Trailer park gossip benefits students

The cast from Central High gets to experiment with Radio TBS.

By LOGAN NEILL, Times Staff Writer
Published December 7, 2007

Jayme White plays Dixie Mandrell in the Central High School drama department's production of Radio TBS - Trailer Park Broadcasting Scandals.
	[Maurice Rivenbark | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Maurice Rivenbark | Times] The students will have a chance to do what they feel works best when it comes to their characters, keeping in mind the desired outcome - humor without becoming cartoonish. [Maurice Rivenbark | Times] Lacy Jordan plays Missy Goode in one cast. Jordan Koenig has the role in the other.

BROOKSVILLE - As the drama instructor at Central High School, Linda Bailey emphasizes to her students the importance of plumbing the depths of the characters they portray.

However, in preparing them for their roles in the coming production of the comedy farce Radio TBS - Trailer Park Broadcasting Scandals, it was more like: Do whatever you feel works best.

That's not to say that the cornpone play about a gossip-hungry, Elvis-loving mobile home community is an acting free-for-all. Just the opposite, says Bailey. Being too outrageous can actually kill the comedy and leave the audience with nothing funny to grasp.

"Though the characters are a bit outrageous, I caution them not to overdo it to the point where it's all a cartoon," Bailey said. "I think these kids found a good balance between the two. That's why I think the audience will love it."

The play, written by Mark Landon Smith, seeks to capture the bizarre world of a Central Florida trailer park whose social travails are broadcast on a low-band radio station. Bailey swears the playwright had notions of Citrus County for his locale, hence the references to the Miss Manatee Contest and the Citrus Vocational School.

Through a series of present-day vignettes, the play coyly celebrates its 10 oddball female characters, who still tease their hair and worship Christmas year-round by constructing a drive-by nativity titled "Elvis and Jesus: A Tribute to the Kings."

Bailey believes the play goes a long way toward giving her mostly novice cast a broader stage experience. Though Central High drama students earned top honors in small-cast presentation at last year's Florida Thespian Competition in Tampa, Bailey felt the students had earned the right to try a larger ensemble production with separate casts for two performances.

For Jordan Koenig and Alexandra Fitzpatrick, both of whom have worked mostly in limited solo and duet roles, being on stage with a half-dozen other actors took some getting used to.

"It was a little crazy at first," said Koenig, a junior who plays intrepid radio reporter Missy Goode. "Everyone had to get used to moving around on stage without getting in each other's way."

Fitzpatrick, who portrays Harlene Acres, said that what her teacher taught her about stage movement was just as important as delivering dialogue.

"You know the dialogue is funny, but you also have to have the right physical motions to make it work," she said. "That's more difficult when you have a lot of people on stage. It took me a while to get used to it."

Though Radio TBS was written for an all-female cast, Bailey decided it was all right to fudge a bit by putting her male actors, Matthew Frketic and Eric Bratton, into drag roles. The result was better than Bailey ever imagined.

Said Bailey: "They're great. I was worried at first that they might not like the idea of playing women, especially being on stage as other women. The great thing is that they bring a dimension to their female characters that the girls might not have thought of."

The play is the first of two productions that Bailey has planned for her students. The second play, The Zen Substitute, is slated to be performed in January.

Logan Neill can be reached at lneill@sptimes.com or (352) 848-1435.

Fast facts

If you go

The Central High School drama department will present the comedy Radio TBS - Trailer Park Broadcasting Scandals at 7 p.m. Thursday and Dec. 14 at the school auditorium at 14075 Ken Austin Parkway, west of Brooksville. Admission is $5. For more information, call 797-7020.

[Last modified December 6, 2007, 19:51:24]