Saturday March 24th, we started the day at the beach, managing to get there before noon, which was quite something. Really, we hurried because Amy was leaving that day and we had to get back and drive her to the airport.
We went up to the Blind Pass beach again and it was pretty danged crowded, but a good time was had by all.
The night before I’d been looking online for things to do in Englewood and happened upon the Lemon Bay Playhouse, which was doing the play “The Sweet Delilah Swim Club.” Hmm, weird. I’d been in “the Dixie Swim Club, twice, and was it the same play? Or maybe a sequel or something?
Same authors. I read the synopsis, and it was, indeed, the same play, only they’d changed the name. I kind of wanted to see it, to see how they compared and also to just watch the play instead of having to worry about performing in it. So I got us two tickets in the very back row, that’s all they had left, but it was something like Row K so I figured it must be a small theater.
So we had a brief but lovely time at the beach and then an uneventful drive to take Amy to the airport except when we were driving through Punta Gorda and there was suddenly a fair amount of traffic and I was in the turn lane but realized I didn’t want to be there and the person in back of me was laying on their horn like crazy which was unnerving a little. I’m not used to angry drivers so much.
Also, for some reason the navigation took us on a weird route and we drove on small roads and kept going through roundabouts. Odd. But fine, all was fine, Amy successfully made it onto her plane.
I was also curious to see downtown Englewood; online it claimed to be “historic downtown Englewood” and I thought it might be picturesque. We drove to the theater early so we’d have time to walk around and explore.
Not picturesque. Maybe anything interesting had been blown away in one of the hurricanes? There weren’t many businesses and those that were there were closed for the night. It was disappointing, but they did have some fun bird statues, mostly herons.
Mom had had enough walking so I hurried down the street hoping to see the ocean. And there it was. Nice. Especially since I hadn’t gotten to see the sunset on the beach.
As we almost got back to the theater, there was a vet called “grace vet” and so I had to take a picture. It had changing signs underneath and I really like this one. Remembering to be nice is important.
We found our seats and the theater was, indeed, small, plus kind of warm. The set was very nice. The patrons were almost all older than me, which makes sense.
And the play…well, it wasn’t horrible. It was, as I’d thought it might be, fun to watch instead of participating. But our productions were better. For one thing, the woman in the role of Jerri Neal, who Felicia Coulter portrayed, threw away all her lines. I mean, Felicia is such an incredibly gifted comedienne that even her expressions make you laugh.
The supposed hot babe, Lexie, just wasn’t. It would take a lot to surpass the lovely and talented Julie Staley, who was also very funny.
Jill Egizii had the role of Dinah in our versions and I didn’t realize just how awesome she was until seeing the woman in this play. Jill had a monologue that I didn’t listen to that much, but seeing this actress perform it made me appreciate Jill.
The oddest-looking character was Sheree. Like the other actresses, I didn’t realize how good Deb Kerley was until seeing this woman. She wore bad wigs, and looked odd, but it wasn’t until the final scene when we were supposed to be old and she had her natural grey hair did I realize that she’d been trying to play much younger than she really was.
And my part, Vernadette – well, the actress was the best of the bunch, and it was interesting to hear her say the lines I spent so much time on. For some reason, though, her costumes were ridiculous. Vernadette’s outfits were supposed to be eccentric, but hers were just odd.
It wasn’t a terrible way to spend the evening, and like I said, it made me appreciate just how good the women I performed with were.
We were going to stop for ice cream on our way home but things close up early there in Florida.
Ok then, Mrs. H.