This season will be Theatre Conspiracy’s last in Southwest Florida. Founder and Producing Artistic Director Bill Taylor has announced a lineup of 11 blockbuster shows for its farewell tour. Since the company is no longer at the Alliance for the Arts, it has arranged to stage this season’s shows in the Off Broadway Palm, Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium and The Laboratory Theater of Florida.
“It’s really an emphasis on what Theatre Conspiracy has been. This is what we’ve done, the classics to the cutting edge. You know, we’ve got ‘The 39 Steps,’ but we’ve got ‘Muttnik.’ It’s a great variety of shows. We’re bringing the fringe shows in, which was what we started to do towards the end there, and we’re also going to be raising money for nonprofits, something we’ve done through our history, as well.”
In addition to “The 39 Steps,” the Off Broadway Palm will host Frank Blocker and Chuck Richards’ comedy “Eula Mae’s Beauty, Bait & Tackle,” Keith Alessi’s internationally traveled fringe show “Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life,” one of Taylor’s bucket list shows, “Escaped Alone” by Caryl Churchill, a Halloween ghost improv show, a piano/vocal duo and, finally, “Sharing the Same Umbrella” by Broadway Palm’s own Wayne Keller.
“Three shows at the Off Broadway Palm are also two-for-one tickets – ‘39 Steps,’ ‘Escaped Alone’ and ‘Sharing the Same Umbrella’ - two-for-one tickets, again, giving back to the community, trying to make things affordable and get people out to the theater.”
In December, Petunia, Popo and company will take charge of the Lab Theater for “Clown Bar Christmas,” followed by another fringe show, “Candy Roberts Is Larry,” in January and the eighth installment of August Wilson’s Century Cycle plays, “Two Trains Running,” in February.
“Even though that’s technically our last show in Southwest Florida, they’ve agreed to produce the final two shows after that so … the cycle will be in good hands. Sonya will finish up the whole thing at the Lab.”
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Theatre Conspiracy will be at the Off Broadway Palm for June, July and August.
“The first show we have is ‘Eula Mae’s Beauty, Bait & Tackle,’” said Taylor. “Frank Blocker from Naples originally wrote this. It played Off Broadway in New York years ago. So he’s going to bring that for one weekend to start things off in June.”
Written by Frank Blocker and Chuck Richards in the tradition of “Greater Tuna,” “Eula Mae” was performed Off Broadway in the spring of 2001.
Blocker and Richards set their show in Odeopolis, Alabama, where former rodeo circuit star Eula Mae is busy establishing a new business, Eula Mae’s Beauty, Bait and Tackle – formerly Eula Mae’s Bait and Tackle, but changed to accommodate the town’s need for an “all-in-one shop.” Eula Mae is also working to facilitate her niece, Rita Mae Raspberry’s sixth consecutive campaign to become Miss Alabama. This year, she’s aimin’ to win. As Rita Mae says, “You have to want that crown body and soul.” After all, Miss Alabama is not just another pageant. It won’t happen, however, if the interview, swimsuit, and talent competitions have anything to say about it. Helping the facade are all the colorful characters that made the play an institution in Atlanta, where it ran for nine years.
After that, Theatre Conspiracy will bring “The 39 Steps” to the Off Broadway Palm.
“’The 39 Steps’ is a takeoff on the Alfred Hitchcock movie,” Taylor pointed out. “It’s fun and fast-paced, with four actors playing 50 different characters, complete with costume changes. Just a bunch of fun.”
After a break for the Fourth of July, Taylor and company will return to the Off Broadway Palm with “Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life.”
“Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life” features “recovering corporate CEO” Keith Alessi, who learned to play the banjo after being diagnosed with a rare form of esophageal cancer caused by years of acid reflux that was aggravated by his highly acidic, Italian-based diet and super stressful occupation doing triage on financially troubled public companies.
At the time of his diagnosis, Alessi had a collection of 52 banjos – one for every week of the year. But he didn’t play a note. Ever since hearing the first strains of “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” when “The Beverly Hillbillies” first aired in September of 1962, Alessi had been enamored of the banjo’s unique sound. Although he never made the time to learn to play the tricky instrument, he had a weakness for the banjo and over a span of years he’d bought a prodigious collection of banjos which he squirreled away in closets, under beds and in the other nooks and crannies of his home.
Told he only had a 50/50 chance of living another year and less than 15 percent chance of making it for five, he realized it was now or never. “Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life” is the story of Alessi’s newfound drive to master the banjo … and negotiate the outrageous slings and arrows of aggressive cancer treatment.
The result is an engaging hour of storytelling sprinkled with humor, peppered with sage, down-home observations about life and living, and accompanied by banjo tunes that range from folk and bluegrass to jazz, blues and classical. In fact, audiences will revel in a deft introduction not just to the genre, but the history of the instrument from its earliest days, when the banjo provided settlers and the enslaved with the means to express their longing and love for the homes they’d left behind.
That said, what comes across most during this compelling hour of storytelling is Alessi’s authenticity and vulnerability. He’s genuine. He’s charming. He’s endearingly self-deprecating. And he’s clearly grateful for the opportunities he’s been given … notwithstanding – or perhaps because of – the numerous obstacles that fate has thrown in his path. But as the artist says a number of times, he’s a windshield, not a rearview mirror, type of guy. After all, you can’t look forward if you’re mired in the past.
In Alessi’s rearview mirror are more than 370 performances dating back to 2018 (including performances at Squeaky Wheel Fringe Festival in Sarasota and Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland in 2024), with aggregate audiences exceeding 30,000 people and a gate exceeding $1,000,000, all of which he’s donated to charity.
“It’s the first of three international fringe touring shows that we’re bringing to town,” said Taylor. “’Tomatoes’ is played all over world. He’s raised over a million dollars for nonprofits and charities all over the world. Just an absolutely incredible guy.”
Taylor noted that Alessi’s weekend performance will raise money for six different nonprofits in the area, including Florida Repertory Theatre, Players Circle Theatre, Barbara’s Friends (which is a Golisano Children’s cancer fund), The United Way of Lee County, Acoustic Music Society and the Americana Community Music Association.
“So those six groups will benefit from those shows,” Taylor added. “And the great thing about that also is Keith has said that if the shows sell out – we’re splitting the money with those nonprofits – he’ll donate another thousand dollars to the nonprofits. So just an amazing guy, an amazing show, a chance to raise a bunch of money for some nonprofits.”
British playwright Caryl Churchill’s “Escaped Alone” debuted at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2016 to strong reviews. “The Atlantic” theater critic noted that while “Escaped Alone” retains the leftist and feminist politics of Churchill’s best-known works “Top Girls” and “Cloud 9,” it also has a “fractured, occasionally abstract” quality which “points to Samuel Beckett.”
The play’s title refers to the biblical book of Job from which the play also takes an epigraph.
The play opens as Mrs. Jarrett walks down a suburban street. Peering through an open garden gate, she sees three women whom she knows sitting together in a garden around an untouched tea tray. They invite her in, Mrs. Jarrett sits, and the four women continue to discuss personal topics in an easygoing way, from the trivial (lost keys) to the serious (battles with disease). All four women are over 70 and have long working and family lives behind them. The tea is never served.
This pleasant conversation is frequently interrupted, however, by Mrs. Jarrett, who stands to address the audience for brief monologues. In these asides, she appears to be narrating a totally different reality (or set of realities), in which civilization has come to an apocalyptic end. She describes flooding, fires, mass evacuations, rock falls, and countries turned into desolate wastelands. There is a slightly absurdist tone to most of her descriptions of this world: “The number of birth deformities outstrips the yearly immigration of plastic surgeons.” Over time, these monologues contradict each other, offering alternate versions of the apocalypse. In one, rocks are engineered by corporations to fall on the underclass—individual rocks are targeted at the heads of each child—and the survivors move underground. In another, flooding forces people to move onto their roofs, where they hunt pigeons with nets. The monologues give no clue about whether they are truth or fantasy, or why Mrs. Jarrett is their speaker.
“I’ve got four amazing actresses in it,” said Taylor. “Karen Goldberg, Diana Fassaro, Nancy Antonio and Sonya McCarter all star in that show.”
After that, Theatre Conspiracy will stage a weekend of one-night shows.
“’Oops We’re a Troupe Improv’ is doing a Halloween ghost improv thing and then Katelyn and Jules is in concert for one night,” Taylor revealed.
Katelyn and Jules is a piano/vocal duo. They also have a 2022 EP that contains a combination of original songs and a few carefully selected covers. Their 60th anniversary release of Roy Orbison's classic "Candy Man" features Roy's original harmonica player, Charlie McCoy. Their new single, "Rise and Fall" was recently nominated for the 9th Annual Josie Music Awards at the Opry House in Nashville.
“Following that, for people that don’t know, over Theatre Conspiracy’s history we had an annual New Play Contest for over 20 years,” Taylor continued. “We produced a bunch of world premiere shows. We’re actually going to be producing our 37th world premiere production, and the great thing about the 37th production, it’s a local playwright, Wayne Keller, who works at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre. He wrote ‘Cock Talk’ for Fringe a couple of years ago. He’s got a wonderful, beautiful piece called ‘Sharing the Same Umbrella’ that he’s just written. So we’re going to be producing that and that will wrap things up at the Broadway Palm for the summer.”
In November, Theatre Conspiracy will do a fundraiser for the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium with the second of the fringe touring shows called “Muttnik.”
“I don’t know if you know that the Soviet Union had a space program where they were sending dogs into space,” said Taylor. “The very first dog they sent into space, Bruce Ryan Costella from Orlando has written a show about. And he plays the dog in a space capsule.”
Drawn from historical fact, “Muttnik” is a story about life, death and purpose all told from the perspective of a Russian pooch. With the help of the Pipsqueak Collective, “Muttnik” debuted at the 2018 Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival to incredible critical reception. Multiple sell-out performances and overwhelming audience responses have led to the next journey for this good dog.
“I saw this show in Orlando and I was thinking, ‘Oh, what a cute little play. Let’s go see what this is all about,’” said Taylor. “He’s playing the dog and everything. You think ‘Sylvia’ from A.R. Gurney years ago. It’s outrageous, but it is a funny, sweet, heartwarming and ultimately moving show that I just left the theater going, ‘Are you kidding me?’ And I knew I had to bring it to town. So Bruce Ryan will be here for November for our fundraiser for the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium for one weekend only to be performed in the planetarium just like we did ‘The Women Who Mapped the Stars.’”
Theatre Conspiracy’s final three “Farewell Tour” shows all take place at The Laboratory Theater of Florida.
“We were fortunate enough The Laboratory Theater of Florida had agreed to do some joint productions with us,” Taylor reported. “So in December, we’re going to be bringing ‘Clown Bar Christmas’ to the Lab. [Laughing] The third installment of it. Popo, Petunia, Happy, all those guys are back for one more show. And the craziness is just as crazy for Christmas.”
In January, the third of the international fringe touring shows, “Candy Roberts is Larry,” comes to The Lab.
“I saw this show several years ago in Orlando, and again, just absolutely blew me away. She plays a typical Canadian guy who’s trying to find himself. It’s funny as all get out. So she’ll be here for one weekend.”
Then to wrap things up in February, Laboratory Theater of Florida will partner with Theatre Conspiracy to produce “Two Trains Running.”
“The Lab has been incredibly gracious – all the theaters in the area have been incredibly gracious since we departed the Alliance – they’ve agreed to finish the August Wilson Century Cycle,” Taylor said.
“For not having a home, we’ve got 11 shows. I mean, that’s probably more than some theater companies in the area that have homes.”
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.