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Jessica fever heats up

Hometown fans push hard for a Jessica Sierra victory on American Idol . The Tampa Theatre will hold a watch party tonight.

TAMPA - The posters are up, the T-shirts printed, the cell phones at the ready.

Around town, signs of Jessica fever are everywhere.

Jessica Sierra, one of 11 American Idol finalists, performs on the hit TV show tonight in another elimination round, her fate in the hands of viewers who call in to vote on their favorite performers.

And her hometown fans are pushing hard for those votes.

Tonight, the Tampa Theatre will open its doors so Sierra supporters can watch the former Bayshore Boulevard nanny and distant relative of Mayor Pam Iorio belt out a tune - and then vote for her en masse via their cell phones.

On Monday, Sierra's relatives tacked up "Vote Jessica" posters on storefronts and doors from Albertsons to Buddy Bi-Rite to the Colonnade Restaurant as part of a grass-roots campaign.

Sierra, 19, needs all the support she can get. Last week, she was among the bottom three vote getters, but survived to advance to the next round.

"It was sheer torture," said her grandmother Betty Sierra, who along with her husband and Jessica's dad was in the live audience in Hollywood, Calif., that night. "I'm just glad we were there for her."

Fans might have wondered why the bubbly singer wore a plain outfit of jeans and T-shirt during last Wednesday's episode when the results were announced. That's because her more glamorous duds had been misplaced, her grandmother said. What's more, something had gone wrong during her hair and makeup session.

"It was pretty stressful for her," Mrs. Sierra said Monday. "But she's always been a good little trouper."

On top of those troubles, Sierra, who was raised by her grandparents and her father, has been homesick for Tampa, her grandmother said. The 19-year-old left for Hollywood Feb. 15.

"She's never been away from home for this length of time," Mrs. Sierra said. "We've always been in touching distance."

That's why her grandparents and father made the trip to Los Angeles last week. Grandfather Jose Sierra had never flown before, and Mrs. Sierra hadn't flown in 40 years.

Also, Mrs. Sierra, whose granddaughter calls her "Mee Maw," fell in a department store days before the trip and had to travel with her arm in a brace and stitches in her head.

"We wanted to see her and be with her," said Mrs. Sierra, who removed the brace during the show so that she could applaud.

Sierra's grandparents and her dad are back home, ready to watch her tonight on TV. The competition runs for two more months, with one singer eliminated each week.

"We would love to be there for support, but unfortunately, we're not amongst the wealthy," Mrs. Sierra said.

This week, Sierra's stepmother and maternal grandmother will clap from the audience. If she survives into next week, the Sierra family hopes to collect enough money to send an aunt and Sierra's older sister.

For local fans, the Tampa Theatre will be the latest local watch party venue.

At the beginning of the season, the director of Entertainment Revue, a song and dance troupe in which Sierra was a member for five years, welcomed more than 100 people into her home to watch American Idol .

The next week, Cynthia Gries moved the watch party to the Press Box sports bar on S Dale Mabry Highway. That crowd swelled to about 200.

"It seems like every week, the crowd is getting bigger," Gries said.

So she contacted the Tampa Theatre, which has hosted Oscar parties and can seat more than 1,400 people.

At the theater, fans can buy red "Rock the Vote/Jessica Sierra/Our Next American Idol" T-shirts for $10. The shirts were ordered by the Ross family of Lutz, whose daughter is an Entertainment Revue member.

"We're just big fans," Cindy Ross said.

Ross' husband contacted Smack Apparel, a local company that designed and donated 50 shirts for Sierra's friends and family. They churned out an additional 50 for sale at cost, Ross said.

"There's a lot of effort by a lot of people to get the word out to vote," Sierra's grandmother said. "It's not just the family. We're so grateful."

Sierra's family has spent more than $200 making copies of Jessica Sierra posters at Kinko's to tack up at businesses all around town.

"We couldn't be prouder of her," her grandmother said.

--Dong-Phuong Nguyen can be reached at 813 226-3403 or nguyen@sptimes.com