19 Oct Electric Eden

Life is crazy! As many of you know, I’m writing a roller disco rock opera called Electric Eden. The story takes you on a kaleidoscopic odyssey through the history of Coney Island narrated by tour guide Captain Bob. Everything that happens on the stage is his psychedelic fantasy world.

In real life, Captain Bob was one of the most wonderful Coney Island characters that graced the boardwalk around 2002-2009. He disappeared around 2010.

Each week I work on my roller disco opera at the Frying Pan Brooklyn at Industry  City. I host all of my meetings and do most of my writing there.

In my research, trying to track down information about Captain Bob I found beautiful essay by Romy Ashby. Through this essay I leaned that before he lived in Coney Island, the Captain worked on a barge in Manhattan next to the Frying Pan.

It occurred to me that the Manhattan Frying Pan is owned by the same people that own the Brooklyn Frying Pan where I’ve been working on the musical.

I asked the manager to investigate to see if anyone from their manhattan location remembered seeing Captain Bob on a neighboring boat back in the late 90s. Well….. it turns out that Captain Bob actually worked for the owner of the Frying Pan for about 8 years.

I met her last week and she had so many stories and fond memories of Captain Bob. He returned to visit her in 2012, shortly before he died, and gave her a bunch of his drawings.

How crazy is it that the place I’ve been writing the musical for the past 2 years is, without my knowing, owned by his employer and friend of many decades! There’s a million places I could have chosen as my designated writing spot.

For some reason I was drawn to the Frying Pan to work on this musical. Incredible! ? of the real Captain Bob’s hand made tour guide badge by Tricia Vita