If you follow the ebb and flow of political conversations in St. Pete, you may notice something: sometimes, all the key players take themselves way too damned seriously.
Of course, given the tendency for angry mobs to grab their pitchforks every time an official utters a poorly worded phrase on one of the city's many pet issues (the Pier, the Rays, transit), it's no wonder everyone around here is so cautious. Especially as the next election nears.
That's why it was so refreshing to watch the Radio Theatre Project do a little joshing at the expense of local politicians in a short performance Monday night at Studio@620 as part of a benefit for the project, which is celebrating its seventh anniversary.
The production featured some key players in local politics, including St. Pete City Councilman Steve Kornell and SaintPetersBlog/Florida Politics reporter Janelle Irwin (disclosure: Irwin is a close friend of mine). Mayor Rick Kriseman was supposed to be there, but wound up having to head to Toronto for a trade conference. So he prerecorded the segment's intro and outro.
The production's writers were Paul Wilborn (a former Tampa Bay Times reporter who now runs the Palladium) as well as Matt Cowley, a musician, playwright and IT professional. The plot was an installment of The Continuing Adventures of Noel Berlin, Cabaret Detective, essentially a murder mystery spoof.
While Kriseman (and a stand-in for much of the segment) played a character called "Mayor Niceman," Kornell's name didn't change. There was also a mystery councilwoman on the roster. Wilborn's character was a detective who was trying to help the city officials escape certain doom after they were trapped in the old YMCA building by a homicidal maniac.
Also making an appearance (and seeming to have a good time with it) was former Tampa mayor Dick Greco, who recently moved to St. Pete.
Some of the production indeed played out very much like those long City Council meetings St. Pete is known for.
"I really need a better assessment of the choices," Kornell said at one point, as the characters were forced to pick one of three doors in order to escape.
There were no sacred cows: the stadium issue got made fun of, as did the Pier, the recycling controversy, the infamous raw sewage dump, the recycling snafu and even the city's burgeoning arts scene.
"If we waited any longer it'd turn into an art space and we'd all have to get ethically sourced artisan tattoos," said one character of the vacant YMCA building near the end of the show.
Even the reveal of the villain was spot-on.
Podcasts of the event should be available soon on the project's SoundCloud page and at radiosoundstage.com.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2015.
