SAINT PETERSBURG, FL. — After the rousing success of their inaugural season, the bay area’s newest theater company, The Off-Central Players continue into the new year with a piece of history, Mayday: Captain Lerro and the Skyway Bridge. Since making its world premiere with a limited run in ’21 at another local venue, the play – which deals with the 1980 collapse of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge – caught the attention of artistic director Ward Smith, who was in high school at time of the horrific event and has always been intrigued by harbor pilot John Lerro’s story.
This one-person play written by long-time St. Pete journalist and author Bill DeYoung will run for 12 performances in February 2022. Actor Michael Horn returns as Lerro, alone onstage recounting scenes from his life both before and after the “day he checked into hell.”
Although he was exonerated by the courts, Lerro remained a pariah in the community. As a lifelong Catholic, he was consumed by guilt over his role in the tragedy that claimed 35 lives. Not long after he returned to work on Tampa Bay, Lerro was stricken with multiple sclerosis, the degenerative muscle disease; it left him unable to walk and would ultimately lead to his death in 2002.
As author of the book Skyway: The True Story of Tampa Bay’s Signature Bridge and the Man Who Brought it Down, much of DeYoung’s dialogue was taken verbatim from Lerro’s court testimony, media interviews and personal correspondence.
Mayday: Captain Lerro and the Skyway Bridge runs February 10 thru 27 at Studio Grand Central, 2260 1st Ave. South St. Petersburg, FL 33712. Tickets and more can be found at www.studiograndcentral.com.
The Off Central Players are a not-for-profit professional theatre company. The OCP Supports and nurtures the artistry of every participant, while honoring their identities, perspectives, and traditions that inspire creativity, self-expression, and collaboration with the many diverse artists of Saint Petersburg and beyond.