Barrett Riggins as Harry Witherspoon and Amanda Rose as Annabel Glick in

Harry Witherspoon has a problem. Typically, an all-expenses paid vacation to Monte Carlo would be a good thing, a welcome surprise in the mundane life of the English shoe salesman. Harry’s vacation, however, is much less of a vacation and more of a duty—Harry has been left six million dollars by a mysterious Uncle Anthony from New York that he’s never met. In order to receive the cash, however, Harry must travel to Monte Carlo with his uncle’s corpse—propped up in a wheelchair to appear alive—and carry out a series of tasks. If Harry fails, his inheritance goes instead to Uncle Anthony’s favorite charity, the Universal Dog Home of Brooklyn.

Such is the plot of Lucky Stiff, Florida Studio Theatre’s (FST) opening production of its winter mainstage. Based on Michael Butterworth’s 1983 novel The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, Lucky Stiff is a musical farce created by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty that made its premiere Off-Broadway at the Playwright Horizons in 1988. “One of the things that we’re trying to do this season is bring people together and find common ground for all of us to stand on,” says Richard Hopkins, producing artistic director/CEO of FST. “Lucky Stiff does that through laughter and the ridiculousness of humanity.”

Part of the challenge of producing Lucky Stiff are the frequent changes in location. Interweaving plotlines of desperate characters all hoping for a chance at Harry’s inheritance, Lucky Stiff jumps from England to Atlantic City to a slew of locations across Monte Carlo. “There are so many different locales and they change so quickly. Keeping those changes simple is the director Ben Liebert’s job, and the scenic designers Isable and Moriah Curley-Clay have done a terrific job with the designs,” says Hopkins. “The set changes very quickly with a simple background, which is often a simple prop or furniture change on stage, because it has to move with the speed of light.”

Making his return to stage as The Body—Uncle Anthony—is ABC 7 meteorologist John Scalzi. “John is an old friend. We worked together many years ago and I contacted him and said, ‘this is a great show to make your comeback in, you don’t have to learn any lines and you get to play dead for two hours,’” says Hopkins. “It’s a fun role, because his character may be dead, but he goes through a lot of trials and tribulations.”

Lucky Stiff, November 5-December 28, Florida Studio Theatre, 1241 North Palm Avenue, Sarasota

Barrett Riggins as Harry Witherspoon and Amanda Rose as Annabel Glick in

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