Controversial 1776 Director's Cut to Show Thursday Night

BRADENTON --  A Tuscon, AZ, music publisher, a Democratic county chair and a party state committeeman have teamed up on a bold idea that thwey hope will counter the Tea Party's image and rhetoric.

With Bradenton's Richard O'Brien, chair of the Democratic County Committee in Manatee Co., state committeeman Mitch Mallett and 1776, Inc., music publisher Keith Edwards of Tuscon, they hope to use the progressive themes of the 1969 Tony Award-winning play ("Best Musical") and 1972 Warner Bros. movie to provide cannon fodder for a battle of American icons that could emerge over the next two years.

They have also found a strong supporter in Sarasota County Democratic county chair Rita Farandino, they said.

T he trio will try out the theme at a $25-a-head Feb. 17 fundraiser staged at the Manatee School for the Arts at 700 Haben Blvd., just behind the Manatee Convention Center in Palmetto. The money goes to the party organizations and to underwrite Mallett's popular pro-Democratic morning talk show, It's Your Gavel, on WWPR1490-AM in Bradenton. Doors open at 6 p.m.

The show, presented at the 1776 movie "Director's Cut," contains a song about which President Richard Nixon famously called studio boss Jack Warner, a strong conservative, to have cut from the film.

The Director's Cut cut restores scenes and the missing song, "Cool, Cool, Conservative Set," which makes fun of self-importance and pompous rhetoric.

The trio says that the songs, the progressive themes and the ideals of the Founding Fathers as seen through the movie are perfect for the message President Barack Obama will continue to sound through 2012.

"It's something for everyone who's just a plain ol' American," says Edwards, whose father is credited with the songs and lyurics for the play and movie. He grew up in Parsippany, N.J., across from Mallett, and inherited rights fior the play from his father, Spencer Sherman.

Thursday Feb 17, 2011
Door open at 6pm
Begins 6:30pm

Manatee School For the Arts
700 Haben Blvd
Palmetto, FL 34221

Contact Mitch Mallett
941-527-1261
813-924-7994 Verizon Cell
itsyourgavel@gmail.com