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Elks offer entertainment at a steal

By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN
Published April 29, 2006

The Aripeka Elks Lodge has announced its 2006-2007 dinner show season, and if you intend to see any of the productions there, you'd better buy your tickets soon.

"We've sold all the prime seating for next year and don't have that many tickets left in general seating," said Judy Elliott, the office manager in charge of ticket sales.

This, despite an approximate 20 percent increase in ticket price.

One big reason is that the Elks' shows are not only entertaining and fun, but they're a terrific bargain. For $24.30 plus tax (total $26), you get a homemade dinner by the Elks volunteers and a show by professional touring performers and companies. The location on Denton Avenue in Hudson, a few blocks east of U.S. 19, is handy for both Pasco and Hernando residents.

"It's amazing the number of tickets we've already sold," Elliott said.

This year's season:

Aug. 12: Singer-impressionist Mark Ralston does Neil Diamond, Ray Charles, Elvis and others

Oct. 14: Leanne Williams in "Sweet Dreams of Patsy Cline" (almost sold out)

Nov. 11: Ruby Tuesday and Keith Coleman in "The Las Vegas Revue"

Dec. 16: The Diamonds (Little Darlin') do a Christmas show

Jan. 13: The New Odyssey singer-comedy show

Feb. 3: "Smokey Joe's Cafe," the songs of Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber (Charlie Brown, Yakety Yak, Hound Dog, Kansas City)

March 10: "Red, Hot and Blue Review," a six-man show that does ragtime, big band, rock, Broadway and Motown.

Call Judy at (727) 868-2994, ext. 14, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday for tickets. Or you can go by her office at the lodge, 9135 Denton Avenue, Hudson, during those same hours.

But you'd better go soon, or you might miss out.

Fans of the NBC comedy hit My Name Is Earl (count me in) can look for a familiar face in the season's last episode on May 11. Once again, it's Spring Hill resident Sam Petricone, who recently appeared in an episode of Medium and has had roles in several other popular shows.

In Earl, Petricone plays an EMT in a scene at a train station. Those of us accustomed to seeing him with a beard when he played in Gin Game and Victor/Victoria at Stage West Community Playhouse or Night Watch and Beau Jest at Richey Suncoast Theatre have a hard time recognizing him beardless.

Interesting tidbit: Petricone was recently playing stand-in for Ray Abruzzo, who plays Little Carmine on HBO's The Sopranos, when he suddenly remembered it was his 14th wedding anniversary. He rounded up some of his Soprano pals, and they all made a quick telephone call from the set to Sam's wife, Mary, at home in Spring Hill.

Sam was back home Sunday when the episode they were filming when he made the call was broadcast. He got a big kick out of showing Mary exactly where they were standing on the set when they called her.

Congratulations to 13-year-old Sarah Holding, who was recently chosen to be one of 175 students to attend the summer intensive program at the University of Alabama conducted by the American Ballet Theater in New York City.

ABT has been the home of such ballet luminaries are Mikhail Baryshnikov and Cynthia Gregory. It's had a program at the U. of Alabama since 1997, the first ABT summer intensive ever to be held outside New York City.

Sarah was chosen from hundreds of auditioners during a 21-city audition tour. She is the second student from Chris and Shanna Sell's Broadway Dance studio to be chosen for such an honor. The first was Adam Boreland, who went to the ABT in Alabama in 2003 and is now studying with a ballet troupe in San Francisco.

Five other dancers from the Sells' school auditioned for and were accepted by Ann Reinking's Broadway Theater Project in Sante Fe, N.M. this summer: Margaret Atkinson, Breanna Daniele, Colleen Hanlon, Liz Mathieson and Kimmy Wyatt. Breanna got one of only two scholarships offered to the dance sessions.

Interestingly, one of the workshop's instructors, Germaine Salsberg, was Chris Sell's dance instructor early in his dance career. Sell went on to dance in the national tour of Cats, as well as many other shows, before he and wife Shanna, who got her dancing start at Richey Suncoast Theatre many years ago, opened their dance school in New Port Richey.

[Last modified April 29, 2006, 01:17:17]