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Legendary Performer Is The Show At Tampa Theatre

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 7, 2007

There are a lot of well-chronicled reasons to go to the Tampa Theatre. I found two more recently.

One was to escape football. The agony of the defeated Bulls, Gators and Penn State had taken its toll, and I had a premonition about the Bucs gift-wrapping another opponent's victory.

The other was to catch the Rosa Rio show. She's the Wurlitzer icon who still performs before and during Tampa Theatre's periodic showings of silent films. Her storied career in radio dates to the 1920s, and she played her first silent-film gig during the William Howard Taft administration of the early 1900s.

Most recently, Rio was playing at a Sunday matinee featuring that haunting 1922 classic "Nosferatu," the first screen version of "Dracula."

Nearly 900 people showed.

"Rosa is a rock star," said Tara Schroeder, Tampa Theatre's programming director. "She has her groupies. They wait for her in the lobby afterwards. They want her autograph and they buy her CDs."

The audience was an eclectic mix. From high school students curious about silent films and a legendary centenarian to Sun City Center seniors coming to see one of their own.

Given that this was the Sunday before Halloween, Rio's entrance was thematic. After her skeleton-bedecked Wurlitzer had slowly and eerily ascended amid plumes of fog, she arrived separately - in a coffin.

Macabre? More like incongruous.

After tossing her red cape and hood, Rio revealed a stage presence that was spunky and funny. She knows her way around a one-liner and can work a house. Her voice was strong yet genteel; her New Orleans roots still apparent. She played "The Funeral March of the Marionettes" (still "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" to me) with gusto. Then she implored the audience to participate in "Nosferatu."

"Feel free to applaud or hiss," she instructed, "but don't drown out the music."

She settled in at the Wurlitzer, placed at orchestra-pit level so she could see the movie as well as the music.

For a guy on the lam from all things gridiron, Tampa Theatre was once again a transporting experience. It was another era, another art form. One where the accompanist deserved her top billing. One where the experience was anything but silent.

At the conclusion, a beaming Rio received a standing ovation and a bouquet of red roses.

"She's a very positive person, and she loves what she does," Schroeder said. "She is passionate about it. Her life is fulfilled if she can share her gift. We all just love her."

Richt-er Scale

After a few days of awful publicity, Georgia football coach Mark Richt finally offered an apology for his role in his team's notorious group-celebration penalty against the Florida Gators. On the Richt-er scale of classlessness, the premeditated choreography was off the charts.

But call it what it really was: a surrender flag to standards in the name of motivating the kind of player you recruit.

Interestingly, most of the outrage came from the media and non-Georgia fans. For the most part, the coaching fraternity, which has a self-serving agenda, saw it differently. A typical example: former Auburn coach Terry Bowden.

"I just wish I had thought of it first," Bowden said. "I thought it was pure genius."

And that says it all. And that's Terry Bowden.

Halloweird

Call me old-fashioned, old-school or just old, but can we take Halloween back?

As in back from parents who sign off on their kids' cultural-slut-du-jour costumes and older teenagers sans costumes slouching in late for free stuff.

And didn't Guavaween used to put a premium on clever and irreverent as well as outrageous? The last one I saw had turned trite and trampy. Every other costumed reveler was a flasher or a French maid. And then there were those who came dressed as perimeter-cruising street punks.

Halloween night is about young kids indulging in fun, young-kid fantasies. Those are the ones who got the good stuff at our house. That's right; not everybody got the Snickers.

Not Smart Enough

"They can put a man on the moon, but why can't they ... ." We've all had our ellipses moments. Add this: "... but why can't they design a small, smart car that isn't butt-ugly."

Joe O'Neill is a South Tampa writer who can be contacted at www.OpinionsToGoOnLine .com.

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