(I had second thoughts about writing this review only because I want this theatre experience not to change in response to the greater audiences it deserves. PETERSBURG freeFall will start off 2023 with a new play by Mat Smart, winner of the Inge Festivals Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award. Petersburg’s Freefall Theatre has announced its return to traditional programming with the 2021-22 mainstage season. While Davis’ Holmes and McGee’s Watson are more or less straightforward, the others seem to have exploded out of a Warner Brothers cartoon. Petersburg-a fifteen minute drive from downtown-this little theatre stands alone in a tree-lined half-block, with its own ample parking lot and user-friendly staff and policies. Following a year of offering safer ways to experience live theater, St. The freeFall performers are Kelly Pekar, Robert Teasdale and James Putnam, and they are never still. The setting of Freefall Theatre couldn't be better. Another unusual offering, Lorca's "The House of Bernarda Alba" (the musical version) was compelling and effective as it paired the play with flamenco music and dance. This is a review not only of this show, however, but of arguably the best little professional theatre in all of the Tampa Bay area! Their production of "Cabaret" went into multiple "encore" performances, thanks to audiences clamoring for more. And their solos and harmonies in a score based in blue-grass accompanied by a live instrumental group of five, captured the pathos of the story without sapping its beauty and strength. But the liveliness and passion of the teenaged sons of the miners, their humor, their idealism, and their heroism, completely captivated the audience throughout the two-hour show. We saw a little-known play from 2010-"The Burnt Place Boys." It's the story of the consequences on a family of a West Virginia mining disaster, when the mining company is ready to reopen a mine that is the gravesite (the "burnt place") of many of the fathers of the small community. "Intimate musical theatre" might seem like an oxymoron. Last Sunday (when Freefall had a Father's Day special-Dad's got in free) our chairs were in the top row, but we still were never more than 30 feet away from the actors, and (because of the smart "pitch" of the risers) we had great sight-lines for the action performed on a rectangular stage viewed "in the round." Freefall's artistic director is exceptionally talented, so the plays (often musicals), other directors, and casts are always well-chosen, the conception is imaginative and engaging, and the pacing is impeccable. The theatre itself is simple, small, and intimate-something unusual and precious these days. There’s a reference to the paid endorsements Beard received for products he didn’t always stand behind and a brief quip about his penchant for cooking in the nude, much to the annoyance of his neighbors.I've been to several Freefall Theatre productions over the past couple of years, and have never had anything but an exceptional and satisfying theatre experience. Viewers learn how opera, not the culinary arts, was Beard’s first real passion - and the disappointment he suffered when a career in the dramatic arts (he also gave theater and Hollywood a whirl) didn’t pan out. Potatoes, wrapped in wet newspaper and tucked under hot coals right on the beach.īut the play also references the harsher aspects of Beard’s life: his personal struggles as a gay man during a time when homosexuality was still very taboo the inevitable heartbreak that comes from unrequited love. freeFall Theatre discounts - what to see at St. Petersburg’s Michael Raabe and Eric Davis and first announced for freeFall Theatre’s 2019-20 season, is finally going to see the light of day. It looks like the musical OZ, written by St. In one scene, McGee recalls digging for razor clams off the Oregon coast. Ebony Repertory Theatre's 'Blues in the Night' comes to freeFall in 2023. The food descriptions are vivid and sensual. Local actor Matthew McGee paints a vivid picture of the Pacific Northwest landscape that inspired Beard’s love of cuisine and a childhood rich with culinary experiences. Matthew McGee stars as James Beard in "I Love to Eat" at Freefall Theatre in St.
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