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June 5, 2007 No. 34
Vol. 85
This Week’s Program: Bob Devin Jones, Artistic Director of Studio@620
Bob Devin Jones, a
native of Los Angeles, has been a Theatre Worker for over twenty-five
years. Since 2002 he has worked as a Florida Humanities “Road Scholar”
presenting Voices from the Harlem Renaissance. He began his career as
an actor performing in Shakespeare Festivals which have included those
in Oregon, Berkeley, Illinois, Idaho, and American Stage’s Shakespeare
in the Park. A graduate of Loyola Marymount University, he also
attended the American Conservatory in San Francisco, as well as a
one-year tutorial at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London,
England.
For the past fourteen
years Bob Devin Jones has worked in the Theatre primarily as a
Playwright and as a Director. As a writer he has received play
commissions from theaters across the country which include “Miss Julia”
for American Stage, “The Manhattan Casino," and “I Got ‘Em” for Live
Arts, “Clarissa Street Reunion” for the Geva Theatre in Rochester, New
York, and the “Millennium Monologues” for the Sacramento Theatre
Company. This past summer Bob’s newest play, “Further Down the Road,”
inspired by the Florida Highwaymen painters, had its debut at Studio@620
in St. Petersburg. Bob's first play “Uncle Bends a home-cooked negro
narrative” was developed at the New Works Festival at the Mark Taper
Forum in Los Angeles. He has performed “Bends” at the Cork Arts
Festival in Ireland, the New York Theatre Workshop, the Piccolo Spoleto
Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, and at American Stage. His
directing assignments include “The Black Nativity” and "Smokey Joe’s
Cafe" at the Palladium Theater, the Young Dramatist Project at the
Gorilla Theatre in Tampa, the West Coast premieres of “Dinah Was” in Los
Angeles, and “On the Hills of Black America” in San Francisco, the
theatrical world premiere of “Tommy J and Sally” for Woolly Mammoth and
Theatre “J” in Washington DC, which he first directed for the New
Voices/ New Vision Festival at the Kennedy Center. He also directed
“Miss Julia” for American Stage, as well as “From the Mississippi
Delta.” For the past eight seasons Bob has been resident director for
the Low Country Shakespeare Festival in Beaufort, South Carolina. He
has been a resident of St. Petersburg since 1997, participating in many
educational and cultural organizations, which include Academy Prep, City
of St. Petersburg Arts Advisory Committee, the Florida Humanities
Council and a Fellow of the Florida Studies program at USF.
Bob sits on the boards
of the Art Center, Creative Clay, and First Night St. Petersburg. He is
the recipient of numerous awards and grants -- the Weekly Planet Best of
the Bay: Directing 2001, Playwright 2002, New Gallery (Studio @ 620)
2005, Bank of America 2005 Local Hero Award, Theatre Communication Group
(TCG) Artist Collaborative Grant, Los Angeles Cultural Affairs, and
Florida Humanities Grant. Bob is Artistic Director of Studio@620, a
recently launched creative venue in downtown St. Petersburg.
Welcome, Bob! If "the
play's the thing," we stand to learn much from a master of the form!
Last Week at
Kiwanis (according to Bob Piplitz):
Well
I’m back for an encore, hopefully my swan song also. Frank Ranieri
asked me if I could help take notes. Thinking this was an easy
collaborative effort I accepted. I then watched in horror as Frank
proceeded to plop down, kick off his shoes, and doze off. Note to self:
If Cynthia McGowan is noticeably absent, avoid Frank Ranieri.
To be
fair Frank did wake up long enough to stumble through an invocation
using the word commonality in a vain attempt at coherence. Frank
must have graduated from the Mitch Cochran School of
invocations. Ron Scoggins led the singing of our 53 members and 6
guests in limp-wristed fashion and was later fined by the never-present
David Feaster.
JC
Russell
did an excellent job giving away $1,250 to a 2007 Al Muter Scholarship
runner up, Ian Markwood. Ian has a 4.05 from Canterbury, honor
societies, and 20 -25 hours per week at Chick-fil-A on his impressive
resume . Ian will study technology at Hillsdale College in the frozen
north of Michigan. Ian’s proud parents were also in attendance. Last
years winner, Jalesa Foster was back from Flagler College and
collected her second installment. She got a 3.0 GPA and her basketball
team was 13-16 overcoming a lot of turnover in players and coaches.
Other
guests included Eddie Lee, Lt. Gov. It is newsworthy to note
Eddie did not get time at the microphone. Michael Brown brought
Marie Jarrett who sounded French.
Lorin
Bridge
mumbled something about the golf tournament. “Pee off“ starts at
12:45. (He also was fined by Feaster for being disgusting.) There are a
few stiffs that have yet to pay to play in the tournament. Lorin says
to bring cash to the event. There is a $650 prize which handicapper
Weyman Willingham is mostly likely to win.
Cyndi
Mulligan
brought grace and elegance to the podium and begged for more support for
the All Children’s Hospital telethon.
Bob
Byelick
talked up the Jim Fischer Birthday Bash (June 16th at the St.
Pete Country Club). Last year our club sponsored 22 youth (talk about
high impact) through this event. At only $1,375 per child we should
easily beat that number. Bring your donations no later than June 12th.
Al Karnavicius has the tickets.
Mitch Cochran
bombed with an old joke about peaches & peas and was booed.
Our
scheduled speaker, John Long had laryngitis, so
Kiwanian-of-the-Day, Nick Gizzarelli, scrambled and found Alma
R. Ayala, Director of Business and Community Development for the St.
Pete Chamber of Commerce. Alma has degrees from Yale and Harvard.
Under
new leadership the Chamber restructured and has grown from 1900 member
to 2300 members in one year. Retention has improved from 61% to 91%
during that time. They also trimmed the fat by reducing the board of
directors from over 40 to 21.
Alma
also talked about making connections but I sort of zoned out for a while
thinking about how Frank had screwed me.
I
tuned back in to catch the Chamber’s major initiatives: Affordable
housing for workers; and working with the Pinellas School Board to help
students figure out what to do and where to go post graduation.
Signature events included summits with movers and shakers on: the
homeless; creating a Political Action Committee for the first time in
108 years; creating a Chamber Foundation; Florida Economic Summit; and
minority business development. 36% of Floridians are minorities. More
important than the added competition are the benefits of added
consumers.
Bob
Piplitz,
with his classic good looks and slim physique, started the Q&A asking
about what the Chamber had in store for the homeless. Alma used many
fancy words from her days at Yale and Harvard to say the goal was to
find alternative living space to local business doorways. Al
Karnavicius followed up asking about a thick document that used to
circulate to the chamber members. Pat Biscotti confided to me
that Al was looking for some additional business.
Ron Scoggins
closed the meeting by leading a song with two-fisted enthusiasm
reminiscent of the Thrilla from Manilla. $1 fines can be very
motivational.
Editor's Note
(APOLOGY):
The
preceding article is the opinion of the writer, Bob Piplitz, and does
not reflect the opinion of the publishers of The Kiwanian and its
advertisers.
TODAY'S
QUIZ:
1. During World War II, only whole,
unsliced loaves were made available to the public. True or False?
2. Which planet's moons are named after
Shakespearean characters?
3. Which dying actor's last words were
"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis?" (Piplitz take
note.)
4. Every person has a unique what?
LAST WEEK'S QUIZ:
-
Reporter John Cameron Swayze was the
front man for Timex watches for many years.
-
In Sumatra, workers on coffee
plantations gather the world's most expensive coffee by following a
gourmet marsupial who consumes only the choicest coffee beans. By
picking through what he excretes, they obtain the world's most
expensive coffee -'Kopi Luwak', which sells for over $100 per pound.
- No
NFL team has ever played the Super Bowl on its own home turf.
However,
Super Bowl
XIV (which involved the then-Los
Angeles Rams) was played at nearby Pasadena's Rose Bowl
stadium; and
Super Bowl
XIX (which involved the
San Francisco
49ers) was played at the nearby
Stanford
Stadium on the
Stanford
University campus near
Palo Alto.
Neither of these stadiums (both neutral sites) has ever been a home
to an NFL team (though the 49ers played a home game at Stanford
Stadium vs. the
New England
Patriots after the
Loma Prieta
earthquake postponed the World Series a week and forced
the 49ers from
Candlestick
Park.)
-
The elements hydrogen, oxygen, and
carbon account for over 95% of the atoms in the human body and
in all known life.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
Bless the creators, O
God of creation, who by their gifts make the world a more joyful and
beautiful realm.
Through their labors they teach us to see more clearly the truth around
us.
In their inspiration they call forth wonder and awe in our own living.
In their hope and vision they remind us that life is holy.
Bless all who create
in your image, O God of creation. Pour your Spirit upon them that their
hearts may sing
and their works be fulfilling. Amen.
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