Our wonderful Boquete Community Players Theater is in it’s 10th year, and I attended the very first play back then. Since Jim has such a great voice and stage presence, I talked him into taking the lead role in a play written by Mickey & Squirt James (a singer/songwriter couple from Nashville who lived here) called Postcards From Paradise. To ensure the house was packed every night, I agreed to do the marketing for the event. A few years ago, when I moved back to Boquete from Ecuador, I was the Marketing Director for BCP for 2 years….so I knew the drill. It was a lot of work for both Jim and me, but it was great fun. Yesterday was the final performance, and it was a SMASH HIT!! We walked into a restaurant after the play and Jim got a standing ovation.
I used a “postcard” theme to market the play, creating postcards every week to be sent out to our mailing list…here are a few of them. The actual postcards are from Jim’s collection of old Cuban cards.
My favorite graphic artist, Fran Hogan, created a wonderful image that we used on banners and posters and fliers all over town. Panama Red Rum was, of course, a sponsor and the bottle was used in the show and script.
Jim played a Vietnam Vet who had issues with the war and his wife, that were to be dealt with on a vacation in the Caribbean, by a psychologist owner of a small resort. Lots of funny and talented characters, but Jim was, of course, the star of the show. His great voice held up under lots of rehearsals and 4 performances, where he sang 10 songs. He used a Western North Carolina accent, which he knows well having spent lots of time up there. He was a hoot….he got standing ovations every performance. He’s now the “star” of Boquete.
Penny In Paradise 