Our Theater, Our Story: Shaping Dunedin’s Cultural Future
What is the Current Status of the Dunedin Public Theater?
How May I Help Make This a Reality?
What Might Guest-Presented Programs Be Like?
With the inevitability of a snowball rolling down a steep hill, the Dunedin Public Theater’s momentum seems unstoppable. In just over two years, dedicated citizens produced a series of fundraising events through a range of pilot performing arts experiences across the city to find the pulse and interest of residents and visitors. Many Dunedin restaurants stepped forward to host events or to provide food/drink in support of the endeavor.
NYC’s Stan Baker in Party Clown for the Rich and Famous photo by Paul Cook
With each event, the project is gaining sponsors, donors, and volunteers, amassing over 1500 followers and raising significant funds for a feasibility study, which is now underway. While there are currently four possible locations under consideration with owners eager to be partners, the importance of an unbiased, disinterested analysis is crucial. Is this an impossible pipe dream or the answer to a prayer that will deliver a professional performance space tailored to the needs of northern Pinellas County?
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The survey will be the springboard for detailed analysis of population growth, plus income and education demographics. The market research assessing sustainability will examine capital and operational costs vs. revenue potential with public and private funding.
This week was a prime example of the kinds of programs and partnerships that might be brought in to balance locally produced artists. DPT joined with Dunedin Pride and Better Living for Seniors to present edgy NYC actor/comedian Stan Baker (aka "The Human Television"), who brought his captivating solo show, Party Clown of the Rich and Famous to an enthusiastic full house of supporters at the Scottish American Society. Baker’s series of true-life adventures covers outrageous “cognitive dissonance.”
Just how does a struggling actor dressed in bunny ears or a ‘70s turquoise tux end up kneeling before Salvador Dali being showered with gold coins—that turn out to be chocolate? Or wearing a series of grotesque oversized papier-mâché heads that actually feel claustrophobic from the inside? The kicker is that these comic impersonations happen in front of the subjects—notably Bob Hope, Robin Leach (TV host of Lifestyles of the R&F) and closeted NYC Mayor Ed Koch—with Baker inside the ginormous Koch head on the front page of The Daily News. He also chronicles his drug-fueled escapades with beautiful mutually horny dancers and coked up gangsters out of The Godfather. Plus a few scathingly funny encounters with a self-absorbed NY developer with a penchant for putting his name on buildings, notably a eponymous TOWER.
However, it’s not all giggles at the expense of rich narcissists. Baker often shared his event spaces with drag artists and gay party planners. His emotion bubbles over as he recalls the deaf ears from the mayor as the HIV/Aids crisis appears and slowly picks off his many friends—outlining their names from a painful network of loss that spanned a decade spilling into the 1990s. It’s brief, but it hits the audience like a left hook.
And, like many children of the 60s, Baker came of age in the era of recreational drug use. He became obsessed with “booger sugar.” Luckily, the now sober comic, regales us with the vivid imagery of his first steps on the road to recovery. It seems if you lose your cookies inside one of the giant heads, that there’s the unforgettable image of projectile vomit shooting out of Bob Hope’s eyes. But rather than losing his job as expected, his boss expresses confidence that Baker can get clean. He confesses it was a long, hard road, but it began with HOPE.
And hope is the perfect noun for the current moment. You can see it in the eyes of the DPT supporters. They are realists, who continue their diligent work while the consultants gather data and prepare spreadsheets. But, in their bones, they feel the momentum. The proverbial snowball is gathering size and speed on its journey with a sense of inevitability that feels relentless.
Jon Palmer Claridge
Critic Emeritus, Creative Loafing, Tampa