Bum Farto will soon be spotted in Key West— “Bum Farto -The Musical” that is— taking stage at the San Carlos Institute Theater on Thursday, October 13 through October 27. The hilarious true crime musical tells the tale of a ring, a sting, and an infamous Key West fire chief who tempted fate and federal agents in a 1975 drug raid known as Operation Conch. The smokin’ hot show opens with a sizzling 70s Opening Night Gala featuring pre-show cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and groovy tunes to benefit the Key West Firehouse Museum. With a cast of internationally-acclaimed actors, dancers, and musicians, a rollicking score of more than two dozen song-and-dance numbers, vibrant lighting design, and historic images and news clippings projected against sparse but colorful sets, the diverse world of Key West in the mid-seventies comes to life.
“It’s a glorious celebration of an infamous but iconic man whose fate and place in history was linked to so many others” says Pamela Stephenson Connolly, the show’s creator and director and a bestselling author, actor, and comedian.
We meet the charming, larger-than-life Joseph “Bum” Farto (Tybalt Ulrich) and the pursuing law enforcement officers who bumble through the poorly executed sting— the hard-driving Agent Larry Silva (Ronny Dutra), his drop-dead gorgeous partner Agent Janice Miller (Lena Thieme), and Agent Rodrigo Ferrari (Master Braz Dos Santos, the most celebrated Brazilian Lambada dancer in the world). There’s Farto’s humble wife Esther (Jessica Lamdon), Brutus the snitch (Aaron LaVigne of “Jesus Christ Superstar”)— a Vietnam vet with PTSD and an addiction to heroin, Manny James (Brad Meccia), the son of the Key West police chief and the city’s DA, and an energetic ensemble of singing, dancing fishermen, firemen, shopkeepers, drug dealers, barmen, and hippies.
Netflix, Showtime, and award-winning shorts score composer Dan Krysa produced the show’s 27 sensational songs like “Ford Galaxy,” “Just a Girl with a Badge and a Gun,” “Bum Was Pinched,” and “Smoke Your Tuna Here” and directs the live band. As for the wildly talented dancers with credits too long to list, “Bum Farto— The Musical” provides ample opportunity to showcase their savvy with a wide variety of dance styles, including the steamy Argentine office tango between Agents Miller and Silva, a spicy Cuban Salsa, the popular Carolina Shag, and even a tap dance by a “square grouper” (Acey Geida) while white-booted shrimpers soft-shoe around her.
“I was intrigued to learn that descendants of many of the characters remain in Key West,” says Connolly. “It was important to me to avoid a story high on moral and to tell only an uplifting, generous tale. When it comes down to it, folks were basically just doing what was considered perfectly acceptable to get by in those financially-strained times.”
A snippet of true Key West history, the show is a swift 90-minute production that’s raucous, sensual, and at times, tender. Fiction blends with fact as the story unfolds to showcase a multi-dimensionality of the characters you a first thought you were rooting for or against, revealing the “One Human Family” live-and-let-live mentality that Key West is well known for.
“One could argue that those mid-seventies events involving a flamboyant, drug pushing, scarlet-clad fire chief with a hilarious name and a penchant for gold jewelry could only have happened on this island,” she says.
She’s probably right.
“Bum Farto -The Musical” runs through October 27. Tickets start at $35 up to $235 for top-tier balcony seats featuring a private VIP bar. The popular show is expected to sell out so get your hot little hands on the best seats now at bumfartothemusical.com. Sponsored in part by Key West Art & Historical Society.