THE SOUNDS OF SIMON (2013) | Palm Beach Arts Paper Review

Written by Palm Beach ArtsPaper Staff on 21 August 2013

Paul Simon survey entertaining, moving 

By Dale King 

Legendary singer-songwriter Paul Simon creates message melodies for all seasons — and has done so for a half-century, either in concert with partner Art Garfunkel or on his own. He has perfected an array of musical genres — folk, rock ’n’ roll, reggae, gospel and African chorale — and his lyrics paint poignant word pictures.

Florida Theatre Productions Inc. pays tribute to the 71-year-old Newark, N.J., native with The Sounds of Simon, a soul-searching, downright entertaining show that has filled the Studio Theatre at the Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center in Boca Raton for much of the summer. The run has been extended through Sunday.

Conceived and directed by Gary Waldman, the production draws heavily from Simon’s massive body of work and offers up his tunes through skits presented by soloists and combinations of actors and dancers from an 11-member cast. This collaboration intensifies each song’s message and enhances the audience’s capacity to visualize the many word images.

For this show, the stage at the Cultural Arts Center appears to be some type of park or play area — a fine setting for Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, the second tune in the Simon journey. A stairway leads to a gap between two chain link fence sections, continuing the playground metaphor. There’s also a park bench and a garbage can that belches smoke.

The plot is purposely unspecific, focusing on four main characters — all of them apparently afflicted in some way. Waldman portrays a homeless man with his worldly belongings in a small wheeled cart. With wool hat, floppy flannel shirt and rough beard, his appearance is as uniquely interesting as his excellent voice.

Mike Westrich, a newcomer to this cast, portrays a soldier in a wheelchair, apparently wounded in battle. Attired in camouflage fatigues, he is seen constantly writing in some type of journal — which doesn’t distract from his singing. His fine voice makes Simon’s lyrics penetrate the hazy air.

Portraying a character suffering a drug addiction is Sharyn Peoples, also new to the on-stage cast, though she is the show’s assistant director. The role is a total about-face from her performance as the Lady of the Lake in Entr’Acte Theatrix’s recent Spamalot. Her voice, though, is just as strong and epic.

Kimberly Xavier Martins rounds out the principal actors. Her woes are subject to some conjecture, but her ability to sing is perfectly clear.

Other performers — all outstanding singers and dancers — include Joel Alfonso, Elijah Word, Brettnie Blake, Yasmin Flasterstein, Kerine Jean-Pierre, Alissa Kane and Ben Solmor. The show’s choreographer, Solmor shows an aptitude for mixing movement and song with dramatic results. 

Some of Paul Simons’ best-known works are included in this show. The Sound of Silence and Bridge over Troubled Water are of course included, but also on the list are Wednesday, 3 a.m. (vocalized by Westrich and Waldman), a very early Simon and Garfunkel work, and Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall (sung by Martins).

Two touching tunes, Scarborough Fair/Canticle and April Come She Will, pay homage to the groundbreaking 1967 film, The Graduate, which not only featured a soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel, but also introduced Dustin Hoffman to the celluloid world.

Simon doesn’t always write about pain. His chucklesome tune about a man going through an identity crisis, You Can Call Me Al, gets special treatment from Alfonso and the ensemble. That 1985 song, with a video featuring Simon with Chevy Chase, put the singer on MTV’s radar.

Some of the solos are truly great. Westrich takes the lead on Keep the Customer Satisfied, and Peoples’ rendition of Song for the Asking is superb. Alfonso does the upbeat honors with Late in the Evening and Martins gives renewed life to the thought-provoking Dangling Conversation, with its satirically appropriate question, “Is the theatre really dead?”

Simon’s lyrics have always been well thought-out. The ensemble joins together to sing I Am a Rock, with the excellently alliterative line about a “freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.” When Waldman and the ensemble sing The Boxer, you can almost see “the fighter by his tree.” The song’s arrangement hints of something by Harry Chapin.

That’s just the tip of this crowd-pleasing show, whose song arrangements are by Waldman and Phil Hinton. Stefanie Howard deftly handles lighting and Gary Butler and Jamison Troutman put their all into sound design. This troupe pulls together with obvious harmony and earns the standing ovations that normally erupt at the end of each performance.

SOUNDS OF SIMON will be presented Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Studio Theatre in the Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center, 201 Plaza Real, Boca Raton. Tickets are $35 and are available by calling the box office at 561-600-0495

THE SOUNDS OF SIMON (2008) Destin/Ft. Walton Beach Beachcomber Review

EDITOR’S JOURNAL

A tender moment from "The Sounds of Simon"

SOUNDS OF SIMON is more than up to the challenge ...


By Leah Stratmann

March 6, 2008 

As a fan of live theater in general, I was pleased when I got a press release about a new theater opening in Pensacola. I duly listed the opening show in our theater section, even though, in truth, Pensacola is a bit out of our distribution area. However, many from this area routinely travel to Pensacola for events, so it wasn’t totally out of the ordinary either.


Then I got a thank you email note from David Gerson, one of the partners in the Garden Street Playhouse venture. He thanked me for listing the event and invited me to a show and suggesting I might be moved to do a review. I explained our every two-week publishing schedule and that I had not planned on inserting a theatrical review and the best I could do for him was to come see the show and talk a bit about it in my column.


The Garden Street Playhouse is only performing musicals and the first one was an ambitious undertaking called The Sounds of Simon featuring the songs of Paul Simon and those of Simon and Garfunkel. Much of the music was re-arranged from the original by Phil Hinton and Gary Waldman. Waldman is one of the three owners of the theater and also will be a frequent performer.


The theater is a black box type, with red walls, which I liked for the brightness. The seats were probably bought from a movie house going out of business and were comfortable, which isn’t always the case with small theaters. There literally isn’t a bad seat in the house, and I would estimate the theater holds about 50 people.


The show is billed as Paul Simon’s Music in Vision & Light. Gerson and Jamison Troutman ably handled the lighting chores and punching up the pre-recorded musical accompaniment from a good sound system.


When the five performers were singing together, the result was a harmonious an energetic mix of voices, particularly on numbers such as Keep the Customer Satisfied and You Can Call Me Al. However some voices were better than others and each was given an opportunity to solo, to greater and lesser degrees of success. It is challenging to reach those high notes of Art Garfunkel and some of the performers just couldn’t put a bridge over that troubled water.


Yet a very few misses in a show that’s about an hour and a half and features more than 20 of the familiar hits, did not ruin the venture and should not keep you from going. The choreography by performer Kenny Green was perfectly suited to the small stage area and performed with great gusto by the entire cast. Standout performances by Pensacola natives Camille Perillo and Katrina Washington alone were worth the price of admission. These performers are tasked with practically miming some drama, sans dialog, into a non-stop musical production. All proved more than up to the challenge with just a few props and by using subtle body language.


There will be two more shows in this initial abbreviated season of The Garden Street Playhouse. The current production runs through this weekend. Visit www.gardenstreetplayhouse.com for upcoming shows, a map, and more.

PENSACOLA GARDEN STREET PLAYHOUSE (2007) - Independent News Feature Story

by Joani Delezen 

THE SOUNDS OF SIMON (a) hit touring musical set to open as debut performance at first professional regional theater on the Gulf Coast!

Nationally-known Director/Producer/Playwright/Composer & Stage Performer, GARY WALDMAN announced today that he, his longtime partner, JAMISON TROUTMAN and childhood best friend DAVID GERSON have signed a lease for a 4,000 square foot property on West Garden Street and that they are currently preparing to construct and open an off-Broadway style, professional theater in downtown Pensacola.

THE SOUNDS OF SIMON, the premiere production at this incredible new facility is set to open in just a few weeks, this coming January 30th.

 The theater will feature some of the best talent (performers and designers) from all over the World, from New York, California, Las Vegas, London and whomever is here on the Gulf Coast with the talent and experience to work on the professional stage.

THE SOUNDS OF SIMON 

at the Garden Street Playhouse, Pensacola (2008)

Click image for video

SIMON stars KENNEY GREEN, returning from the original production of the show in Palm Beach and fresh from of-Broadway having just starred opposite Barry Williams (Greg BradyThe Brady Bunch) in Growing Up 70s. KENNEY is a performer in high-demand having worked with countless show business legends including Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Harolyn Blackwell, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Marvin Hamlisch and Gladys Knight.

Also featured in SOUNDS OF SIMON will be Producing Artistic Director, GARY WALDMAN who also conceived, starred in and directed the original production. Gary will, once again, take the helm as Director as well as featured performer.

Well-known off-Broadway and touring performer MICHAEL INDEGLIO is also flying in from New York to add to a cast that also features two Pensacola local professionals:

CAMILLE PETRILLO, a highly accomplished musical theater star in her own right with a degree in Musical Theater from Alabama State University joins the cast along with KATRINA WASHINGTON who has performed in Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Kenya. KATRINA is also founder and President of Guiding Youth to Success and Pretty in Pink a local program designed to empower youth academically and economically.

Waldman, 42, in the biz since childhood and Troutman, 30, who partnered with him ten years ago, moved to the Gulf Coast from Palm Beach earlier this year to produce their touring musical, I Write the Songs at the I.P. Casino in Biloxi. Having recently closed their longtime theater operation in West  Palm Beach, they fell in love with Pensacola, moved into a waterfront home in the Perdido Key area, and have been scoping out commercial properties since late June. Their original plan was to open a very small studio theater in which they would mount new musicals to tour nationwide after debuting to pocket-sized audiences downtown.

In October, Waldman, by total coincidence, reunited with his childhood best friend, David Gerson, also 42, now an independent businessman and professional social worker in rural Pennsylvania. Gerson, long wishing to carry on the traditions of his family (his maternal grandfather was a well-known New York City entrepreneur and one of the last formidable producers of the now bygone Yiddish Theater, once an entertainment staple of Second Avenue on the Big Apples lower East Side).

So now the project got a bit bigger. With the Saenger Theater closed for at least two seasons, Waldman and Troutman obviously recognized the dearth of professional live entertainment in the Panhandle areaand the Gulf Coast in general and have partnered with Gerson to open an actual, open to the public performance space. The tintimate space on West Garden  Street will feature 125 best seats in the house! Tickets are currently on sale for a mini-season Waldman has planned for the coming winter and spring.

Were opening with The Sounds of Simon, says Waldman of a musical he created three years ago with longtime musical collaborator Philip Hinton of Fort Lauderdale. We did a workshop production at our old theater in West  Palm Beach and it was one of the best things we ever did. Ive been waiting for an excuse to put up a fully developed production ever since. Waldman will also play one of the characters himself and direct the production based on the music of Paul Simon and the recordings of Simon & Garfunkel.

Following Simon will be The Last Session, a meaty off-Broadway and Los Angeles musical-comedy-dramatic hit that garnered almost every award imaginable in its big city runs yet has rarely been performed on the regional circuit.

Closing out the season will be the show that took Waldman and Troutman to the Gulf Coast in the first place, I Write the Songs. The show began as a musical tribute to master balladeer, Barry Manilow, but when originally produced by the team in 2003 at their theater in West Palm Beach, the show became such a phenomenon that Waldman developed it into a full-fledged rock opera and has been producing the show in city after city ever since.

Were actually putting it last in the season because we know it will probably extend through the entire summer! adds Waldman.

Also housed at 1625 Garden Street  West will be the new offices of Sandy Gee III Productions, Inc., Waldman, Troutman and Gersons new touring production company. Since the space will offer a full, state-of-the-art production facility for the off-Broadway style musicals the company produces, Pensacola may well be the original home of some of the futures HOTTEST SHOWS IN NEW YORK!    

WHAT:  THE SOUNDS OF SIMON  to open The Garden Street Playhouse
WHERE:  1625 Garden Street West (between I & J Streets), Pensacola, FL  32501
WHEN: The Sounds of Simon & playhouse Grand Opening, January 30th
CONTACT: GARY WALDMAN/JAMISON TROUTMAN, 850-438-9399
www.gardenstreetplayhouse.com