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Tag: In the Community

  • Turning Points in Bradenton celebrating its 30th year this month

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    MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — Turning Points is celebrating its 30th year of service this month, and a lot has changed with the nonprofit over the years.

    In celebration of the milestone, Turning Points is hosting the 30 Acts of Kindness Challenge, where anyone in the community can take part in doing something good for others.

    What You Need To Know

    • Turning Points celebrating 30th year

    • The nonprofit has been here since 1995 in Bradenton and last year helped more than 9,000 men, women and children

    • Turning Points is hosting the 30 Acts of Kindness Challenge, where anyone in the community can take part in doing something good for others
    • Turning Points is located at 701 17th Avenue West in Bradenton; the phone number is (941) 747-1509

    Working hard and making a difference is what Kathleen Cramer knows best.

    “’24 and ‘25 have been as busy as ever,” she said.

    She has been the executive director of Turning Points in Bradenton for the last five years. She also has years of experience in charitable work with nonprofits.

    “I have been in nonprofits for 26 years all over the country. Every single day, we are helping people and changing lives,” she said.

    Executive Director of Turning Points, Kathleen Cramer (Spectrum News)

    A wall showcases the lives Turning Points has impacted through The Smiles Project — a little to no cost dental program for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless in Manatee County, just one of the many resources the nonprofit offers to help people.

    “It changes people’s lives. We had a mom who had been hiding her smile for many, many years, and when she got her dentures, she said, ‘I’m going to be a better mom because I’m going to teach my daughters not to fade into the background like I was doing before,’” she said.

    But when Turning Points first opened in Bradenton in 1995, it didn’t have all of these programs.

    Cramer says a lot has changed since then.

    “We’ve just kept growing. We’re giving out over $2 million every year to keep people housed,” she said.

    “When Turning Points started, our focus was really on rental assistance — making sure people could get into places. And now, we have six core programs here at Turning Points,” she said.

    Just last year, the nonprofit served more than 9,000 men, women and children in need — and they hope to serve even more soon.

    “We’re ready to start moving off campus. Instead of asking people to come to us, we’re going to be doing more programming out in the community. And we are just working on a new pilot program with the Manatee School District,” she said.

    From establishing roots in Bradenton to developing more community outreach programs, Kathleen is excited to help change more lives.


     

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    Julia Hazel

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  • ‘Laugh riot’: ‘Clue’ murder mystery comedy comes to the Midwest

    ‘Laugh riot’: ‘Clue’ murder mystery comedy comes to the Midwest

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    MIDWEST — Was it Mrs. Peacock with the dagger in the conservatory? Was it Mr. Green with the rope in the lounge? Was it Professor Plum in the ballroom with a candlestick? 

    John Treacy Egan is more than familiar with those questions. He grew up playing the iconic board game Clue. So when he found out a childhood favorite was being turned into a comedy murder mystery play, he wanted to be a part of it.

    What You Need To Know

    • John Treacy Egan plays Colonel Mustard in the national tour of “Clue” 
    • He’s reprising the role after playing it in two regional productions under the same director 
    • He said the whodunit play is a “laugh riot” and unlike the movie’s premiere, every audience will see the same ending
    • “Clue” runs in Louisville, Ky., at The Kentucky Center from March 5 to 10. It then heads to Milwaukee’s Marcus Performing Arts Center from March 12 to 17. It stays in Wisconsin for an Appleton run at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center from March 19 to 24. Later this spring, “Clue” heads to Ohio, with stops at the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Ohio from April 9 to 14, Playhouse Square’s E. J. Thomas Hall in Akron, Ohio and the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati, Ohio from May 14 to 19

    Plus, he said, the show’s director, Casey Hushion, had a wonderful reputation in the industry. Hushion has worked on projects such as “Aladdin,” “The Prom,” “Mean Girls” and “In the Heights.”

    Egan landed the role of Colonel Mustard in 2020 when the show premiered at the Cleveland Play House in Ohio. He reprised the role in a second production of “Clue” in New Jersey at the Paper Mill Playhouse in 2022.

    “That’s where this production was designed and built from,” Egan said. “Some of the actors who I’ve worked with before have been in this [company before] and some of them are new. So building it, when we were building it in Cleveland, was interesting. We were given this script and the script was in transition when we were working on it. So lines came and lines left as our writer and director decided where the play should be going.”

    Egan said he based Colonel Mustard off an actor he knows, describing him as “very broad and big,” and, above all, “committed.”

    He has the military-esq costume to match Mustard’s personality. And while his attire has yellow tones, he’s certainly not wearing anything that would rival a traffic light.

    He explained that each character’s costume has a touch of their color, they’re not dawning bright primary colors. However, they reflect the colors and characters so they’re easily recognizable and comparable to the board game.

    The Company of the North American tour of CLUE (MurphyMade/Evan Zimmerman)

    The actors on stage aren’t the only ones in costume. Egan said a lot of audience members will come dressed up as their favorite “Clue” character. While it’s not required, he said it makes the show a lot of fun for everyone involved.

    “It has a ‘Rocky Horror’ vibe to it a little bit. People know it so well and they want to come and be a part of it. Now of course there’s no calling out or anything like that like you would in ‘Rocky Horror.’ But the fans are there and when audiences come, it’s kind of fun to see people in the audience dressed like the characters on stage,” Egan said.

    Egan said that those fans of “Clue” should expect to see something similar to the movie they know and love, but it’s not exactly the same.

    “The best thing is it really does speak to the ‘Clue’ fans. So if you’re a fan of the game, you grew up playing the game or if you’re a fan of the movie, it’s very close to the movie in a lot of the performance aspects of lines, famous lines, and things like that. It is just a laugh riot,” Egan said. “It is 85-90 minutes of just funny and crazy and spinning out of control as more victims keep falling through the Boddy Manor throughout the performance. It’s a lot of laughs … You don’t have to know ‘Clue’ to come in but you have a really good time.”

    One difference for those who saw the movie when it hit theaters in 1985: Every audience will see the same production, so there’s no need to worry about missing out on alternate endings.

    “Without giving anything away, I think everybody is satisfied with the ending because they get a lot of what they know and they get a lot of surprises,” Egan said.

    In fact, the ending is Egan’s favorite part of the entire production.

    “I like the very very end of the show. There’s a confrontation at the end and I think that’s one of my favorite things about the show. I’m an observer at that moment, but it’s very funny,” he said.

    Six actors stand on stage in a line on one side of a closed wooden door, five of them are crouched close together with their ears pressed against glasses, trying to hear a conversation inside the closed door. The other actor is standing facing away from t he rest, his glass pressed to his own ear, but the other end is connected to nothing.

    The Company of the North American tour of CLUE (MurphyMade/Evan Zimmerman)

    “Clue” runs in Louisville, Ky., at The Kentucky Center from March 5 to 10. It then heads to Milwaukee’s Marcus Performing Arts Center from March 12 to 17. It stays in Wisconsin for an Appleton run at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center from March 19 to 24. Later this spring, “Clue” heads to Ohio, with stops at the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Ohio from April 9 to 14, Playhouse Square’s E. J. Thomas Hall in Akron, Ohio and the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati, Ohio from May 14 to 19. 

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    Aly Prouty

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