FloArts Students Bring ‘Barefoot’ to Thrasher-Horne

Students and faculty at Florida’s first state-supported arts school will stage their annual Thrasher-Horne Center for the Arts performance April 18-20.

The Florida School of the Arts in Palatka will present Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park in the center’s studio theater. The Tony Award-nominated comedy focuses on a newlywed couple adjusting to married life.

Although the play was written in 1967 and is set in 1963 New York, Florida School of the Arts acting instructor Ed Kelly said audience members can expect a timeless comedy.

“This play is still funny,” Kelly said in a prepared statement. “Sometimes plays that are written in a certain era can become dated, but this one is timeless.”

Productions of the Florida School of the Arts, FloArts for short, are primarily performed at its home on the Palatka campus of the St. Johns River Community College. But one production each year is moved to the Thrasher-Horne, located at the college’s Orange Park campus.

“The tour experience brings about a bigger sense of responsibility for the actors and tech crew,” said Kelly, in the statement. “They’ll learn to adjust as if they were performing in an actual production on tour. We’ll have a bus, and we’ll move the set and costumes.”

The set is a visual treat, said scenic and lighting design instructor Robert O’Leary.

“The set for Barefoot in the Park will put the audience right on the top floor of an old five-story brownstone apartment building,” he said, in the statement. “The brownstone is a classic of American architecture and one of our country’s earliest versions of a skyscraper … This should be quite the set with characters using not only the interior of the apartment, but also climbing around on the roof of this five-story building discovering what it takes to hold a marriage, at least theirs, together.”

The cast includes Robin Jackson as Corie Bratter, Thaddeus Pearson as Paul Bratter, Bruce Popielarski as the telephone repair man, Patrick Taylor as the delivery man, Katy Knowles as Mrs. Banks and Torey Scarbrough as Victor Velasco.IF YOU GO Performances are 7:30 p.m. April 18-19 and 3 p.m. April 20. The show is suitable for all audiences. Tickets are $8; seating is limited. The Thrasher- Horne Center is at 283 College Drive, Orange Park. For ticket information, call 276-6750 or go to www.thcenter.org.

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