Daily Loaf

Welcome to On the Radar, where we preview up-and-coming arts events to mark your calendar for. This weekend, HCC’s Visual and Performing Arts Series presents a limited run of playwright Danny Hoch’s (pictured) acclaimed one-man show, Jails, Hospitals and Hip-Hop — with a twist.

Accompanying lone actor Curtis Belz’s eight monologue characterizations – which include Flip, a good ol’ boy from the Midwest who has come to identify with urban hip-hoppers; Bronx, a sidewalk vendor who gets pinched for selling without a license; and Sam, a prison guard with an anger management problem (evidenced by his beating a prisoner nearly to death) — are musician Matt Wetherington and choreographer/dancer DeMario Henry. Wetherington’s original score includes mixing on stage and live guitar; Henry shows off fresh hip-hop moves and dance, and his hip-hop troupe, the VYB Dance Company, kicks off the show. Sept. 17-19, 7:30 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., Hillsborough Community College – Ybor Campus, Performing Arts Building, Corner of Palm Avenue and 14th St., Ybor City,  $10 general admission, $5 students and seniors, free for HCC students, faculty and staff, 813-253-7695. – Lily Reisman

As a freelance artist I find myself in a lull of productivity sometimes.  In the springtime I tend to do a lot of administrative work for the Access Arts Scholarship program for the Patel Conservatory, so my artistic side isn’t being shopped out to other companies as much (i.e. I don’t audition for shows during that time.)

In these times I always think I am going to dust off that script of the one-woman show I’ve always wanted to work on.  Problem is, when you do a one-person project it seems like you have to do all the work for yourself; be your own motivator, be responsible to only yourself.  It’s hard to pull through on the deliverables when it is only you that you have to answer to.

Well, local actor Curtis Belz found the gumption, self-motivation, and two friends (eventually more), to pull off Danny Hoch’s (pictured) Jails, Hospitals and Hip-hop, a one-man show demanding that he play several personas, including Flip, a good ol’ boy from the Midwest who has come to identify with urban hip-hoppers; Bronx, a sidewalk vendor who gets pinched for selling without a license; and Sam, a prison guard with an anger management problem — evidenced by his beating a prisoner nearly to death. The show is playing tonight as Jobsite’s latest Job-side project. This is the second of two preview performances before its full incarnation in September at HCC Ybor. Read the rest of this entry »

Gorilla's Aubrey Hampton with four of this year's Young Dramatists.

The Tampa Bay area needs more playwrights. In the region of West Central Florida there are only 41 members of the Dramatists Guild — the national playwrights’ professional association — and of those 41, fewer than ten were sufficiently interested to come to Guild meetings in St. Pete last March, April and May. Where are the playwrights? Biding their time?

Maybe Gorilla Theatre can help. For the ninth year, this organization is hosting the Young Dramatists’ Project, a festival devoted to the best writing of local high school and middle school students. I attended last Sunday not to review the show, but to discover what our youngest playwrights might have to offer the area. Is there imaginative, innovative work coming from these teens? Might they eventually infuse the region with new talent?

Yes and yes. The first of the five plays that made it to the Gorilla stage this year uses instant messaging to tell us the story of a doomed love affair. Amanda Buck’s Sweet Nothings is about XXX2593 (Jamaica Reddick) and YYY4168 (Adom McRae), schoolmates who become sweethearts after she shows up as new girl at his high school. Buck has us watching on a large screen as the two lovers write each other over a period of months, and intersperses their writing with glimpses of their daily lives. Directed by David O’Hara, the play graphically demonstrates that even the most digital behavior can ingeniously be made theatrical. And even in the era of IM, love is still maddening.

Next on the lineup is Sam French’s This One Night in the Warehouse, a Pinteresque mindgame which sees two men (Chris Jackson and Curtis Belz) thrown into a locked room containing a gun with one bullet. Read the rest of this entry »

Bechir Sylvain, the picture says it all.

Last fall I had the incredible opportunity to work intimately on stage with Bechir Sylvain in Six Degrees of Separation.  I post his head shot because not only does it paint him as this irresistible yet down-to-earth-and-all-around-lovable, sincere guy.  It is also an accurate depiction of the actor who has claimed Tampa as his temporary home since the beginning of November.

When Bechir was offered the role of Mister at American Stage’s King Hedley II it seemed as though he might be our neighbor indefinitely. But, alas, his time in Tampa ends this weekend, and I wanted the Daily Loaf readers to know about this gem of an artist who has graced our stages and our local establishments for the last four months. Read the rest of this entry »

In the first episode of ArtsSpeak, Creative Loafing’s new podcast on the local arts scene, Creative Loafing editor David Warner (above left) talks to local actors Curtis Belz and Phillip Gulley (above right) about their roles in Six Degrees of Separation at Gorilla Theatre. Phil almost gossips, Curtis tries to explain why he keeps getting cast, and Warner reminisces about the good ol’ days (October, to be exact, when he  played Phil’s dad in The Chosen).

Download