Ybor Evening — Acropolis, Silver Meteor Gallery, and Poor, Dirty Girl

Acropolis Greek Taverna

 

A couple weekends ago, a friend and I went to Ybor City to hear an original play produced by my friend’s former students. Ybor City is an historical section of Tampa. As long-time Tampa residents, my teacher friend and I both had, in our youth, spent many an evening (probably too many evenings) enjoying the party atmosphere of Ybor City. Ybor is much smaller than the Vieux Carré of New Orleans, but has much of the same character and features, including first-class restaurants and a lively arts scene of galleries, music venues, and legit theater.

“Ybor City (pronounced /ˈiːbɔr/) (EE-borh) is a historic neighborhood in Tampa, Florida located just northeast of downtown. It was founded in the 1880s by cigar manufacturers and was populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly from Spain, Cuba, and Italy. For the next 50 years, workers in Ybor City’s cigar factories would roll millions of cigars annually…The neighborhood has been designated as a National Historic Landmark District, and several structures in the area are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, 7th Avenue, the main commercial thoroughfare in Ybor City, was recognized as one of the “10 Great Streets in America” by the American Planning Association.”[ref]

Acropolis Salad

 

We decided to have a light supper before the play at the Acropolis Greek Taverna. There are three of these now (Ybor, North Tampa, and Riverview). I wish they’d open one in St. Petersburg. We both had the Acropolis Salad (pictured above). We thought the food was excellent. The crowd of people eating at their outside tables obviously thought so too. The Acropolis menu sports a large selection of salads, which add to its attraction for me. I highly recommend this restaurant if you’re in Ybor. I’ve eaten at most of the other Ybor restaurants and some are definitely gourmet restaurants, but those are, in my opinion, way too pricey. The Acropolis prices are very reasonable. The average entree is $13 to $15, the meal-sized salads, only $5 to $7. That’s affordable!

The Silver Meteor Gallery

 

The play we’d come to see was being presented at the Silver Meteor Gallery, a tiny theater fashioned from a tin-roofed, Florida “cracker” house just south of the railroad tracks behind the historic Columbia Restaurant (see picture of Columbia Restaurant at end of article). We wondered if the Silver Meteor Gallery got its name from the Silver Meteor passenger train that runs from New York to Miami, which shares much of its track with the Silver Star that services Tampa.

This Metromix Tampabay article on the Silver Meteor Gallery (2213 E. 6th Ave., Tampa, FL 33605; 813-833-6368) and its resident theater company, Hat Trick Theatre, states: “The Silver Meteor Gallery has a history of giving rise to scrappy theater troupes. The PAC’s Jobsite Theater started here and now Hat Trick Theatre is camping out, applying for arts grants and soliciting corporate sponsorship. Humor keeps this professional company afloat. The shows produced here are offbeat, often outlandish takes on the trials and tribulations of life.”

Poor, Dirty Girl, the play we saw, although not a Hat Trick Theatre production, is just such alternative, fresh theater. This play, written by Gianfranco Settecasi who co-directed the play with Elias Inaty, is a comedy set in 1942, Saleté, France. Real talent wrote and produced this play. This was not a “student” production. What impressed me most was how the voice of the play was consistent, every moment. It didn’t wobble from one style to another; it was its own, unique, quirky style from beginning to end. That takes skill.

Although the writer, directors, and cast of this play are young, primarily recent graduates of local, distinguished private schools, even the mechanics of the production were well thought out and executed, complete with novel merchandising (t-shirts with clever lines from the play), professional quality program design, and effective underscoring.

Art produced by the young should never be dismissed just because of the age of its creator. Felix Mendelssohn wrote his famous Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he was only 17. Shostakovich’s First Symphony was written when he was 19. Picasso was admitted to the Barcelona School of Fine Arts at the age of 13. Steven Spielberg was already active in his career at age 22. And, of course, the most famous wunderkind of all, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was composing and performing on piano and violin by age 5!

I predict that someday we’ll hear from the young actors, directors, and playwright of Poor, Dirty Girl in a professional, New York City context. Watch, especially, for the names Gianfranco Settecasi and Elias Inaty.

Columbia Restaurant

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Tagged as: ACTIVITIES, fine arts, Florida, Greek food, Tampa