which was in february jay leno was here and he was here the day after he ended his twenty two year run on what tonight exciting just by itself oh my gosh you know he flew in and on and you know he flew in on a private jet and you know they had to have a big party after the show that night and he looked exhausted but he got on stage and he sparkled he did he really did and i'm only six was so appreciative i mean it truly was an exciting eight really was we're going to have him back next year and be fun to have jimmy fallon come think we feel like we're part of the tonight show right now don't you absolutely absolutely but we've also added a guest that's coming and that is john legend and john legend has a gorgeous new record out and he will be with us at the very end of the season i think it's april twenty first twenty seven twenty seven it's a sunday night at seven o'clock still tickets available but i suggest getting them as soon as possible because we've said it's going to be a fabulous show oh i  it was but we have also added out of your favorite yes and i'm really bummed to say i'm going to be in orlando at a conference for booking for dick's here but out in brown is coming with his edible in edible tour does that mean is quite the individual you know he started out with this new program with a program called eat good eats and i was still watching it to like thirteen years ago and that's how he started and he wanted to be in film but he ended up thinking that he could do better on cooking and the cooking shows were so boring he was going to take his film background should we take a look at it we and that show was going to be here on the what is it marks the second seven o'clock i think there may still be a few tickets left but this is going to be great fun and i hear you have to wear a poncho at least in the first ten rows so i decide gallagher was fun an opposite so i'm really bummed i won't see it but hopefully next time and then we have chicago coming and you know it's one of everybody's favorite musicals i saw the original version which was got to be thirty years ago  i'm going father back he was a star on general hospital and my dirty secret is i started watching general hospital when i was in like the fourth grade and folks i would book my college classes so i could still see does a handsome man too he is very attractive i know and that we've have we have two shows but it sold out so we had to add an extra matinee and that matinee is going to be on march fifth the two pm they're still many great seats for that one and it's  serious girls and the dancing is amazing of course that fasi dancing and i think we could talk about it but let's look at chicago let's do that that's going to be great fun and i'm going to be back in time for the two o'clock matinee also are really excited that i'm not going to miss chicago but you mentioned jerry seinfeld he is coming back triumphantly to the van way so i saw him just the other night on the tonight show and he was very funny he was always funny and he is and he's doing two shows i don't know folks always check at the last minute because you know they may sometimes performers hold on to tickets and they released some some the day of the show but jerry seinfeld will do doing two shows on march the seventh so you could try to check that out and then this is been sort of the frankie valli in the four seasons of and ways well first we had under the street lamp back in december and they were amazing and they were some of the original jersey boys guys  then the other night we had the hit men which were they had two of the four regional seasons i kept joking that we had spring and summer but i don't know it could have been fall and winter it was a great show i was a great show my guy and then we of course have the real frankie vall now the seasons are a bit younger than the original jersey boy in front and of course i'm an original jersey girl so you know you like them yeah yeah i do i do you know they they look great and i saw you dancing along with oh yeah but this show was another one that's almost sold out so but check at the last minute you may be able to get tickets and that's march tenth and then later in the season we're having the mid tell men back which had the original cast of jersey boys and that show so it's really the frankie  to something we can't talk about yet but i guess maybe you can guess what's going to happen at the van ways will be very shortly and then we have the picking acrobats and they make me nervous it's here on march twelfth and we have different acrobatic troops every year and this is a different one but they all have you know a set of tricks and they do one i'm sure you know what i'm talking about they build these care oh yes when they stack all the chairs tape build them in the build them up in the front row they go beyond the first scene and i am like i mean you know i have trouble getting you know in and out of every care because i had hip and knee replacements and these guys climb on top of the chairs and then evidently i have children or senior citizens the front row and i'm not i'm like and i know they do this every day of the week but i'm like oh you know still nerve reps here are acting and they do also sorts of positions and and they get into and this is a great show to bring the kids to a good family do you remember last year we were walking out of the theater and the guy and his son came out oh yeah your little that little boy oh he was so cute and he said dad this was the best thing i ever saw and the dad was like buddy i'm so glad he's like dad this was great for you and i because you know they were making it a sort of a man and it was adorable and i think this is something that both boys and girls can appreciate because and we've just seen so much on the olympics and this is a lot of what these people you know trained to do because you have to be good at ballet and acrobatics to do you know all that  system absolutely and they're here on march the twelfth and then one of my particular favorites and i would have never like this show if it wasn't for you julia i'm talking about aaron neville and we had years ago the neville brothers and i'm not much of a jazz fan  til it is the jazz queen extraordinary you know she loves it and i tell you you know going out of my comfort zone to see that show it opened up all sorts of new windows for me and he's he's very new all and you know all that jazz new orleans style and that's what i think makes him you folks he's gorgeous he always wears those short little shirts you know he has the best arms oh my gosh but he's also with the dirty dozen brass band yes and i think this is going to be  evening and that's mark's thirteenth we have tickets available and then we switch we talked about with we talk about music and we are going right into classical with the cademy of st martin's in the field which they're their leader and their sol fell i mean we have two great violinists that come and play here often it's like perlman and who has a master and then we have joshua bell and josh bell is is this young guy i can't remember how much is his  violin is is insured for but it's quite an enormous amount of dollars folks and it's going to be a great great concert and then we have julius favorite punny man bill cosby he pulled such a  was here he tricked her into doing a bet with him on a college football game that happened the day before she fell for it and of course lost you know because they had already plans at that weight every year to take advantage of you and bill is going to be here marked the sixteenth safe tested every two hours delivered right here how much more affordable than bottled water environmentally friendly and it tastes good city of sarasota water safe affordable environmentally friendly ok is that enough you know that sound learning bigger than it is but somebody wanted to give me a bigger title and i said i'm just fine with this on the business card you know right but tell us tell us the state college of florida you used to be known by a different name we were and i'm sure a lot of people remember manatee community college i would say when this community very long manatee junior college before that wound then in two thousand and eight the name was changed kind of in response to around the state instead of making them community colleges two year colleges so we're in the state college of florida i know edison community college i used to work in our man hall down there and they change their name to it so i'm sure it's part of all of that but you do a lot of with the art yourself i mean you're a member of actors equity you're a singer and then you're president of a major organization here in tampa i have a very background i say jack of all trades maybe master of none and that's kind of my to yet you know teaching in a two year college she has offers a lot of things you get to do a lot of things and you have to do a lot of things but in my particular job i get to conduct two choir's direct the musical theater ensemble i fourteen private boys students and i get to oversee the whole program so an interface with all of our faculty so that's you know it's a lot of fun to do that sort of thing well i used to be a voice student too so you do do that quite badly but now yes i play seventh in the state of pennsylvania when i was in high school but you know it's something that you either go on with or you take it and i you know i became part of the entertainment industry so it really has led  just going to say with that very background that you mentioned prior to coming here which i have been at the college for ten years i lived around many different places most recently in boston and i did perform in a lot of different shows and saying get a lot of things like that prior to having children and then once children came along then i went more in the directing and teaching route so the worth of it would still like to do it tell everybody you know they say everybody can have it all their you know sometimes you have to change a little bit but tell me a little bit more about the college i know you're focused mostly in the music department but what kind of degrees does the college offer and do you have external studies as well we have many different degrees at state culture florida or f as it's known and clothing in our work force bachelor degree program so in nursing and technology and many different things like that online courses but the bulk of the college is still that two year degree so you do have some for for your we do have some four year degrees but the bulk of our college is the to your degrees helping students matriculate on to the next level and i think that's a very important part of the education process having you know available to students both to y programs and for your program is it's one her fall i i actually love the two year process because our students sometimes they're not financially able to go on sometimes their grades may not be there or sometimes they're just not in an emotional place where they're ready or you haven't decided what you want and we say come here especially in our music program which we feel is one of the best in the state if not the best and just a little moment to brag in the last ten years when we go to our annual music symposium our college has one more awards than any other college in the entire state while so it's a it's because of our faculty phenomenal faculty members we have five full time faculty and about thirty adjuncts all of whom the orchestra with the opera you know we have a retired metropolitan opera singer and the list goes on and i also read somewhere that you were among the top one hundred colleges in the producers of those associate degrees you've done that year after year after year and our students when they matriculate to the next university level not just music and they end up scoring higher and they have a greater rate of completions now not all your students are going to be eighteen or nineteen or twenty years but you know we have had veterans we've had lots of other folks who have come back at a later time and they don't always want to get a degree sometimes they just want to take classes to help improve where they are who have often wondered about online degrees because maybe because i wonder  stick to it if i did it online but does that work for a lot of people i think it does it offers options for people who just don't have the time or they're working full time during the day and they need that other time or can you do that with vocal coaching well we don't offer it now but i with students from former places and we do things like that a little coaching but we do offer music appreciation as an on line class and that's been very successful and of course here the band ways that we have so many performers that i would think  a natural for you know whether we have you know classical music or you know the indigo girls who have been around for a long time but they're putting a little spin on it with to perform with the city orchestra so i thought it was a great choice the right  sponsor of the right and that is that also speaks to our level of collaboration within the community and isn't that key it is so key and i i believe the arts in sarasota are really coming together we've been able to partner with the artist series  to gloria music high sarasota pops orchestra many of the local churches of course to do events and concert we do that as well and i you know we just had a fundraising luncheon where we use one of the local choral groups and it was a really inspiring and wonderful but now if somebody wanted to either go for adult education or actually look for a degree where would they go and find that is there a website or a phone number for adult education that would be our corporate and community development area and there is a phone number which i'm not going to quote because i can't remember it off the top of my good folks and stick it on that every year but that they can have we offer our wide variety of classes and then of course you can go to the college website which is s c f dot  edu to get more information because i think that's a wonderful thing to you know to sign up and i also i'm always vowing that i'm going to take another class so folks we have a great resource in our community and one that we're going to form a deeper partnership and so i want to thank you you have been delightful and we will see you very soon back at the college and thank you so might be the next time we have you on we'll have you saying oh that would be great and i think and i just wanted to mention to you we also have a wonderful theater program we have an art gallery so we have have another one we have joan rivers coming up and you and i love her oh my gosh quite the trip to remember the day you and i got up early on a sunday morning like of eleven s to go and see her doctor was in that phenomenal oh my gosh you have a greater appreciation for her after seeing that and of course joan is not a show i would bring the little ones to because she had said seven or eight times a specific word the begins with an f before she ever got on stage she was backstage heckling her own greet and we had a graphic artist last time and tim tim who are some of joan rivers jewelry from her joan rivers collection on q v c and the next day there tim was on joan's facebook page to find she's little tiny lady and she's so sweet and kind and hardest worker you'll ever want to my gosh if i have that much energy and then we segue to a musical beauty in the beast i think this is one of my favorite all times musicals disney it's the great disney musical and it's  you beauty and the beast is just to feel good and that's what we need to do these years feel good so this is a little from beauty and the bea he's brings and call us at nine five three three three six eight to get tickets go to our box office or our website is terribly popular van ways will drop all r g o r g yes and then we have the irish tenors come and the irish tenors we've had a number of times i go every single time as i know you do because we go together you know where they're singing and bopping on almost every show and three great guys are right they've been here before anthony kearns and  everybody's favorite but it went out a little bit on his own and it didn't work as well as the dynamic with the three of them and they do two shows they do a holiday show and they do an irish show and this show is all irish music and if you like the standards you won't be disappointed and if you like new jazzed up versions you'll also get a little taste of that a little humor and also they're so fun and they were having one of them this is the thing i talk about all the time diversity we're having one of my really good buddies and i'm i must say this guy is so wonderful to work with vince gill i'm talking about he's been here almost almost every year i've been here i was nashville last year i saw him with a group and we're hoping to announce that we're going to bring him in this group back he's on stage folks i'm assuming he goes on for hours singing and this year we get a call and he goes and they go this wants to bring his wife with him and ordinarily when we hear performers want to bring their family we normally are like  well then skills wife is amy grant so that is like really special so she of course has been here with vince in their holiday show but this is the first time and they're going to be singing each other's hits hopefully they're going to be on stage together a good deal of the time and it's march twenty one and hopefully we'll be able to tell you that if the time travelers are going to be able to make it next year we're trying to do that and this is a group where vince plays in the group and he's just one of the guys one of the guys  doesn't try to take the thing over now and then we have johnny clegg and lady smith black mambazo jewels and lady black mambazo three time grammy winners yes they are some wonderful music i mean it's kind of and these are folks are from south africa and i was lucky enough to travel to south africa about a year and a half ago it was the trip of my lifetime in fact our sponsor of the show touch of africa holds those tours and you can go over to say norman circle and see a little bit i'll be there that night you can many different tribes in south africa and part of the problem where all the tribes didn't speak together and mandela's tribe and this tribe did not get along and yet when paul simon came to south africa when he had done that fabulous album graceland mandela heard them he cried and he said these are the ambassadors of music for south africa and then with johnny clegg he said music is what suits my soul it gives me peace and these two groups are so representative of south africa and in a year when we're marking the passing of nelson mandela i couldn't think of anything more special to bring your family to not only will it be an incredibly entertaining evening but it's a piece of a slice of history and you really don't want to miss it on the intimate and wasteful stage so give us a call i really really recommend this and then go to south africa because let me tell you it probably be the trip of your lifetime when we go to different kinds of music miss made something sometimes they'll played some of the same music as of course you don't want to go to a moody blues and not hear the famous hits or they do a different show each time and the energy i mean the way they play the guitar you know their band smoke oh oh my gosh and we've seen it like i don't know how many times a lot and i'll tell you the moody blues is on my list and there's still a few tickets available now i want to talk about my favorite performer probably evolved and it is patt we have the greatest broadway star all no no holds barred patti lu pone is coming here to the van waissel with a brand new show she's coming on march twenty fifth and i was telling you my story julia runs  sometimes on the on the movie movies of lakewood ranch on the screens and so she had paddle opponent another person another person but patti lu pone show is called the gypsy in my soul and the lady is sitting next to me is going to sing some of her greatest broadway hits also some new songs off her cd faraway places don't miss patty little pony it is march twenty fifth she was here about three or four years ago everybody said it was the birth best concert you ever heard and believe me this is really special then we have a couple more to talk about we have where the action is and this is from i keep talking about things of my life but and this is not a trip you know these are the re after i fit general hospital and i went into this one and so paul revere is coming with the raiders and then the association and they sing a very important song along comes mary i don't think they met me at the time i think they were talking about something else and that's march twenty sixth and these shows are so popular here at the van ways all and then we were talking with our guest about they were sponsoring indigo girls and this is with a full symphony orchestra and amy ray and emily them soon then we mention the mid tell men they're coming and i think we're going to see some video behind us talking and they are the original guys from the jersey and was the one of them won the tony award and they were here last year they are also smokin as you say march thirtieth and then mark russell's the last one we're going to talk to you about today mark russell is a comedian and other comedian wholly different kind of comedy and rules at the van way how many girls mark russell really was one of the first guys that did a lot of political satire he sits at booker high school for some time being painted and i'm told it is imminently soon to arrive so next time at the van ways will not only will you see our tear you will see our cal so stay tuned and we'll bring you lots of great shows next time