Saturday night we attended a play presented by The Suncoast Players, a group that performs original plays and music. The play,The Case of the Golden Girl, was a benefit for the Lemon Bay Historical Society and part of the Lemon Bay Fest this past week.
Fictional Englewood FL detective, Billery Dean, has a sister, Hillary, who ends up in Las Vegas and is hired as a security guard at the Golden Girl Casino in 1958. Two chorus girls from the casino are murdered. In between lounge acts (including a "George Burns/Gracie Allen" bit and a You Bet Your Life show episode with "Groucho Marx"), Hillary figures out who the perpetrator is.
Not only could the cast members sing, but several of them wrote the original music that was performed. The play was funny and even included audience participation. The audience members who ended up on stage had no inhibitions and got into their roles with lots of enthusiasm.
The Suncoast Players is a division of the Suncoast Writers Guild which was organized in 1990. I'm not sure how many writers belong to the Guild, but it looks like a very active group of authors, playwrights, poets, and song writers. In general, this area of Florida seems to have a thriving creative culture.
And a live music scene. On Sunday afternoon we went to Laishley Park in Punta Gorda for a concert with the Country Express Band sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club. Fortunately, we had camp chairs with us and found a shady spot to sit and enjoy the music. We also met a couple from Indiana and had a nice visit with them.
I learned from Sandy (the woman from Indiana) that one can substitute the words for Amazing Grace to the melody of The House of the Rising Son. Who knew? And when the band played her House request, I substituted the words. Sure enough, it worked!
A lot of live music venues here and we hope to hear a few more local bands at neat outdoor venues in the next three weeks.
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