Words, music, dance—they come together in many forms on the stage. But I don’t think Tampa Bay audiences will have seen anything quite like the amalgam soon to be bubbling up at the Mahaffey Theater for “The Good Peaches.”
Staged only once before in this country at the Cleveland Play House, the script by Pulitzer Prize-winner Quiara Alegría Hudes (“Water by the Spoonful,” “In the Heights”) is a girl-vs.-nature epic in which Aurora, on a mission to deliver a wedding dress to the queen, fights to survive a giant storm. The American Stage production, which will be performed twice on Saturday, Sept. 20, brings together three actors, eight dancers from St. Pete’s projectALCHEMY, and 70, count ‘em 70, members of the Florida Orchestra—all on the Mahaffey stage at once.
So what inspired American Stage Producing Artistic Director Helen R. Murray to embark on this massive endeavor?…