Gulf Coast Journal with Jack Perkins; 308; Banyan Theater Company, Asolo Theater, Duck Boats, Al Fuller

The fund has a special presentation of w. we do YOU Tampa St. Petersburg Sarasota follow the new theater company born on the Gold Coast and at an old theater is gloriously reborn. We take to the water like a duck him. Singing the Blues on this volume of a Gulf Coast Journal this w edu production is exclusively brought to you really generous grant from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice. Building strong communities leadership partnership endowed calander be your journal almost a century ago now. When John Ringling

began promoting Sarasota he envisioned it as becoming a magnet for culture and arts. And so it became. And so it is still becoming the latest example of cultural life arriving on the Gulf Coast as a theater company which the experts said would not succeed but it did. You're the majestic banyan tree for millennia has been making history. Alexander the Great we're told camp his entire army under the branches of one enormous Banyan as a species The Banyan was brought to this country by none other than Thomas Edison history. But the banyan we'd like to tell you about is something else something that is also making history. This Banyan blooms every summer in Sarasota the arborist who brought this Banyan to life is Jerry Finn head of

the relatively new Banyan theater company. Good to see you in a community brimming with choices in performance art. Gerry Finn is a visionary who defied common wisdom to make history by doing serious thought provoking theatre in the summer. You were advised that you were crazy. Yes don't do it it won't sell. Why. Because it's just not. People just don't go to that anymore. They're too busy with television and and light opera. The other things that are for me less important what do you mean. William Nicholson's the retreat from Moscow where he's been off for the faint of heart he is tense. Poignant and for some a painfully familiar reality check that you don't know when he might not. Jeremy and his wife Terri

don't apologize for avoiding the garden variety summer fluff. I think one of the most important things is it's better that you think about after you leave. It's not frills. It's not a lot of funny stuff. It's serious and when you leave the theater you think about the play and I think the people are grateful for that. They'll be dim lighting here the idea of The Banyan came about after the couple retired from New Jersey in 1909 when we came to the end of our first winter season here we realized that looked around and the sidewalks were gone they were all rolled up. Jerry had become involved in local theater years ago not surprising that a former attorney with intimate knowledge of courtroom theatricals would enjoy the spotlight on stage. He investigated. In various places you could act on a nonprofessional basis and he got into a couple of shows and he loved it. Soon the seed was planted.

The idea of Bornemann over dinner one night with a couple of actors. We kicked around the idea of wouldn't it be nice to do serious theatre in the summer and they jumped at it. They were all over it and we did it. Then we decided to do some important we call the serious plays drama stuff that perhaps the professional theatre companies couldn't do because they felt that they were not going to be able to attract an audience for that kind of theatre. In 2002 firmly planted in the middle of Sarasota a sweltering summer night the banyan Theatre Company took root but could it grow into a viable entity would it be accepted. Actor Doug Jones had no doubts. It's much more difficult to find something more intellectually stimulating in the summer because that's the assumption people don't want to think in the summer which is kind of odd because people are the same the year round defying critics who said it would never survive. Jerry released a banya first production. Harold Pinter's Oscar

nominated betrayal and that same season you did Shaw's Don Juan in hell and that is nothing if not serious and heavy. It really stamped our mission to do serious theatre. And we reached out to the people in Sarasota in the summer. This is what we had to offer the fins so passionately believed in the concept that they paid for the first two seasons out of their own pockets. JERRY When did you realize that this theater company of yours was really working. I think the first night that we opened the trailer and I saw the audience reaction and they they struck a chord. Five years later the number of plays a season has grown from two to three. When we first started the theater our very first play before opening night and I remember I said to my husband this birth of this theater is

right up there with having children of course getting married. I mean it was it was the most important thing. After those two and the child turned out good. Well it's still growing. It's got a lot of pains in it but a lot of pleasure. So you'll be entered as the banyan grows so does its garden of admirers. Every night or most every night I ask the audience how many of you are attending the banyan production for the first time and it's very satisfying that I get about 40 percent are new people. It means it's growing and you know what it's about. If you like the tree the banyan theater spreads wide it's arms each summer embracing growing numbers of grateful fans and doing what supposedly couldn't be done making its own little bit of history.

In its brief life the banyan theater company has moved from location to location to location for time. What is one thing to move a theater company. Quite another to move an entire theater. It was a theatre fit for a queen. Gold leaf sconces gilding done in silver and crimson 72 ornate panels. Two centuries after it opened this little theatre. Is making an encore. The story begins in the 15th century when a prominent Venetian. Marine Corps nado served as queen of Cyprus through an arranged marriage in reward for her service to the Venetian Republic she was

given the whole town of and a castle there to live in. And she held court there for a number of years. The people of awful over Italy were in love with their queen who lived in the awful castle for 20 years. And for nearly three centuries after her death the residents of Oslo paid tribute to Queen Catarina by creating a theatre in her castle in 1798. Katherina is positioned prominently as the woman to whom the theatre is dedicated and then flanking her are the great writers of the Italian Renaissance and to Italian dramatic and musical literature during its first hundred forty years the theatre flourished and welcomed the great European actors of the 19th century including Eleanor A. But in the 1930s Europe became a different place at that time Miscellanies government had taken over and a theatre such as this was considered to be out of fashion a decadent and so it was removed from the

palace where it had been built so that they could make way for at that time a new movie theater. The decorative panels that were removed from the Capitol Theater were purchased in the late 1940s by Chick Austin who was the first director of the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. Those decorative panels were used to create the new low theater in the Ringling Museum. It opened in 1050 to a permanent building was later built and the theater reopened next to the museum in 1958. Wonderful arts organizations had their start in this theater most notably the theater company now known as the repertory theatre but also the Sarasota opera began as the music the International Chamber Music Festival be at over 20 years ago as live music and all of those organizations outgrew the theater and moved on. And as in the past the theater fell into disrepair due to safety reasons.

Sarasota is crown jewel was closed in 2001. By 2000 for restoration of America's only 18th century Venetian theater began. Chief conservatory Michele's Galera has overseen the restoration. I think when people walk in. Do you know what was first an overview and then the very specific details if they want to pay attention. And those beautiful medallion ornaments and the various decorative parts that were water gilded and oil that are part of what people will be trying to Michelle and her staff had to approach a theater restoration much differently than the art restorations they had done in the past. It was the first completely collaborative team endeavor by our conservation laboratory with construction managers carpenters electrician and I feel so pleased that we were able to carry this project forward.

In June 2006 the theater opened its curtain to the public once more welcoming the opening and hope that its new life will endure and attract people for every reason and it will be many things to many people in its new life as a functional. Actor Bradford Wallace performed in the Oslo theatre for 30 years. I have now. He is about to be the newly restored for the first time. I have wanted this moment to see your face and I hope you like it. I hope you like it at Christmas time. Oh wow. My heavenly day. Days of the over again. And. You're. Right it only had its first performance in 58 so it was still pristine as it is now and so intimate you can reach out it feels like you touch

everybody in the house. I've never played in a. In more intimate space for a while. Bradford witnessed an explosion in the popularity of the theater in Sarasota by the 70s. You couldn't get a ticket for the over a season that went from January to Labor Day. They would sell 95 96 percent of the tickets. The actual theater has maintained an enduring legacy in both Europe and America. Theater survive Napoleon and the Celine E.. The second world war. Florida weather. Neglect and ruin many times. And hopefully now it will be always preserved for the whole tribe. A treasure hidden in plain sight. One that deserves an encore for many years. Over the years we have looked at this Gulf Coast of ours from many perspectives we've

ridden over it in a biplane leve seen it from the new from gondola from Segway riding along. Well this time we're going to find a new way to do it. We're going to take to the water like ducks in a dock. We're just ducky. I'm Captain Stewart. How often you're aboard overhand our life jackets. I don't frankly need them but if you see me get one after my Sapphire Mike Gravel this is so much fun especially driving at night. Catherine are still among us. Some years ago. There smokers are a large. File. It was built for the Vietnam era you know or Viet Nam the power supply was Mike and came from a ship. That Dick and I out up to the troops as a oh man I'm 300 horsepower. Cummings nation I have. Been around on the planet probably run 20 25 miles an hour I am a bigot too fast.

To start announcing that the water will get about 8 PM not. Thanks. Got a no comment on the wind event there in a waterway through it on a waterway around Venice. No color 7.3. Brockman hour and a half. But have a big problem. When we enter the water. Below us. Engage the bookseller. And we also keep in a four wheel drive. When we first crash and I get really amazed. The kids are kids just let it look like riding a big old monster truck when you go in the water three times but you don't have to worry so much about the TIDE list as you do it already about reading about sometimes you know I know water you can't go anywhere in this science you get. You two shall you just drive across the silent. Man. A captain since I'm 28 years old. I work started working on

boats out of Venice and I was 13. Born and raised in North Florida my dad and I came down here we moved out here my dad was a commercial fish and my whole family were commercial fishermen and I did a lot of commercial fishing when I went in the Navy I spent my tour in DD and a Navy guy the Navy and one working pump male and found I didn't like that so I kind of Asimo to leak the fish and now I've been working on Navy fish amazing shots in most of the charter most ever since and I've tried to retire. Found out I didn't like that. You're my hero. SIMON This Monday. I'm Captain chain store and it's fun we have a good time and I've been working on my dad asked how to work with him when I was six years old last time I was a doctor. I worked as first mate and captain on the on the boat or sea man a case I've done a lot of other things but I love being on the water. She a lot of birds pelicans a goat Ospreys that's really good to be working with my father and we see a lot of my a lot of a big part of my fancy but we have

different points of view so you know we have two different ideas a lot of times when you know you put two minds together on something and you can easily come out with a good conclusion. So it's you know it's sort of. Like a knife or turban jealous or that she and I have a lot to make home to you know if you can do something you really like and make a living at it it just makes it that much better. Not that I think we should come down again as area as a current contender because we really enjoy and it's a different experience you know. We don't very sound to drive that around and just drive right in the water is a very unique vessel Thank you have a big day and. There's a lot of. We open this volume of a Gulf Coast Journal talking about the cultural life here on the Gulf Coast. Here's another example. But this one is nothing high tone at all. No gilding no silver and crimson sconces No the only color here. Is.

The. L Fuller's day job is passing on his crack. Whether through song writing performing or teaching guitar. You know at first but once the warm red glow of the sun sets behind the rise of Al's life turn blue. Welcome to Al Fuller's Monday night blues jam a common ground for musicians across the Gulf Coast. They're just dedicated to music and having a good time. And playing with their heart. For our. Sunday nights at the Five O'Clock Club are a spontaneous explosion the creativity.

Al grew up in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts an area rich in folk music and story. His father was a horse trainer. His mother a piano player. My mother taught me to play the piano since I was able to sit at the stool when I was about 10 years old I must cut my left thumb so I made it hard to play the piano and I used to fool around with the trumpet bugle that was one round so I took up the trumpet for a few years. To my mom brought guitar home from a yard sale and that was into the trough it Al came of age in the 60s and was pursuing a landscape architecture degree. When the Army sent him to Vietnam soon the landscape of his own future changed feeling like I only had one life to live all of a sudden and decided that it was important to do what I really

wanted to do rather than what I thought I should do. He moved to Sarasota in the 90s and from as much work as you want it he found out about the blues jams sat him and eventually with the. The SA and soon he continued the ritual of letting anyone sit in with the band. First of most loved to play with. See if your. 14 year old Ashley Fuller is that the chip off the old block. If I teach her some things. Just she just does it. A glimpse of her grandmother's people raise their hands and cried. My dad said Zach

nation. I play piano just like. You at the same time. Like it was a whole year really. Since he was so good to start it up. Suzuki filed. That suit because. It's always the same. It's Monday night at the Five O'Clock Club as the clock strikes mammal. Crowd filters in. And the blues jam begin very. Early tried to promote interaction could make people listen to each other and that's when the magic happens and people start being creative on the spot. That happens a lot in my life.

The old timers tell then you're sometimes really cool and we get a lot of young people. So it's it's mixed up it's fun everybody is really encouraging and positive about it and you know that. That's the way that. Those who come don't expect snappy sing along music or Top 40 cover songs they they want to feel that Darwin and now reach deep into your shoulder and hold your heart out. Music known as. Everybody knows and everybody loves everybody loves to hear the Buddhist way. I mean it's it's America and that's why the only thing is that is. Everybody likes the. Idea. Twenty years they've had a jam on Monday nights and all the top players in town it's always different combinations and it's always a lot a lot of fun. Lot of pretty ladies. Over the years. Gibson should one use hear during prayer.

But al have never regretted following his dream. My dad just listen to the postman. It's all of you with us who can do what you want to do it is. Probably better. For it. He's doing the same thing to make money. His dad would be proud. Well the blues is no way to end a program. So as we close our volume. Thank you for being with us and hoping you'll be with us the next time. Let me introduce you to some cheerful friends of ours called the escapes years ago a few green parrots escaped captivity and I'm now become flocks that pop up here and there all along the Gulf Coast. So we will let them say our farewells for us.

Why. You can order this or any other volume of a Gulf Coast journal with Jack Perkins on the high

quality DVD format for just 999 plus shipping and handling. Call 1 800 3 5 4 9 3 3 8. Or visit our website at W edu dot org. This w e production is exclusively brought to you really generous grant from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice. Building strong communities leadership partnership and Daoud philanthropy.