Spotlight: Looking Back

By Gus Mollasis

For this month’s Spotlight, I was scheduled to interview some celebs and write about the exciting films being featured at this year’s Sarasota Film Festival (SFF), scheduled for early April.

All that changed in mid-March when the Festival, like so many other events and happenings, was canceled due to COVID-19.  But fret not. It will be moved to the fall, so I will be on it again then, and will be letting you all know about SFF soon.  Yes, our lives will return to normal. 

In the meantime, with a scant few days remaining before press time, I’ve taken a look back at some of my interviews and pulled together some interesting thoughts and feelings from the many smart and talented and people I’ve talked to since early 2019. Here are some of the best “scenes” from those interviews.

February 2019
Mary Braxton Joseph
Journalist

“When Nelson Mandela walked into a room, everybody wanted to be like him. He was a champion of reconciliation. He learned to reconcile differences, so much so that even though he had been in prison for some 27 years, when he got out and became president, he invited some of the people who used to guard him to his inauguration.”

March 2019
David Rovine 
Vice President of Orioles – Sarasota

“We are committed to Sarasota and to supporting our community all year long. People have accepted the Orioles and I’m proud of that. Other teams played here and we asked ourselves what was going to make us part of the community. I think it is being a good business partner as well as a good neighbor, and you become a good neighbor by giving back to the community in your support of nonprofits and charities. The fact that we partner with the Sarasota Orchestra to do a performance, as well as the West Coast Black Theatre Troupe, is proof of our commitment. And we also do a lot of free family-friendly activities that include Spring Fest.”

April 2019
David Amram
Musician

“I’m interested everyday in trying to learn and create new things and understand the old things that I thought I knew about, while being able to revisit them. It’s an endless process.

June 2019
Don Bruns
Author

“I read like crazy all my life. And I liked to write at the paper. But Robby taught Melville’s Moby Dick. I remember him analyzing the text. Pointing out some of the red herrings and the real symbolism you had to follow. I had never read a book like that before, studying it and talking about it. It gave me a much greater appreciation. I remember him going on about how we had to capture the spirit of Ahab and feel the energy of a book. He got on his chair, jumped onto his desk and picked up a flag pole imitating Ahab going after the white whale.”

July 2019
Bishop Frank J. Dewane
Bishop of the Diocese of Venice

How are you addressing the needs of the youth in the Catholic Church?

The youth are a real priority for me. They’re not our future. They’re our present. Each year we organize a youth rally. The Holy Father has World Youth Days. One year I came back from that event and said we can’t afford to take everyone there, so we have to do something where the youth can come here. We started with about 100 children and now, in the last two years at the community center in Punta Gorda, we take in 2,000 children. I’m cognizant when I go to parishes and don’t see a lot of young people, and that concerns and bothers me. I talk to some kids and they tell me they pray and that they’re spiritual. That usually means they don’t go to church. I’m older. I get it. I don’t judge. We’re trying to think what could be done. It’s important to ask them what more we can do. Youth is definitely a challenge. We do alright with high school kids. It’s the young adults we just don’t see. The 30-year-olds. In some cases, it’s the children who bring the parents back to church. It’s there in scripture: “The least among us…” I don’t pretend to understand the love a parent has for a child. I’m not a parent. But what I observe is tremendous—the joy you see in a parent’s face when the child says, “Let’s go to church like the others.”

September 2019
Riselle Bain
Child Actress

“I auditioned at Paramount Studios with a lot of other little girls. An associate producer named Henry Wilcoxon came in, looked at me and said, “Little girl, put the sweater over your head.’ So, I put the sweater over my head. That’s when he let all the other little girls go.”

“He took me by the hand and took me to the sound stage where they were filming The Ten Commandments. He brought Cecil B. DeMille over to me and Mr. DeMille asked me if I knew a poem. I said, yes. I recited the poem “Daffodils”. And in that beautiful and iconic voice of his, he said, ‘You got the part.’”

October 2019
Mark Donahue
Baseball Player, Author & Filmmaker

What is it that you love about the game?

What some people who aren’t baseball fans don’t like, I do like. I think it’s the pace of the game. If you are an aficionado of baseball, you understand and begin to love the nuances. People get bored when there is a 10 pitch at bat, when there is a 3-2 count and the guy keeps fouling it off. To me that is so exciting because you don’t know what’s going to happen. Both guys are zoned in. Neither one is giving up. It’s that drama. I think that you have had to have played the game a long time or been a fan a long time to truly appreciate how skilled these guys are. For people who have never played the game, I suggest you go to a batting cage. Turn it on high and stand there. You’re going to understand what these guys face because you’re facing a fastball coming at 86 mph, but it’s straight. Add a breaking ball to that and a change-up. A slider or forkball or knuckleball. There is nothing harder than hitting a baseball especially when it can kill you.

January 2020
Mary Bensel
Executive Director — Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall 

“The reason I love running a performing arts hall versus running a regional theater is because of the diversity. Theater and Broadway are my grand love, but I also love the excitement of a rock concert. One minute I have Dave Chappelle, and the next night it can be Renee Fleming.”  

February 2020
Michael Feinstein
Singer, Pianist and Music Revivalist

As a young man you met Ira Gershwin, one of your musical heroes. Tell me about that.

Meeting Ira was something that I never ever expected would happen. It was amazing. It was a series of coincidences that led to this introduction to him. It ended up turning into a six year association where I worked for him as his assistant and eventually became his eyes and ears to the outside world. It was life changing and spectacular. He was a wonderful man and I adored him. He introduced me to so many songwriters who were still alive and who had created much of the music that I cared about. So, it was a bridge to a world that I could not have experienced first-hand without him. 

What was the greatest thing that Ira Gershwin taught you?

He taught me fundamentally about interpreting the Gershwin songs and particularly the lyrics because I was more focused on the musical aspects of it. He made me keenly aware of the interpretation of the words. He taught me about phrasing. Together we would listen to recordings of different singers. And I learned the different ways that one can interpret any given song. To be able to listen to the actual creator of the words and different versions of his own songs was incredibly life-changing. 

March 2020
Harry Connick, Jr.
Singer, Composer & Actor

“Music sort of takes over. It makes you stop. It’s another place to be. It’s like any kind of amazing distraction that allows you to focus…A participatory distraction that can bring you joy. It can also bring you pain. A variety of emotions.”