Angel Cabaret Theatre owner Jimmy Ferraro might be thinking about changing the name of the show that was scheduled at his theater for now, Murder at the Howard Johnson's, to Bad Luck at the Angel Cabaret.
Four days before the original opening date for Murder on May 23, the lead actor, George Cahill III, severely injured his Achilles' tendon during rehearsal and couldn't go on.
Ferraro scrambled around and found Sarasota-based actor Robert P. Williams to fill in. Williams had gotten good reviews for his supporting role in Central Stage Theatre's Jeffrey, a comedy-drama about a gay man struggling with his sexuality in the era of AIDS. (The 6-month-old Central Stage closed after its founder, Brett Lassiter, died in February.)
Williams plowed into rehearsals, and Murder was set to open last night.
It didn't.
Williams suddenly departed on Wednesday because of a "personal emergency," according to a news release from the Angel Cabaret.
Now the show is off altogether.
"There are many producers out there that will force someone to stay with a show when some sort of personal crisis comes up, but I'm not one of those," Ferraro said in the release.
Instead, William Garon and Martin Preston will do a music and magic act through June 22, the original closing date of Murder.
Garon and Preston have performed as a team for years, Preston in a dead-on impersonation of pianist Liberace and Garon as his opening act. In his resume, Preston describes himself as "one of the founding members" of the Angel. He has played piano and been in shows at the Angel off and on since then, most notably in You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running.
Garon has been in shows (Nite Club Confidential, Pump Boys and Dinettes) and been production stage manager, director and/or choreographer for others. Under his birth name, W. Michael Newnham, he has been musical director and sound designer for several more. He also has made costumes, designed and built sets, and announced for some shows - a genuine jack-of-all-trades.
For this show, Garon will sing some George Gershwin numbers and Broadway hits and Preston will do more of the magic tricks like the ones he did in Hooray for Holidays.
I wish I could advise those in the mood for a cute musical to go see Annie, which closes Sunday at Richey Suncoast Theatre.
Unfortunately - or, fortunately if you're paying the bills at Richey Suncoast - every single seat is sold out for tonight and Sunday, just as they were for Friday's performance.
It's little wonder this show is so popular. It's smart and sweet, and the lead players, Casey Maxwell and her dad, Dan, are truly magical as Annie and Daddy Warbucks. Talk about stage chemistry; these two have it - and good voices, too.
The full houses remind me of the first time I went to Richey Suncoast in 1991 to see I Never Sang for My Father. That, too, was a full house, but I got a ticket someone turned in at the last minute.
The folks around me became quite incensed that I was sitting in a coveted aisle seat. Or any seat at all.
A sweet, elderly lady explained it to me.
Good seats are rarely available at Richey Suncoast, she said. You have to wait until someone, um, passes on in order to get them.
Richey Suncoast isn't quite to that point again - yet. But its amazing comeback from the brink of extinction only a few years ago has been remarkable.
And, for me, very, very welcome.
I got a quizzical call from a reader on Wednesday after my review of Annie Get Your Gun at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre was published in My Favorite Newspaper.
"You said a lot of nice things about the show," the caller said. "But you didn't say if you liked it or not."
Must be a new reader. Longtime readers (notice I didn't say "old readers") don't have to guess when I think something is sub-par.
Actually, it doesn't really matter whether I liked the show or not (I did). What matters is what should the show do, and does this particular production do it.
