Royal Palm Players'
2010-2011 Season
Halloween Horror Night - October 30
Click HERE to Order Tickets
Why did the Werewolf cross the road? To get to The Temptation Restaurant for Royal Palm Players’ annual Halloween Horror Night, of course! The frightening fun starts at 7:00 p.m. Come join us for a monster of a meal, some terrifyingly scary skits and a creepy costume contest! You’ll just puke at the prizes we’ll award the winners! So, don’t be like Count Dracula who turns into a bat and flies away. I vant to see you dere!
The devilishly divine dinner is on you and the rest of the evil evening is only $25.00. Be there or be staked through the heart!
An Evening with Reyn Guyer - November 6
Reyn Guyer has written hundreds of songs in his lifetime. In a performance for the ROYAL PALM PLAYERS, he will share some of his favorites with his friends in Boca Grande. Reyn has brought the world the TWISTER game and NERF and KINGSCOURT. He chairs the WRENSONG MUSIC company which has a couple of country music songs of the year, a Grammy and many chart toppers. He also chairs WINSOR LEARNING and produces and writes LYRAS, a new-age jazz project. His latest creation is a musical called SOME TINY WAY.
Back By Popular Demand!!!!!
Sarasota Ballet - November 13Last year’s sellout performance led to the return of the outstanding dance troupe known as The Sarasota Ballet. They took us out of our daily routines, transformed the Community Center into a Magical Wonderland of Dance, and brought us into a world of glitter, glamour, excitement and spectacle. For almost two hours we were mesmerized as the Ballerinas leaped, pirouetted, and chassed their way into the hearts of the Boca Grande Community, and they did it all on point! The show ended with thunderous applause and a well deserved standing ovation. During the receiving line the words I heard the most were “We want them back”. Well folks, here they are once again to delight you with their twinkling toes.
"Hypnosis" - November 18, 19, 20, 21
The Great Gordo, an alcoholic stage hypnotist in the twilight of his career, randomly chooses Alan Briggs as his next stooge. Briggs, a mild mannered policeman, is a good sport; the audience laughs, and everyone goes home. For Gordo, it's just the end of another show, and time for a drink or three before bed. But some one out there has other ideas, Extraordinary ideas. The mind games begin, the stakes are raised, and we sense there can only be one winner.
"Belles" - December 2, 3, 4, 5
BELLES is a play in two acts and forty-five phone calls. The Walker sisters, born and raised in Memphis, now live in six different US cities and communicate solely by phone. The eldest, Peggy, who remained with Mama in Tennessee, calls her siblings when their mother is hospitalized - nothing serious, she just ate some bad tuna - but the phone calls lead to often comedic and sometimes brutal confrontations about the past and the present. You learn about each character, their relationship to each other, their relationship with their significant other, and their relationship with their Mother in this revealing play about family and love.
Guest Lecturer, Harm deBlij - January 8
Author, professor and television personality and Boca Grande’s own resident geographer, Harm de Blij for seven years was the popular Geography Editor on ABC's "Good Morning America". In 1996 he joined NBC News as Geography Analyst, appearing mostly on MSNBC. He was writer of and commentator for the original PBS Series "The Power of Place." His lectures on the Island have become legendary. They are always stimulating, always, thought provoking and always profound. Get your tickets very early for this lecture. The last one was sold out three weeks prior to the presentation. Our thanks to Harm DeBlij for his support of Royal Palm Players.
Harm’s scholarly work has been recognized through honorary degrees awarded by Marshall University, Rhode Island College, Grand Valley State University, North Carolina State University, and Michigan State University.
Harm has published more than 30 books including scientific, educational, and trade titles, and over 100 articles. In his most recent trade book, The Power of Place (2009, Oxford University Press) he argues that the world is not only not "flat", but becoming more corrugated. In Why Geography Matters (2007, Oxford University Press, paperback edition) he argues that America's persistent geographic illiteracy constitutes a national security risk. His textbook Geography: Realms, Regions and Concepts (Wiley) has exceeded 1.2 million copies in 14 editions since 1970.He specializes in geopolitical and environmental issues, and has held named chairs at Georgetown University, Marshall University, and the Colorado School of Mines. Harm currently is John A. Hannah Professor at Michigan State University. He was previously Distinguished Professor of Geography at Michigan State University, where he also taught throughout the decade of the 1960s. In the interim, he chaired the Geography Department at the University of Miami and served as editor at the National Geographic Society. His advocacy of Geography in the media and on the public lecture circuit has taken him to virtually all corners of the United States; his work in research, teaching, and television has spanned the globe.
Harm and his wife, Bonnie, share homes and offices in Chatham, Massachusetts and Boca Grande, Florida with their two dogs and a cat.
"Gangster Apparel" - January 13, 14, 15, 16
Small time hoods Louis and Joey are about to go out on the hit off a lifetime. But Louie tells Joey that clothes make the man and that his lack of style is holding back their careers. To Louie style is everything; the suits you wear, your haircut, the way you hold your gun. Dressed to perfection, they go out on the hit-a big success, except that they are identified by Joey’s yellow pocket handkerchief!
Locked in a cell, Louie decides they are not going to spend 25 years to life in orange prison jumpsuits, so he spills all he knows about “the Boss” to the Feds and gets them both into a witness protection program-unfortunately they’re placed in the Arizona desert, where the only fashion statement is jeans, plaid shirts and boots! Joey thrives there, Louie is miserable and, through an indiscreet phone call, leads the Boss’ hit men to them. This funny play is about betrayal and the battle of style over substance.
Poetry Night - January 19
How do I love Poetry Night? Let me count the ways… Everyone loves Poetry Night! Hosted by Royal Palm Players and performed at The Temptation Restaurant, it is an evening filled with original works and traditional works; an evening of poetry, short stories, odes and limericks. Join us for this annual event and bring out your “Inner Writer”. Tickets are only $12.00. Royal Palm Players wants to know: Do you Haiku?
"Murder At The 3rd Street Cafe" - January 28
Could it possibly be that there was a murder committed at the 3rd Street Café? Yes!!! A regular whodunit will be presented for you along with a special luncheon, at one of Boca Grande's favorite new eating spots. Enjoy a fabulous four course meal while watching some of your Royal Palm favorite actors entertain and thrill you. Can you figure out who the Murderer is? A clue sheet will be provided so you can submit your best guess along with your substantiating evidence. The winner will receive a gift and have the honor of being the Royal Palm Players’ “Super Sleuth Of The Year”!!!!!
Gala - February 5
Curtain up and light the lights because Royal Palm Players is happy to present our annual Gala. Join us for an evening of fine food, drink, music and merriment. It’s a chance to gather with all your Boca Buddies and talk about RPP’s fantastic season of entertainment. This is RPP’s most elaborate and fabulous fundraiser of the year! The proceeds go directly into our Preservation Fund assuring you another year of live theatre here on Boca Grande. So, support your local Community Theatre by attending our Gala. It will be the place to be seen!!!
"Snapshots" - February 10, 11, 12, 13
The play “Snapshots” by Cynthia Mercati, is presented in a series of vignettes depicting the lives of three women, Sherry, Carol and Hollis, spanning from their innocent adolescent explorations filled with dreams of what may come their way, to the time of their ultimate realizations. Each vignette contains a satisfying mixture of humor and pathos to delight the audience while leading them into the deeper and darker realms of human existence. The characters and dialogue ring true to life by holding a mirror to the audience which allows the audience to see themselves through the characters reflections. This is theatre as its best and it is a meaningful experience for the audience to be a part of it in this deceptively simple play.
The Building Blocks Of Acting - February 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
Men, do you think you have the potential to be the next George Clooney, Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp?
Ladies, do you think you have the potential to be the next Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie or Catherine Zeta Jones?
If you do, come join Royal Palm Players for the class that will tell it all, “The Building Blocks of Acting”. It will cover the basics of acting, being on a stage, and developing a character. Through exercises, technique and just plain fun, you will learn what it means to be an Actor. By the end of the class, you will have a monologue you can use for any audition you walk into and it will be one that will actually work for you!
The class instructor is Royal Palm Players Managing/Artistic Director Michele Strauss. It will be held in the Woman's Club Room at the Community Center from 10:00am -1:00pm. Seating for this special event is limited to 15 so sign up fast. Don’t miss your opportunity to find out what it means to be a STAR!!!
"A Bench In The Sun" - March 10,11,12,13
Click HERE to Order Tickets
Harold and Burt, longtime friends, live in a retirement home and spend their days on a bench in the garden bickering. A once famous actress named Adrienne, has just moved in, giving them something new to argue over. When they learn that the home is about to be sold and they will have to find a new residence, the three join forces to prevent this upsetting development. This simple story of how boring life’s excitement is when it is mainly in the past and not the future, provides many a hearty laugh. It is a light social commentary on old age that will surely leave you with joy in your heart.
Literature Forum - "Suddenly Last Summer" - March 18
The New York Herald Tribune states, " 'This,' says Mr. Williams through the most sympathetic voice among his characters, 'is a true story about the time and the world we live in.' He has made it seem true--or at least curiously and suspensefully possible--by the extraordinary skill with which he has sprung detail after detail out of a young woman who has lived with horror. Anne Meacham, as a girl who has been the sole witness to her cousin’s unbelievably shocking death, is brought into a ‘planned jungle’ of a New Orleans garden to confront a family that is intensely interested in having her deny the lurid tale she has told. The post-dilettante’s mother is, indeed, so ruthlessly eager to suppress the facts that she had the girl incarcerated in a mental institution and she is perfectly willing, once she finishes her ritualistic five o’clock daiquiri, to order the performance of a frontal lobotomy. A nun stands in rigid attendance; a doctor prepares a hypodermic to force the truth; greedy relatives beg her to recant in return for solid cash. Under the assorted and thoroughly fascinating pressures that are brought to bear, and under the intolerable, stammering strain of reliving her own memories, Miss Meacham slowly, painfully, hypnotically paints a concrete and blistering portrait of loneliness … of the sudden snapping of that spider’s web that is one man’s life, of ultimate panic and futile flight. The very reluctance with which the grim, hopeless narrative is unfolded binds us to it; Mr. Williams threads it out with a spare, sure, sharply vivid control of language…and the spell it cast.”
"A Bad Year For Tomatoes" - April 7, 8, 9, 10
Fed up with the pressures and demands of her acting career, the famous Myra Marlowe leases a house in the tiny New England hamlet of Beaver Haven, and settles down to write her autobiography. She is successful in turning aside the offers pressed on her by her long-time agent, but dealing with her nosy, omnipresent neighbors is a different matter. In an attempt to shoo them away, and gain some privacy, Myra invents a mad, homicidal sister - who is kept locked in an upstairs room, but who occasionally escapes long enough to scare off uninvited visitors. The ruse works well, at first, but complications result when the local handyman conceives an affection for "Sister Sadie' (really Myra in a fright wig) and some of the more officious ladies decide it is their Christian duty to save the poor demented Sadie's soul. In desperation Myra announces that her imaginary sibling has suddenly gone off to Boston - which brings on the sheriff, and the suspicion of murder! Needless to say, all is straightened out in the end.
Anna Awards - April 15
Come celebrate another year of extraordinary excellence in the world of theatre as Royal Palm Players presents “The Anna Awards”. Continuing in the “Oscar” style”, it will have presenters, entertainment, photo essays of nominees, winning envelopes and glamorous awards. Winners are determined by secret ballot, and counted behind closed doors the afternoon of the show. Don’t miss the opportunity to watch your favorite actor or actress win a coveted “Anna”. It’s Royal Palm Players’ chance to thank their Thespians for all their hard work. Don’t miss this exciting evening! Who do you think will win this year?
Annual Open Auditions - April 17
Royal Palm Players is holding it’s annual open auditions on April 17, 2011. If you are interested in acting, singing, dancing or performing of any type, please join us at the Community Center Auditorium from 5:00 pm till 7:00 pm for this open audition. We are filling the open roles for our 2010-2011 season and would love to see you there. Please bring a headshot and a resume with you and be prepared to either do a 2-3 minute memorized monologue, sing, dance, play an instrument, etc. We are looking for anyone who has talent and likes to perform!!!
