‘Wizard of Tarpon Point’ coming to Cultural Park
Trouble is coming to Cape Coral on the eve of the city’s 60th year of existence.
Alligator Land Company, the biggest and most powerful developer in the country, is trying to buy up the waterfront, land and buildings at the Cape Coral Yacht Club, which they hope to turn into a gambling casino, with the waterfront becoming a nude beach.
Can the Wizard of Tarpon Point save the city from becoming an unsavory bastion of decadence?
OK, so that’s not really going to happen. But on Saturday. Oct. 28, at 7 p.m., the Cultural Park Theater on Cultural Park Boulevard will hold a one-night staging of this local play the “Wizard of Tarpon Point.”
The play, which has not been shown since 2004, is a musical comedy that features 20 song parodies in a two-act play that spoofs the city and its government 60 years after Leonard and Jack Rosen purchased the land that eventually became Cape Coral.
“The comedy of the show is built around the song parodies and his solution to the problem to help stop the casino and the beach. It’s going to be a fun night at the theatre,” said Michael Moran, executive director of the Cultural Park Theater.
The “Wizard” is a crazy man who lives in a shack on Tarpon Point and who is the only person standing in the way of turning Cape Coral into Las Vegas South, a proposition the city council is interested in, given the potential financial return.
The play was written about 20 years ago by Norman Marcus, a Cape Coral resident who retired here some 29 years ago, after a lengthy career in public television and later as a professor at Boston University.
“After he wrote it, it was done as a concert with just the songs. It was performed in full length 13 years ago at the theater,” Moran said. “Nine years ago, it was also done as a special performance for the New Residents Club. He wrote it with the intent of the theater to use it.”
Proceeds from the event will support the Cultural Park Theater and the Cape Coral Historical Society Museum. There will be a pre-show reception with cocktails, dessert and hors d’oeuvres along with a silent auction and a tribute to the city council for funding support and renovations to the theater and museum at 5:30 p.m. There will also be historical artifacts from the Rosen Brothers, the founders of the city.
The performance is sponsored by the Gunterberg Charitable Foundation and the Culliton Family, which will also be honored. Julia Rosen Swift, the granddaughter of Leonard and Jack Rosen, will also be in town.
General admission tickets are $20 and available at the Cultural Park Theater box office (772-5862) or the Cape Coral Historical Society (772-7037).