Musical Theatre Comes to the Palladium's Intimate Side Door Stage 7/20

The Palladium's Side Door Summer Concert Series continues in its intimate nightclub stage, the Side Door Cabaret, bringing the best in blues, jazz and more to Tampa Bay - and now, for the first time, two musical theatre productions, a Broadway award winner and a world premiere.

Opening July 20, the Obie Award-winning [title of show] is a musical-within-a-musical that follows the true story of a pair of struggling writers looking to create a Broadway hit. From the minds of the real former starving artists Hunter Bell (book) and Jeff Bowen (music and lyrics), the agony and ecstasy of making musical theatre was born from a script feverishly assembled weeks before the New York Musical Theatre Festival's submission deadline. The show became a certified Broadway hit. Bell and Bowen's actual stage personas go from desperately seeking inspiration, to realizing that their desperation is itself entertaining material. From showbiz in-jokes to off-hand anecdotes, everything is game in this completely original musical. Presented by Primo Academy of Dance and Vocal Arts, and directed by Taryn Holzhauer, Jonathan Poullot and Nathan Daugherty, evening performances will be offered Wednesday, July 20 through Friday, July 22, with a matinee on Sunday, July 24.

Wed., 7/20, 8 p.m.
Thurs., 7/21, 8 p.m.
Fri., 7/22, 9 p.m.
Sat., 7/23, 8 p.m.
Sun., 7/24, 2 p.m.
$20 advance, $22 day of show

From the creative mind of playwright Bill Leavengood, writer-director of the popular Webb's City, The Musical, comes the world premiere of Lourdes of the Flies - A Savage New Comedy! Opening on Friday, August 19 and running on consecutive weekends through Sunday, September 4, this "PG-13" show is a spirited farce about an eclectic group of college prep school girls who accidentally sink their cruise ship and struggle to create a new society on a Volcanic Island. Hanna, the acid-tongued Homecoming queen and prom committee chair, quickly splinters off into her tribe of popular girls and wannabes, while Lourdes, a heavily medicated, highly resourceful young woman is left behind with the other outcast-a-ways. Far from "civilization," and just as Lourdes begins to regain her true personality and confidence, transforming into an able leader, further complications arise when other survivors wash ashore: Billy Tweetwhistle, the once unpopular boy, now the only male within five hundred miles; Mrs. Clincher, the disciplinarian Assistant Headmistress, rewired after a blow to the head who believes she is the 18-year old bisexual nymphomaniac she once was; and a mysterious, "hot," one-legged pirate. Directed by William Leavengood, and produced by The Palladium, The Beth Morean Trust, and Will Knot Di Productions, Lourdes of the Flies stars talented young performers from New York, as well as from Tampa Bay colleges and high schools.

Fri. & Sat. 8/19 & 8/20 - 7:30 p.m. & 10:00 p.m.
Sun.8/21 - 3:00 p.m.
Fri. 8/26 - 7:30 p.m. & 10:00 p.m.
Sun. 8/28 - 3:00 p.m.
Fri. 9/2 - 7:30 p.m. & 10:00 p.m.
Sat. 9/3 - 7:30 p.m. & 10:00 p.m.
Sun. 9/4 - 3:00 p.m.
$20 adults; $15 students w/valid IDs