By Julia Boyle
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

This month, Baltimore playgoers will be transported to the Wild West in Tom Foster’s fourteenth original production, Open for Business.

Foster’s theater group, the Village Vaudevillians, will present six performances of the musical comedy at Oak Crest in Parkville, where the playwright lives with his wife .

Expect to roll with laughter
Open for Business—the sequel to last year’s Destination Deadwood—is a satire of retirement communities. Protagonist John Derickson is aptly named after John Erickson, CEO and founder of Oak Crest’s parent company, Erickson Retirement Communities.

"People can always expect to laugh at my productions," Foster says. "My challenge is to find new jokes each year." Sometimes that means rekindling those too old to be remembered, he says.

Several of his jokes and musical choices date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. "I write about an event or decade in American history—like the Prohibition, World War I, the Gold Rush—and I use music and costumes from that period," he says.

Wealth of musical talent
For the past 13 years, Foster’s productions have been a roaring success.

"Usually, all of our evening shows sell out, and the matinees do almost as well," Foster says.

He attributes the success to his talented cast, which he doesn’t have to go too far to find—they all either live or work at Oak Crest. "I am able to incorporate solos, duets, trios, quartets, and even some operatic pieces because we have so many fine singers here. And that’s what the audience likes—the range of music," he says.

He pulls much of his musical talent from the community’s chorus and choirs. The Village Vaudevillians’ Music Director Marion Myers-Almquist, who lives at Oak Crest and belongs to the choir, also helps Foster recruit strong singers.