by dick kerekes dickkerekes@yahoo.com
St Augustine’s Limelight Theatre will be exploring one of America’s favorite pastimes, with Kelly Monaghan’s musical revue, Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know. What a perfect city to present this play, since St. Augustine ranks as one of the top ten tourist destinations in the Southeast.
This two-act musical has thirty-eight sketches of varying lengths and many are accompanied by some witty, original songs. The entire show has a total travel time of less than two hours. It is based on a book of the same name by Wendy Perrin.
Without going into detail on the skits, by just running down some of the song titles I can give you a pretty good idea of some of the topics covered. Among them are ‘Naked in Pittsburgh’, ‘Reservations’, ‘Hertz’, ‘Customs’, ‘Seeing America First’, ‘The Buffet’, ‘Paradise Found’, ‘Salzburg’, ‘Traveling Light’, ‘Aging Planes’ and ‘Border Guard.’
Glenn Simoneaux Entertainment Inc. produced the show, and Mr. Simoneaux did all the casting and, apparently, the directing. Paul Holzmeyer designed the set, with the lighting design by Ian Jurgensen.The musical director is Ellen Milligan, who also plays the piano accompanied by Sean Tarleton on bass.
I had seen this show a couple of seasons back at Theatre Jacksonville and liked it very much. I do think the Limelight stage was better suited since there are only four in the cast and the smaller space makes it a much more intimate setting. I loved the Eiffel Tower, and city skyscrapers as a background with very colorful travel posters framing the picture on both sides of the stage.
Limelight has a very talented cast for this show. Blake Osner, who was in the TJ. Production, recreates his award-winning role. He has a natural comic talent with a fine voice and is very capable of portraying a wide range of characters.
Marriage, they say, changes people’s lives, and apparently this is true for Amy Allen, who is now Amy Allen Farmer. Since she tied the knot with hubby Rick, she has been doing many more shows all over the North Florida area. That is good news for theatergoers because I don’t know of any singer in this area who can sing so many different styles of songs and sing them so well. She is an exceptional talent. Amy goes from singing a song in French to being a pregnant country singing waitress at a bus stop at the drop of a hat, and she makes a lot of other musical stops along the way.
If you have been a regular at the Alhambra Dinner Theatre for the past few years, the name Dana Branch will ring a bell. Ms. Branch did a number of roles there several years ago including Jan in Grease, Ado Annie in Oklahoma and Nelly in South Pacific. She has been living in New York City, but is now back in the River City area. I especially liked her in the spicy number “Acapulco” in this show.
Tyler Hott rounds out the cast. He is seeking a Music Education degree from UNF and modestly lists only one credit in his program biography - an appearance in last year’s The Pirates of Penzance. I have to think he has done a lot more than that since he has a great deal of stage presence in both the singing and acting departments.
Costumer Stacey Capo keeps the cast in appropriate costumes that are a bit crazy at times, but add to the fun.
Missing in the playbill is a credit for the person responsible for sound, and I refer particularity to the mics used by the actors. Great job! Even though this theatre is small enough not to use mics, they added so much to the quality of the voices we heard in this show. I hope Limelight will do this all the time.
This is a show that everyone can relate to, even if you don’t travel. Now, raise your hand, how many of you have been put on hold, and put on hold and put on hold again and again. One asset of this show is the vast selection of material. If you don’t like a particular song or sketch, take a breath, it will be over quickly and you are bound to like the next one.
Secrets will be on stage until April 7. Performances are Thursday through Sunday at the Joukowsky Family Foundation Center for the Performing Arts, 11 Old Mission Ave, St. Augustine. Call 825-1164 for reservations. It’s time to take a short trip for very funny show about traveling.
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