March 6, 2008 Issue

As a fan of live theater in general, I was pleased when I got a press release about a new theater opening in Pensacola. I duly listed the opening show in our theater section, even though, in truth, Pensacola is a bit out of our distribution area. However, many from this area routinely travel to Pensacola for events, so it wasn’t totally out of the ordinary either.

Then I got a thank you email note from David Gerson, one of the partners in the Garden Street Playhouse venture. He thanked me for listing the event and invited me to a show and suggesting I might be moved to do a review. I explained our every two-week publishing schedule and that I had not planned on inserting a theatrical review and the best I could do for him was to come see the show and talk a bit about it in my column.

The Garden Street Playhouse is only performing musicals and the first one was am ambitious undertaking called The Sounds of Simon featuring the songs of Paul Simon and those of Simon and Garfunkel. Much of the music was re-arranged from the original by Phil Hinton and Gary Waldman. Waldman is one of the three owners of the theater and also will be a frequent performer.

The theater is a black box type, with red walls, which I liked for the brightness. The seats were probably bought from a movie house going out of business and were comfortable, which isn’t always the case with small theaters. There literally isn’t a bad seat in the house, and I would estimate the theater holds about 50 people.

The show is billed as Paul Simon’s Music in Vision & Light. Gerson and Jamison Troutman ably handled the lighting chores and punching up the pre-recorded musical accompaniment from a good sound system.

When the five performers were singing together, the result was a harmonious an energetic mix of voices, particularly on numbers such as Keep the Customer Satisfied and You Can Call Me Al. However some voices were better than others and each was given an opportunity to solo, to greater and lesser degrees of success. It is challenging to reach those high notes of Art Garfunkel and some of the performers just couldn’t put a bridge over that troubled water.

Yet a very few misses in a show that’s about an hour and a half and features more than 20 of the familiar hits, did not ruin the venture and should not keep you from going. The choreography by performer Kenny Green was perfectly suited to the small stage area and performed with great gusto by the entire cast. Standout performances by Pensacola natives Camille Perillo and Katrina Washington alone were worth the price of admission. These performers are tasked with practically miming some drama, sans dialog, into a non-stop musical production. All proved more than up to the challenge with just a few props and by using subtle body language.

There will be two more shows in this initial abbreviated season of The Garden Street Playhouse. The current production runs through this weekend. Visit www.gardenstreetplayhouse.com for upcoming shows, a map, and more.

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Well, well, well, hasn’t this election process been interesting? It is amusing so many states rushed to schedule primaries early, fearing voters in those states would be left out of the process, as it was presumed the Democratic nominee was more or less a cut-and-dried deal. Surprise, surprise that it is coming down to the later primary dates.

By the time you read this, one of two historic Democratic nominees will probably have prevailed. The delegate rich states of Ohio and Texas should put one or the other over the top. I have a favorite of the two and despite it being strongly suggested to me by many women that Hillary should be my candidate based on the fact that we both have ovaries, I’m not buying it.

My problem is that I want a president who is smart, strong, decisive and independent. If she were all these things, she would have kicked her philandering husband to the curb more than 25 years ago and then she would have my respect. Instead of a marriage, she settled for a political alliance for her own benefit and I can’t trust that.

I like almost everything about John McCain except his insistence on continuing the war. I simply don’t see how we can fund it with either personnel or money. If he’s elected, I hope he changes his mind; otherwise he’s going to have to pull many rabbits out of a hat. A friend of mine opined recently that he thought there would be full support for this war or any other if only politicians could explain to us what they hope to accomplish.

Sounds simple, apparently it isn’t.

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