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A Derriere Dilemma

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 11, 2009

We tried killing her off, but that didn't work: the devil didn't want her and the angels couldn't stand her. It may have had something to do with her insistence on conducting their choir.

So we put her back in the Frolics. Her name is Angina Derriere and she always lives up to her name.

The character of Angina Derriere was introduced in the first Freedom Frolics production in 1992, the same year Freedom Plaza opened. She was portrayed as a demanding new resident, critical to the point of counting the flowers on her bathroom wallpaper and complaining that she had been shorted a few. Through the years and successive Frolics shows she has been a nosy private-eye, a domineering mother-in-law, a sadistic chorus girl and a long list of similar characters, each insufferable guise matching her own equally obnoxious personality.

The ironic fact is that the character of Angina is played, year after year, by one of Freedom Plaza's most pleasant, cooperative, genuinely nice residents, Jane Herring. She shows her acting skill by assuming this entertaining, but thoroughly detestable, persona.

So how will Angina Derriere fit into the 2009 Freedom Frolics, "Mother Hubbard's Cupboard," a saga of fractured fairytales and naughty-but-nice nursery rhymes? The premise of the plot is that some fairytale and nursery rhyme characters were dissatisfied with their lot and wanted a re-write. Take Jack and Jill, for instance: must Jill forever be shackled to a klutz who keeps falling down hills? Can women's lib provide an answer?

This whole situation fits nicely into the plans of Mother Hubbard of Hubbard's Hideaway. Her R&R&R Resort , where characters are re-rhymed, re-written and rehabilitated, is doing a thriving business and the re-writes are the stuff from which comedy is made.

You can meet these interesting characters on stage at Freedom Frolics 2009 on April 1 and 2. Proceeds go to support the Freedom Plaza Scholarship Fund and ticket sales begin on March 15.

It will be difficult for Angina Derriere to worm her way into "Mother Hubbard's Cupboard," but rest assured, she will manage to do it and create her usual chaos in the process.

For information, call (813) 642-1213 or (813) 642-1215.

Peggy Burgess is the creative director for Freedom Plaza.

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