my own,” says Simmons.

Simmons spent years doing research at institutions like the British Library, EMI Archives and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He ultimately amassed a vast archive of sheet music and rare materials.

]The 1974 production was a creative offshoot of the old-time string band, The Shimerville Sheiks. What started as a few spirited performances quickly grew into a theater production, with an expanding cast of performers passionate about reviving the historic art form.

“Our ‘Music Hall’ consists of a core of performers who, in many cases, have been with the show for over 40 years,” Simmons says.

He contacted those who appeared in previous versions of the show and gathered a cast of six.

“Several performers who have not appeared with us for almost 30 years will be appearing, as well as the old stalwarts,” Simmons says.

The performers are Simmons, Robert Fahringer, Neil Hever, Paula Ferry, Joe Birchak and Bill George.

Rooted in the rich tradition of 19th-century British variety entertainment, the Music Hall was the heart of working- and middle-class amusement from the 1850s through the post-World War I era, eventually evolving into what is known as Variety. Music hall shows featured everything from sentimental ballads to comic songs, theatrical sketches, novelty acts and even trained animals.

The Godfrey’s production has material from the genre’s heyday, 1860-1918, songs such as “The Golden Dustman,” “Our Threepenny Hop” and perennial favorite “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am”; monologues as “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God” and the comic sketch “Lion in the Box.”

Accompanying the performers are Lucille Kincaid, piano; Robert Peruzzi, trombone; Mitch Roth, trumpet, and John Lucas, percussion.

“An Evening at a British Music Hall Reunion Show,” 8 p.m. May 23, 24, Godfrey Daniels, 7 E. Fourth St., Bethlehem. 610-867-2310, http://godfreydaniels.org/

Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival opens its season with “Penelope,” a one-woman musical starring Rachel Camp, which is about the title character’s experiences during Odysseus’ long absence after the Trojan War.

Co-produced with Philadelphia’s Theatre Horizon, “Penelope” looks at the ancient Greek epic from the perspective of Penelope, Odysseus’s wife. The show explores Penelope’s resilience, heartache and fears as she waits for Odysseus’s return, raises their son and fends off suitors.

The production has original music and lyrics by Alex Bechtel and book by Bechtel, Grace McClean and Eva Steinmetz.

Rachel Camp reprises her performance following the show’s’ run earlier this year at Theatre Horizon. Steinmetz returns to direct.

The musical has had productions at Joe’s Pub, The Public Theater, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival and Signature Theatre.

The show is 70 minutes with no intermission.

Meet the actors for a talk-back after the June 5 performance.

“Penelope,” 7:30 p.m. May 28, 29, 30, June 5, 6, 7; 2 p.m. May 31, June 1, 8; 6:30 p.m. June 3; 2 p.m., 7:30 p.m. June 4, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Schubert Theatre, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, DeSales University, 2755 Station Avenue, Center Valley. 610-282-9455, https://pashakespeare.org/

“Curtain Rises” is a column about the theater, stage shows, the actors in them and the directors and artists who make them happen. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com