L-R: Alicia Taylor, Alan Hoover and Cindy Demma sing ‘Hey, Baby (I Wanna Know If You‘ll Be My Girl).‘ Photos by Jerry Lower/The Costal Star
By Ron Hayes
“Live from Briny Breezes, it’s … !”
Tuesday night, actually.
Tuesday night, March 17.
This is not NBC’s legendary sketch show, Saturday Night Live.
This is St. Paddy’s Night LIVE! And not to brag, but the town’s annual Curtain Raisers variety shows have been around even longer than NBC’s fabled half-century show.
Saturday Night Live debuted in October 1975. The Briny Breezes library has Curtain Raiser photos dating to 1950.
What is a Curtain Raisers variety show?
It’s 80 minutes of sketches, songs, dances and a generous helping of corny jokes you’d have to live in Briny to appreciate.
It’s 48 men and women, most in their 70s and 80s, who have written, rehearsed and are about to perform five skits, five songs, two dance performances, one stand-up routine. All supported by a dedicated backstage crew to work the lights and sound and carry the rocking chairs, fake palm trees, and make-believe campfire on and offstage.
Mostly, though, a Curtain Raisers show is a full house of friends and neighbors having fun watching their friends and neighbors have fun.
The laughter is loud, the applause frequent, and none of the performers ever need fear being booed.
There are men and women performing on Broadway who only dream of having this much love come at them across the footlights.
One night only
The woman charged with bringing all this together and keeping it there for one night only is Kathy Hoover, the Curtain Raisers’ artistic director.
“I was heavily recruited three years ago because of my experience,” she says.
A third-generation Brinyite and retired English teacher from Columbus, Ohio, Hoover was part of the Ohio State Arts Initiative and participated in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Stand Up For Shakespeare” program in Stratford-On-Avon, teaching teachers how to teach Shakespeare.
The Curtain Raisers are not Shakespeare, but Hoover has her challenges.
Before Monday’s final dress rehearsal, for example, she had to reassure Andy Abraham of the town’s maintenance crew that they would be done in time for him to set up the tables for Bingo Night.
And they were.
Cindy Neureuther with her husband, Andy. The show was held in memory of Andy, a longtime Curtain Raiser who died in September at 84.
In memory of ‘a ham’
At 6 p.m., Sherry Tauber and Deno Langel entertain the line waiting outside the auditorium with live music.
When the doors open at 6:30 p.m., Len Drapeau plays jazz piano onstage as the auditorium fills. Every seat.
The shamrock green program notes that tonight’s performance is “In Memory of Andy Neureuther,” who died last September at 84 after being a Curtain Raiser for 19 seasons. He sang, he acted, he danced, he worked the sound board and lighting.
“He was a ham,” said Cindy Neureuther, his wife of 46 years, who is in the audience. “He taught at UC Berkeley and played tuba in the faculty club celebrations. He loved Briny and looked forward to coming here every year.”
In welcoming the audience, Hoover reminds them that the show is for Andy. She sends up a prayer that he has a front-row seat in heaven for tonight’s show.
And now, showtime!
A gag about ‘trailers‘ ...
In 2024, the show was A Magical Place, a parody of The Wizard of Oz.
Last year was A Briny Cruise On The SS Iguana.
This year it’s St. Paddy’s Night LIVE! but apart from the green lighting, the Irish music between scenes and an Irishy dance finale, this is an old-fashioned variety show.
Judith Kraft plays the part of a woman under hypnosis who is speaking into her new ‘i-Sandal’ phone and arranging a date with Brad Pitt.
Ron Vaughn, as The Amazing Ron in black hat and cape, “hypnotized” four ladies and ordered them to yell “mobile home!” every time he said “trailer.”
Apparently, those who reside in mobile homes do not like to have their dwellings called trailers.
“Mobile home!”
That became a running gag throughout the show, and the audience soon joined in.
The most elaborate skit of the night was “The Pursuit of Warmth & Abundant Sunshine,” with Alan Hoover, president of the Curtain Raisers club, as George Washington, future president.
Sitting with his fellow soldiers around a campfire outside Valley Forge, the father of our country mused on a future day when Florida would be part of the country. In a place called Florida, George predicted, Yankees would pull their trailers to a little park called Briny Breezes.
“Mobile home!”
Jan Burkhart and Marj Cline sang a parody of that Drifters classic Under The Boardwalk.
“On The Briny Porch,
in a rocker with my baby,
that’s where I’ll be.”
When Brinyites announce they are going to the beach, they mean they are going to sit in a rocker on the clubhouse porch and look at the beach.
Annie Harkness made her 19th appearance as a Curtain Raiser with a solo rendition of Little Old Wine Drinker Me.
Along with Harkness, Michele Tysse, Toni Alexander and Camille Scrip became “The Briny Girls,” their version of “The Golden Girls.”
Sam Cooke’s Chain Gang provided background music for a tribute to the men who unload the attic of donations for each year’s Briny Bazaar, and Cindy Demma and Alicia Taylor sang a powerful version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
... and a sketch on old age
If the performers were nervous onstage, it wasn’t because they can’t laugh at themselves. They are old, they know it, and they don’t mind joking about it.
In “Later Daters,” a sketch about online dating, Grant Perry and Becky Jones bantered after meeting via the internet.
“Why is someone calling so late? It’s almost eight-fifteen.”
“What do you want in a partner?”
“Someone who can drive at night.”
“Can I get your number?”
“It’s 120 over 70.”
The show closed with Diane Butler, who is clearly a trained singer, performing My Heart Will Go On, from Titanic.
“Near, far, wherever you are,
I believe that the heart does go on.”
No doubt the Brinyites who put on those early shows 75 years ago are gone, but the Curtain Raisers go on.
This month the players will begin dreaming up ideas for next year’s show. Back North for the summer, they’ll email ideas around for reactions, and when they return in December, the work gets underway.
A script will be distributed in January 2027, and for the final six weeks before the show, the acts will rehearse the skits for an hour a week.
And then, a year from now, it’s showtime again.
What is a Curtain Raisers show?
The Amazing Ron put it best.
“We’re just a bunch of old people up there making fools of ourselves,” he said, “but Briny Breezes is the best audience in the world. They’ll laugh at anything.”
Comments