Doc Webb not only created the first “superstore” in America, he put St. Petersburg on the national map and inspired one of my favorite musicals.
This weekend the Palladium is bringing back Webb’s City – The Musical. We’ve got lots of folks coming who have seen this show before and love it. And if you haven’t seen it before, I guarantee when you leave you’ll be humming at least one of the tunes.
And you’ll know a lot more about the history of this unique town. The show spans St. Pete’s history from the booming 20s to the ‘70s when downtown retail – including Doc Webb’s gigantic “drugstore” went into decline.
St. Pete Life Magazine just published an in-depth article on the production. Here’s a link to that story by Cindy Stovall.
Shows are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. You can get your tickets by calling our box office at 727-822-3590 or follow this link for on-line tickets and information.
For newbies, here are some details on the show. And keep an eye on my blog this week for more Webb’s City news.
The hit musical was written and directed by Bill Leavengood with music, lyrics and musical direction by Lee Ahlin. In 1999, the Pinellas County Millennium Celebration commissioned Leavengood and Ahlin to create a new musical based on the life and times of J. E. “Doc” Webb, the colorful St. Petersburg entrepreneur called the “P.T. Barnum of Retail.” In 1925, Webb opened a tiny drug store on Ninth Street and over the next five decades transformed it into a 77-store complex covering ten city blocks. In its heyday, Webb’s City attracted 60,000 visitors per day.
Webb’s City, the Musical premiered in 2000 at both Ruth Eckerd Hall and the Mahaffey Theater. The show was such a hit that a new non-profit arts organization, LiveArts, was created to bring it back to the Mahaffey Theater in 2001, where it broke their box office records, selling more than 10,000 tickets. A community theatre production was mounted at St. Petersburg Little Theatre a few years later where it broke their box office records as well. We produced another version at the Palladium in 2008 and again last year.
Now, the Palladium Theater and the St. Petersburg Museum of History are producing a 2018 version of the show, with underwriting by Jim and Suzanne MacDougald and Larry and Joyce Beltz, along with the Tampa Bay Times. The show is a multimedia concert version featuring all of the great music from the original musical, expertly woven together with narration, scene highlights and iconic images from five decades of St. Petersburg and Webb’s City history. The show reunites original production’s creators and directors, Leavengood and Ahlin.
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