Support the Arts in Jacksonville: Go See a Play

Fletcher's next play:

April 19th and 20th, 2024: House of Blue Leaves

Tickets (when available)

Sure, you can watch the family-friendly stuff at the Alhambra Theater or venture into downtown for a highbrow experience. And you should. However, for my money, I've always enjoyed high school plays. And since the actual money is $6 and free parking, it's worth every penny compared to Alhambra's $70 plus drinks and tip or $50 plus parking for a downtown experience.  If you're looking for live entertainment on a budget, check out a local high school play. 

The preceding link is to the Fletcher High School GoFan Performing Arts site, but you can probably find a list of local schools and their plays. I know the performing arts school got into some hot water recently with its choice of a play dealing with sexuality, but you're mostly going to get the same fodder at local high schools as the big theaters, meaning stuff you've seen before or based on something you've seen before.

Not all of the performances at local high schools will be stellar. You need a big cast, it's not as popular as football, and performing in front of people isn't everyone's cup of tea. But these kids really do deserve a real budget, a dedicated director, and an audience. If you think you support the schools by paying property taxes and attending the alumni football game, then you are losing out on an opportunity to support kids with real-world skills.

My kid will be in all of Fletcher's productions from 2023 until 2026 because he has fun acting. Even if your kids aren't in high school, however, seeing a high school play is a good way to see some local talent before they get too talented. Scroll down for the list of dates for Fletcher High School productions. 

The plays I saw as an educator in Wisconsin seemed to have a much larger budget (and audience)  than those I've seen in Jacksonville. While this doesn't affect the acting (exactly), it does affect how the students see themselves as actors. It's hard to feel like you're a real star when you perform one or two shows over a single weekend that are less than half full, on top of having to buy any costumes yourself (and not everyone bothers). I remember seeing a production of Miss Saigon at Pius High School in Milwaukee that had a full-sized helicopter on stage, and Tosa West's production of Showboat must have had 50 dancers on stage for several numbers. And many of the suburban schools had auditoriums named after people who probably donated heavily to the theater. We don't have less total wealth than in Milwaukee metro (higher per capita income), so it's more of a values/priorities situation, and I'm hoping that can change.

 

April 6th and 7th, 2024: Barefoot in the Park

January 19th and 20th, 2024

Rumours

October 20 and 21, 2023

Twelve Angry Jurors 

You may also know this play as Twelve Angry Men

April 21st and 22nd, 2023- Noises Off

Video

January 13th and 14th, 2023 - Romeo, You Idiot

What happens to those stars who are no longer stars? Not this.

I Guess Homeless in Park and Ride Would Fill the Lots

There's a Park and Ride lot over on Monument by Craig Airport and Blue Sky Golf. Most people don't know the Park and Ride exists and nobody has used it in the six years I've been here. Maybe for Jags games. So basically, it's an empty parking lot for about 350 days of the year, living on as a reminder that we don't have a usable bus system that takes people where they want to go in an efficient manner.

For big cities with employment downtown, buses can be useful. You can maybe avoid traffic in special bus lanes, and you can avoid parking. However, nobody really wants to take the bus. In Jacksonville, which is way more spread out than other cities, literally no one DOES take the bus. Especially people with other resources. 

I'm sure all of our park and ride lots were created with a good intent: get people out of their cars and conserve downtown parking, all while polluting less. It might work in other cities, or it might work if we as a community provided an incentive (like cash) to workers who use the bus. Since buses and dangerous autonomous vehicles aren't going to catch on in Jax, let's just re-purpose some of the facilities. In Milwaukee, authorities have been trying to remove the homeless from the park and ride camp, but I kind of think it might work here. 

There was this one guy who was living in Ed Austin Park for three years. He was creepy because he was in a white van and kids are all over the park. I contacted the police, but I guess they were too busy protecting the Wawa parking lot, or maybe there's no ordinance against living in your van in a park next to the playset. That guy would have been better off in a park and ride lot. Kids don't hang out in empty parking lots. In fact, nobody hangs out there. And when several homeless people with cars hang out together, they become a community, and they can benefit from sharing resources (like barrel fires when it's cold). 

Mostly, I just want to be able to keep an eye on all the homeless folks. I'm not saying I want to actually see them or interact with them. I just want them to be in one place rather than in the woods next to my neighborhood playset. I guess leaders in downtown want to cage them inside a fence somewhere, which is admirable in a concentration camp kind of way, but I figured setting them up with some barely-running cars in never-used parking lots is just as good as prison camps downtown. Set up a hose and a usb charger maybe. 

As a bonus, maybe Jacksonville can get some federal transportation funding because our park and ride lots are finally being used.