Author: Dale King

New group set for WWII boogie-woogie

The Victory Dolls are just about ready to march.

The nine women who make up the newly formed patriotic vocal ensemble — all familiar performers on the South Florida theater circuit — have spent nearly a year perfecting their vintage, Andrews Sisters-inspired harmonies with a modern twist. They are already booked for two performances in September and hope to schedule more as their melodies, talents, and stories about the 1940s era and the Greatest Generation gain popularity.

The group — the first of its kind in South Florida — is planning annual tours of the Sunshine State and beyond, and will call several regional theaters home each season, including the Delray Beach Playhouse, Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center in Boca Raton, and the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center.

A meeting between a longtime theater manager and an award-winning singer who had created a World War II-style production led to the creation of a troupe that will sing tunes from the decade of war bonds, FDR’s “fireside chats,” ration stamps, victory gardens and a radio in every home.

Kevin Barrett, manager of the Delray Beach Playhouse and former director of the Coral Springs Performing Arts Center earlier this year traveled to New Orleans for the opening of the National World War II Museum.

Formerly the National D-Day Museum, the New Orleans venue recreated the legendary Stage Door Canteen, which features a production of World War II-era songs by the resident musical group, the Victory Belles.

“I thought, this would kill in Florida,” Barrett said.

“I remembered that Shelley Keelor did a World War II show here [at the Delray Playhouse] two years ago, so I pitched her the idea of creating one similar to the museum production. She loved it.”

Keelor, a stage and musical theater veteran who created the popular one-woman show Sentimental Journey: Songs of WWII, gathered a group of talented singer/actresses together and dubbed them the Victory Dolls. They’ve been rehearsing a program of 1940’s-era tunes since then.

The Victory Dolls roster of performers includes Keelor, of Jupiter, as leader of the pack, along with Sabrina Lynn Gore, Amy Miller Brennan, Leah Marie Sessa, Julie Kleiner, Jeanine Levy, Aaron Bower, Katie Angell Thomas, Jinon Deeb, and Ann Marie Olsen.

Phil Hinton creates original arrangements for the troop-praising troupe, and Carbonell Award-winning keyboardist Caryl Fantel is musical director.

Shows will feature classic hits from the war years: “When the Lights Go on Again,” “We’ll Meet Again,” “Hot time in the Town of Berlin,” “White Plains of Dover” and many of the Andrews Sisters’ hits such as “Rum and Coca Cola,” “Shoo Shoo Baby,” “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

Performances will benefit organizations including Honor Flight of South Florida, Gary Sinise Foundation, and Wounded Warriors Families Support.

The Victory Dolls’ signature show, I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen, will debut Fri., Sept. 20 in Delray Beach (DelrayBeachPlayhouse.com). The group will perform in Boca Raton (MiznerParkCulturalCenter.com) on Sat., Sept. 21. Tickets are $35 and $45. Future shows will have different themes, such as Rockin’ with the Dolls (1950s/’60s top hits), Home for the Holidays and All Dolled Up (Great American Songbook selections).

Exhibition reveals pre-stardom Cobain, Nirvana

Most people know two, maybe three things about Kurt Cobain. He founded the band Nirvana in Seattle, ground zero for grunge music. He was married to former stripper and punk-grunge bad girl Courtney Love. And he died at age 27 of a suicide said to be fueled by drug use and depression, just as the band reached its pinnacle.

Cobain was the straw-haired Nirvana front man who made his mark with crazed on-stage antics and blazing guitar riffs punctuating the band’s performances throughout the U.S. and Europe. Despite his and the band’s meteoric rise to super stardom, Cobain had a somber, lonely side —one not shown on stage or to the public until now.

“I was a friend of Kurt. He was a very sensitive, quiet, gentle person,” said Bruce Pavitt, co-founder of Sub Pop Records which put Nirvana’s early tunes on disc. The record man and former DJ spent eight days touring with the band in 1989, taking candid photos throughout, including some that capture Cobain in private, unguarded moments.

Pavitt’s photos have been published in Experiencing Nirvana, a book of 350 images. Selections from the book are on display at Pompano Beach Cultural Center, which on July 12 premiered the exhibition of 13 large-format frames from Pavitt’s collection.

“We were touring in Europe with two other grunge bands, Tad and Mudhoney,” Pavitt said. “The tour took a toll on Kurt. He was somewhat depressed in Rome and he had a breakdown. He smashed a guitar and climbed a 14-foot speaker tower, threatening to jump off.”

Cobain, exhausted from a dizzying zig-zag of European tour dates, worried the band might not perform up to par at an important concert in London.

“Spending six months on the road was pretty tough on Kurt. He was exhausted and downcast. But the tour brought the band together in a super tight way. When they played England, it was great.”

Not just great. The usually jaded British press proclaimed Nirvana was “Sub Pop’s answer to the Beatles.” The performance rocketed Nirvana and grunge to fame and is a seminal moment in rock ‘n’ roll history.

Pavitt’s exhibit is a photographic story of an iconic music breakthrough amid the early stages of what would become an equally iconic mental breakdown.

One particularly expressive photo in the display of 16-by-20-inch prints on aluminum shows Cobain outside a hotel in Rome, sitting with his head in his hands. Pavitt said it was taken the morning after Cobain’s meltdown.

In early 1994, Cobain went missing for six days after returning home from touring. On April 5, an electrician found his body. Dead of a head wound, Cobain had a shotgun lying across his chest and, nearby, a scrawled suicide note. An autopsy showed Valium in his bloodstream along with a high concentration of heroin.

Pavitt said Cobain’s passing was a death knell for grunge music, though other groups in the genre, Soundgarden in particular, continued to succeed.  “Kurt was a recluse,” he said, “he was not seen much socially. The more famous he got, the more reclusive he became.”

In the performing arts field, Emily Tarallo is considered a “triple threat,” that is, “a performer who excels at acting, singing and dancing.” The Manhattan-born, auburn-haired young woman who grew up and still lives in Davie, admits she’s part of “a big performing family.” But to say her parents are just entertainers is a minimization.

Her dad, Barry Tarallo, has spent 40 years on stages across the nation. An actor, singer and guitarist, he performed on and off Broadway in Grease and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He toured in Cotton Patch Gospel, a show featuring music and lyrics by Harry Chapin. He’s been in regional shows far away and just up the road, at Arts Garage in Delray Beach, the Maltz in Jupiter, FAU Summer Rep, and the Wick Theatre in Boca Raton among others.

Emily’s mom, Amy London, has also trod dramatic venues as an actor, but often works as an artistic or stage director or a stage manager, most recently at Slow Burn Theatre and the Wick. A voice talent and freelance artist, she has even directed her daughter in dance shows.

But Barry and Emily jointly lament the fact they’ve never appeared in the same show together.

They nearly shattered that bit of theatrical history last month when they performed at two locations in Boca Raton. Emily portrayed Babette in the Wick Theatre’s production of Beauty and the Beast. And Barry, for the third consecutive year, was one of four Equity actors who joined Master of Fine Arts students at Florida Atlantic University for their two Summer Repertory productions – Sense and Sensibility and Into the Woods.

Emily has learned from her parents’ on-stage skills and pronounces them “my biggest inspiration.”

“My mother is a brilliant director/stage manager and my father is an actor/musician with one of the best voices I’ve ever heard,” she said. “I remember growing up, watching them perform in various theaters. It’s all I’ve ever known. They are amazing. They always give me insight from their own work experience, but they encourage me to create by own voice and craft. They are my biggest fans,” Emily said.

Barry also acknowledges his daughter’s skills. “A few performers have that extra little spark, something innate and natural. I always say that Emily has that.”

“I feel I have that because of my Dad and Mom,” Emily responded.

Though no longer married, Barry and Amy “are still very good friends,” he said. “She has stage-managed me and directed shows that I have been in.  I run a lot of things by her.”

While Emily’s passion is definitely for dance, she has learned the full range of stage performance by observing her parents. Emily smiles with much pride about how she loves walking the rear stairway of the Actors Playhouse in Coral Gables and seeing photos of her father in various stage performances hanging along the wall.

Still in her mid-20s, Emily has performed in Cabaret, A Chorus Line, Peter Pan, West Side Story, Footloose, Hair and other shows throughout the area. A choreographer and dance instructor, she has often served as dance captain in productions. “I’m responsible for conducting brush-up rehearsals, teaching choreography and making sure all the dance numbers look clean and sharp.”

When she completed the run of Beauty and the Beast, Emily moved on to another Disney-inspired show Tarzan, the Musical, which opens in October at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, in conjunction with Slow Burn Theater.

What’s the future hold for the young dancer/actress? “I have always dreamed of being on Broadway,” she said. “And I know that, one day, I will make it there.”