8-2-16 Interview

8-2-16 Tom Renoud had fooled around with singing but never thought seriously about a career in music. When, at around 30, he was struggling to support his family he found a saxophone and taught himself to play “well enough to sit in with the guys at the local bar” and “it was fun!” From then on his career just “morphed.” The guys discovered that he could sing, so he did, then he taught himself to play the piano and although he continued to work at his “day gig,” until retirement, music became the passion of his life. Listen to Tom tell this story and hear 2 cuts from his CD In the Bag, and hear why the guys wanted him to sing.

7-26-16 Interview

7-26-16 Although he adored stories, read everything he could get his hands on and went to the theater as often as possible, Mark St Germain never expected to be a writer. He never considered it an option – no one he knew was a writer… In his mid-20’s he was helping to put on a woman’s poetry event and decided it needed something comedic to lighten the mood – no one would write it – so he did. When the audience laughed, he was so delighted that he decided then and there to be a writer. Listen to the way he pursued this goal which lead to the creation of many wonderful plays. Mark has had a long relationship with Florida Studio Theater in Sarasota, which has produced many of his plays. Most recently they commissioned a play called Relativity and produced its premiere performance. In it protagonists, Albert Einstein and the daughter he gave away when she was 2, debate the thorny question of whether a great man – one who contributes to the good of the community/world – need also be good. In this show Mark talks about his life and work and Jason Cannon, who directed and was part of the creative collaboration which culminated in Relativity, discusses the development and production of the play and Sharon Leslie reviews it.