8-20-13—Audio Interview Class clown and family entertainer De’Zhon Fields always knew that he would be a performer he just didn’t know what form it would take. Without training or a mentor or a teacher or any real direction, with only his certainty that entertaining was…
8-13-13 — Audio Interview Jo Morello has always been a writer. She got her first job at 8 years old when, in the 3rd grade, she assigned to write the School Page for her parochial school newspaper. But Jo’s nature ran counter to the dictates of…
8-6-13 – Audio Interview Even in the 2nd grade Jeff Plunkett didn’t want just to read the story in class – he wanted to act it. To deal with his chronic ear infections Jeff’s doctor prescribed voice lessons and from the time he was 13…
7-30-13 – 2 Audio Interviews First Beth Duda and second Michael McKeever Beth Duda still remembers being the tightrope walker in her kindergarten circus show, and cajoling her non artistic family to participate in and be the audience for the shows she relentlessly insisted on…
7-23-13 – Audio Interview Bruce Jordan discovered his passion for performing in the 7th grade when the audience broke up laughing as he danced with a broom named Matilda. Bruce says “it was like a drug, you want to have more of it.” But while,…
7-16-13 – Audio Interview Elliott Raines grew up in what says is “now called the East Village, but when I grew up was called a slum.” Second generation, born to parents who believed in giving their children a “well rounded education,” Elliott studied piano and…
7-9-13 – Audio Interview Mary Testa is a working actress, singer, dancer, Jill of all trades in the theatre, and winner of a Drama Desk Award for “3 decades of excellent work.” Most recently she starred as the intrepid Annie Edson Taylor in the musical…
7-2-13 Audio Interview First a singer, then an actor and currently a director Meliss Kenworthy was the little girl with the loudest voice in her class. She fell in love with Opera as a very young child and pursued her passion for singing, until finally…
6-25-13 – Audio Interview Gale Fulton-Ross is a phenomenon, she is impossible to categorize as she creates art in every possible visual form, she draws, paints and sculpts, she works in both the literal and the abstract, she’s turned her graphic designs into textiles; clothing,…
6-18-13 – Audio Interview Do you like toe-tapping music, incredibly clever lyrics, and exuberant choreography performed by a remarkably talented ensemble? Then run right down to Florida Studio Theater’s Gompertz Theatre to see The World Goes Round a revue of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s…
6-11-13 Audio Interview with Tobin Ost, Costume and Set Designer Both a set and costume designer, Tobin Ost thought he was going to be an architect, but a series of experiences when he was quite young; seeing a production of Pirates of Penzance where a…
6-4-13 Audio Interview with Steve Orich – Orchestrator Steve’s Mom says that when the piano arrived at their house eight year old Steve walked over to it and immediately began to pick out melodies. He says “I learned how to read music instantly, it was…
5-28-13 Audio Interview Jeff Calhoun knew what he wanted to do by the time he was eight: he wanted to be Dick Van Dyke, he wanted to be Fred Astaire, he wanted to dance with the Ernie Flat dancers on the Carol Burnett show; he…
5-21-13 Audio Interview When he was just three years old Noah Racey’s Dad gave him a snare drum and was stunned to hear, within the first week, his infant drummer playing an entire John Phillip Souza album. Discovering a place to put his excessive energy…
Audio Interview Although always surrounded by music in his childhood, Robert H Fowler followed his parent’s advice and became an electrical engineer. He was working as an engineer and studying gymnastics as a hobby when his coach suggested he take a dance class. Someone in…
Audio Interview May 7, 2013 – Charlie Tyler and Rita Corn are appearing as the eccentric Elwood P. Dowd and his long suffering sister Vita Louise Simmons, in the delightful production of the much loved comedy Harvey, which is currently running at the Lemon Bay…
Audio Interview 4-30-12 – Raised in an environment in which jobs, not careers, were considered appropriate and neither acting nor writing was taken seriously as a way of life Tyla Abercrombie nonetheless discovered early that she was a poet and that she was attracted to,…
4-23-13 Audio Interview Andrei Maleav-Babel – is a Russian Immigrant. The son and grandson of writers and artists, Andrei wrote musicals and directed his parent’s friends in his plays, by the time he was 10 or 12. Luckily coming of age as Perestroika was occurring…
4-9-13 – Interview with Austin Pendleton I start this interview by saying “I am here with the one and only Austin Pendleton.” This is not a casual or frivolous comment. Nominated for a Tony for his direction of Elizabeth Taylor in The Little Foxes, winner…
4-2-13 Audio Interview Some think that critics are people who couldn’t succeed in the art they critique, this is not true of Jay Handelman, Theater and Television critic for the Sarasota Herald Tribune. Jay is, and has always been a critic, “I am perfectly suited…