Paul Wilborn Palladium Theater

Recorded 01/09/2026 38 MIN

Released 01/14/2026

Episode 3 Paul Wilborn Palladium Theater

This is Shaping Our Story where we talk to exemplary leaders about their success. Today, our guest, Paul Wilborn, is a journalist, author, and musician who was chosen for the Paul Hansel Award for journalism and was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. He also received the 2019 gold medal from the Florida Book Awards for his short story collection, Cigar City. For more than 40 years, Paul has reflected on his Tampa roots. As the Executive Director of the Palladium Theatre, he organizes shows with his wife, Hunger Games’ actor, Eugenie Bondurant and musicians like Duke Ellington jazz bassist, John Lamb.

Information

Louise Krikorian’s outline of questions comes from years of researching the psychology of learning, motivating students, and Dr. Angela Duckworth’s work on Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. For more information on Dr. Angela Duckworth, you can visit https://angeladuckworth.com/.

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Paul Wilborn

www.wilbornwrites.com

Palladium Theater

https://mypalladium.org/

Name a Seat video

https://mypalladium.org/name-a-seat/

Kitty Daniels with Majid Shabazz Jazz Legends Documentary trailer

https://youtu.be/t10ey_T2UpY?si=moJhf8yYW019UFIn

Kitty Daniels Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/track/6lkdJI6thMNmCp9FCrnOGd

Kitty Daniels Website

https://www.youtube.com/user/louisekrikorian

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Transcript

Louise Krikorian: This is Shaping Our Story where we talk to exemplary leaders about their success. I’m Louise Krikorian. Today, my guest, Paul Wilborn, is journalist, author, and musician who was chosen for the Paul Hansel Award for journalism and was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. He also received the 2019 gold medal from the Florida Book Awards for his short story collection, Cigar City. For more than 40 years, Paul has reflected on his Tampa roots. He’s written for local newspapers the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times. He’s written a stage play based on his reporting entitled Stray Dogs. His books include Florida Hustle and The Everlasting Life of Charlie Wall, due for release this March. As the Executive Director of the Palladium Theatre, he organizes shows with his wife, Hunger Games’ actress, Eugenie Bondurant and musicians like Duke Ellington jazz bassist, John Lamb.

LK: Welcome Paul Wilborn and thank you so much for spending time with us today. 

PW: Happy to be here, Louise. Thanks. 

LK: Yeah. You have accomplished so much, and I just am amazed at everything that you've done. We have spoken before, um, you had a wonderful, you've got so many wonderful interviews on, online. I mean, it's just amazing because you've, I think it's probably because you've done so many things.

PW: In a lot of different areas though, so I think it sort of spreads it out some too. So, uh, right.

LK: Right, right. So, some of the, some of the things that surprised me the last time that we talked is, um, that you did a, um. You set up an event in Ybor called the Guavaween. And when I tell people about you, and that's one of the things that I mentioned, that's the thing that stops everybody in, in their tracks.

PW: Well, you know, I was, it was a group of people and I was one of them. Uh, that's true. And uh, but it was. This thing started as a four, 5,000 person event in Ybor, and by the time we all fled screaming, it was a hundred thousand people showing up. And uh, you know, perhaps we should have stayed and controlled it. But after about five years, we all said that's enough. We're done. But it grew into a massive thing. And a lot of what I did in Ybor, even before that, with artists and writers, balls and other events, I learned how to book bands and that ended up, you know, paying dividends later in life, uh, with, with getting hired at the Palladium. So you never know. My misspent youth that turned out to be a help, help me out. 

LK: That's so funny. Um, so Guavaween is where everybody dresses up for like Halloween, but it's Guava…

PW: It was like a Halloween. Yeah, it was a big Halloween party in Ybor. And you have to remember, Ybor in those days was still virtually empty. There wasn't that many, uh, businesses there. Uh, so we took, did a giant parade, a crazy satirical parade that came down Seventh Avenue and Mama Guava was the queen of it. And she wrote in on an elephant and it was a huge, crazy thing. And people dressed up. And you know, we started with four or 5,000 people and it just, apparently the idea of people liked it and, uh, it grew and it was a benefit for a theater company. And we eventually handed it over to the Ybor Chamber to run 'cause we were all just doing it out of love, you know, and we, uh, didn't have a great structure and, but it's amazing, you know, if you get a right idea, people do turn out. 

LK: So it's interesting you make me think about something that I did when I was probably 13 years old. My best friend and I in high school, we produced a Gong Show. 

PW: Mm-hmm. 

LK: And it was, I mean, we're talking about the seventies here, but it was the first Gong Show ever done in the high school, and we were freshmen. I have no idea where we got the guts to do it, but where did you get the guts to come up with an event in Ybor City, which is here in Florida. And um, some people might say it's a, it's a rather wild town. I don't know if I'm saying that lovingly for everybody who loves Ybor. 

PW: Yeah. Well, Ybor, you know, I was Ybor. What people kind tend to forget is that in the eighties, Ybor was much like the East Village in New York. A immigrant district where all the buildings were pretty much empty and artists came in and rented them for cheap. You could have studios, you could have apartments. There were amazing places with terrible plumbing, but really great spaces. And I was part of this group. Uh, who were I mean, I didn't live there 'cause I had a job. So I actually had a, a place in South Tampa with plumbing, but I was anywhere all the time. And, uh, we started throwing parties under the leadership of a guy named Bud Lee, who was a wonderful artist and photographer, and thousands of people would show up. This was before Guavaween and uh, you could make all the noise you wanted 'cause there was no one there to disturb. And, uh, so these parties filled the clubs and we really believe, and I don't think it's a brag, that Ybor became an entertainment district because we showed you could be an entertainment destination and that people would turn out. And so it really grew from there. Not always the best way, but it grew from there, you know.

LK:  But I think it really speaks to the confidence that you had in creating something. So talking about confidence for you, I think you growing up in the, in Tampa.

PW: Mm-hmm. 

LK: And your, your parents were very supportive of you and…

PW: Yeah. I think, go ahead. 

LK: You don't, you don't have anything that was sort of a really difficult challenge. Um, growing up in Tampa, going to school, going to college, becoming, knowing that you wanted to write, but when did you know that you wanted to write? How old were you? 

PW: Well, I was, I was writing, uh, in, I was then junior high school. That's, you know, they didn't have middle school at that point. I was still in junior high and I was, uh, editing the newspaper, a little campus paper. And I was the editor in high school. And I, you know, I've teased my mom. My dad died, uh, when he was 64, so we lost him kind of young. But I told my, I had two loving parents and I told my mom still, I joke about it. I could have been a really great writer, but I had too much love as a child. You know, I was very supported. Uh, you know, we were not rich, but we were happy and, and, uh, my brother became a Broadway performer. I was able to follow myself into journalism. I never worried about doing something. And uh, so I guess I, if it was confidence or if it was just stupidity, I don't know, but I felt like, hey, let's try something. And oftentimes those things worked. A few of 'em fell on their faces, but a lot of 'em worked.

LK:  Well I think it's interesting when you talk about your parents being supportive, and I'm sorry that you, you lost your dad at a young age. But I was reading some research and it said that 64% of people, now, I don't know how large the sample size was. I don't know if they only interviewed 10 people or a hundred or a thousand, but 64% of the people who were asked said that their parents and their family was supportive. That makes me think of the 40%. I mean, we're almost at 50/50 if we're talking 60/40. Right? That’s…

PW: I think it's luck of the draw. You know, uh, I was very fortunate. Uh, they gave me piano lessons, you know, they encouraged me to, to do my creative stuff and my brother as well. And, uh, it just, and we also had an extended family of grandparents and I, my great grandparents who lived till I was 12, were Sicilian immigrants who lived in, just outside of Ybor City. So, I don't know. I had a very big supportive family. It made you feel like you could go, go do anything 'cause you had this safety net below you. You know, you were never gonna drop that far, so.

LK: So something might have, must have, um, maybe inspired you to be a writer because if you had Sicilian grandparents, you had a lot of food around you, right?

PW: We ate a lot. We did. 

LK: Can I assume that, am I making an assumption? 

PW: Oh, no. We, they, they lived till I was 12 and we would, we would have command performances at the giant table filled with relatives and the spaghetti, I remember them stuck in the spaghetti from the plate up into their mouths. They were dairy farmers. They were just hardworking. Uh, people never spoke English. And uh, but I got a real taste of that and, and I don't know, the writing thing was just there. I had something I could do and something that came to me pretty easily, kind of like playing the piano came to me fairly easily and singing. So all those things were just things I just continued to do, uh, you know, throughout my life just 'cause they're fun. 

LK: So what were you writing about? 

PW: I wrote, uh, I was reading a lot of detective stories then, uh, I loved the mystery. There was mystery magazines that were out then, and I would love that. And so I wrote a, uh, for the, my last English class in ninth grade or something. I wrote a story, a mystery story and turned it in and the next year when I showed up at, uh, high school, I was assigned to the newspaper. So whatever that means, you know, English teacher thought I must have been, he was a writer. Let's put him in the newspaper. 

LK: That's good. 

PW: I've edited him by my junior year. 

LK: That's good. Have you ever, have you ever heard I worked…

PW: I worked all the way through college at the Oracle and edited the campus magazines as well. So at USF I was very active in journalism and that's really where I cut my teeth. 

LK: So if you were writing at USF in college, USF is the University of South Florida, um, were you a student not getting paid or was that your first paid job?

PW: The Oracle in those days was paying $4 an hour, which was pretty close to minimum wage. Might have been a little above minimum wage. So, uh, I worked there and it was a 20 hour a week, uh, gig and, you know, that helped pay for my apartment, college apartment. My parents would pay for uh, college. But if I wanted to live on my own, I needed to come up with money. So I worked that and sometimes a second job during the summer so I could afford to, uh, live on my own.

LK: Mm-hmm. 

PW: But it was a great thing 'cause you got paid to do what you wanted to do and that experience easily got me jobs in newspapers, uh, when I graduated. 

LK: Did you have career goals when you were at in college? 

PW: I think my career goal was to work in a newspaper. It was a, the heyday of American newspapers and I saw all this great stuff and I interned at the Tampa Tribune, uh, and one of my colleagues as a young intern, and I didn't figure this out till a few years ago when we re-met, was a guy named Martin Baron who went on to become Marty Baron, the editor of the Boston Globe and Washington Post. And, uh, who was featured in ‘Spotlight’ and uh, he was an intern alongside me and I kept going, I know that name. And we we're now friends. He lives in the Berkshires and we visit every summer. But, uh, so yeah, I just wanted to be in the, in that world and, and it came to me easily and I got hired easily and, and when I did something, it was pretty successful. So. When you do something and it goes well, you kind of go that direction. 

LK: So have you ever had a time where somebody said, no, I, you know, I asked you to write this particular article, but it wasn't what I wanted? 

PW: Well, I've always had editors and I've had editors tell me, no, that's not what we wanted, and we work on it. That's kind of part of the process. Uh, anybody who, if you're a writer and you don't really like editors, I, to me, you're not really a writer. You're some dilettante. I love working with a good editor. Uh, I've had some who didn't like things that I knew were better and I'll fight for that. But in general, uh, as a writer, having a good editor is, is really invaluable. And I've, all my books have had editors and they've taught me things and showed me things and helped me solve problems that I had. So I'm a big believer. 

LK: So have some of your editors been more like a coach? 

PW: Uh, yeah. I think in some ways it's, I the best editors are the ones who don't tell you exactly what they want. They just tell you, this is not it yet, and let you go back and figure it out. Or maybe make a suggestion. Uh, I had a great editor, uh, in the Tampa Bureau of the then St. Petersburg Times named Neville Green. And Neville would read your stuff and he would never mark it. It was never marked up. He would just call you in his office and you'd talk about it for a little while, and when you left you kind of had a good idea of how he felt and you'd go back and try to fix it. And his fixes always made it better, or the fixes I came up with based on his suggestions. And I won a Florida Reporter of the Year based on the year that I spent working with him on my writing. And uh, so an editor, the right editor is great. 

LK: So it was more like gentle feedback. 

PW: Totally. And I think, yeah, I mean, there have been times on deadline where an editor needs to change something and it's newspapers. It's a, it's a process, but most of my career, later career, I was writing long form pieces. So, and I, they already knew I was a good writer. They'd hired me for this and I'd won a lot of awards. So it was really them helping me to make it better, and I was always open to that. 

LK: So we've, we've talked a lot about you as a writer, but we haven't talked about you as the director of the Palladium Theater in St. Petersburg, Florida, which is 

PW: It was…

LK: …an amazing venue. 

PW: Thank you very much. It, I'm really proud of what we've done there, and we've had a lot of fun. I mean, that's really a second career for me because as you know, I don't have to tell you or the folks listening, you know, the newspaper industry is a shadow of its form itself. And, uh, around 2003 I saw the writing on the wall and, uh, started looking for jobs outside. And believe it or not, my arts background from Ybor City, the crazy stuff we did in Ybor City helped me, uh, you know, change my career. Uh, I was hired by Mayor Pam Iorio to be her Arts Czar, arts guy, uh, based on all the crazy stuff I did in Ybor as a young guy. Uh. You know, with not even sure what we were doing, but we just had fun and, and that ended up getting me hired. And then four years later I was offered the executive directorship at the Palladium. And I had never run a performing arts center and didn't really know how, but I had a pretty good idea of how it should go.

LK: Well you’re pretty good at telling people what to do.

PW: As long as I believe it, I can tell them. 

LK: Well, I really appreciate what you did for Kitty Daniels and Majid Shabazz at the…

PW: I was, you know, Kitty crossed over in both worlds. When I was a columnist, I went to Kitty's house and interviewed her and wrote a column in which she taught me how to play in the nearness of you. And she performed it for me and it, she was so magical. And, uh, and I just fell in love with her and what she did. And so, you know, years later there she is performing and, uh, you, you're doing a documentary. It's just a natural and we gave her a very well deserved, gave she and Majid a very well deserved Palladium jazz award just for the career she had.

LK: So thank you. That was the first, 

PW: Yeah. 

LK: Amazing. 

PW: She was the first year, I believe. 

LK: Yeah. Well, she had a long history here in Ybor, starting at the age of 15, uh, in, uh, the Cotton Club in Ybor. Um, but uh. 

PW: She could have gone anywhere and played anywhere. 

LK: Yeah.

PW: She was that talented. She, as you know, she didn't like to travel. 

LK: No.

PW: She wanted to stay home, but she was a world-class performer who just happened to stay in town. 

LK: Right. And in the Kitty Daniels and Majid Shabazz documentary, we talked about that. Like, why didn't you become, um, you know, famous around the world? You're, you're famous here in Tampa and you're one of our treasures. Um, she was known as Miss Kitty of Ybor City and you know, she was just incredible. And unfortunately, she hasn't been with us for a year. She passed away last January and..

PW: Yeah, I was, see her at, my mom loves Donatello. 

LK: Mm-hmm. 

PW: So, uh, we would go to Donatello a lot and she, that's where she was holding court…

LK: Yes.

PW:.. for a lot of the last part of her life. 

LK: Yes.

PW: And I loved seeing her there. And she would get, make me get up and play with her sometimes, or she would take a break so I could play so she could sit.

LK: And, um, she recorded three songs. Um, at USF, um, Mike Cornett interviewed her. 

PW: Oh, that's great. 

LK: Um, for the jazz show. And, um, “The Nearness of You” was one of the ones that she recorded, so that's actually on a, a CD.

PW: Oh, that's great. I'd love to hear it. 

LK: Yeah, so I'll send you the link to that.

PW: Please. 

LK: That's on Spotify. So, so we're talking about you being a writer and we're talking about you being at the Palladium, and that brings us to the thread of Stray Dogs. 

PW: Well Stray Dogs was, you know, as a journalist, you write a story about someone and the no newspaper does not want another story about those people. But to me, I started meeting these characters who really resonated with me and had more to say. And so, uh, I had a chance to be part of this group that this was at the Performing Arts Center. Wendy Leigh put it together at the Off Center Theater and we studied performance, uh, for six months or eight months. And then we all produced shows that ran over the summer and I wrote that show and it was all from notes and tapes I had of real characters, but I put it into a more of a theatrical format. I played one of the characters, I hired other actors, and uh, it came out really well. We ended up doing it at the University of Michigan when I was, had a fellowship there in 98, 99. And it, it, wherever it's been done, it's gone over really well. 

LK: And you've also written Cigar City and Florida Hustle.

PW: Uh, I guess 2015. Uh, I had sort of gotten the Palladium where I was no longer fearful that it was gonna come all collapsing down on me. We sort of stabilized it and got it into the black. And my friend Bud Lee, who had been our sort of guru in Ybor, uh, passed away. He was older than the rest of us. And, and, uh. So I felt like somebody needed to document that era, but I didn't wanna do it literally. I didn't wanna do journalism. I'd done enough of that. I wanted to write fiction. So I plotted out nine stories based on things that might have happened and people I might have known. But really, by the time it all gets said and done, 90% of that book was fiction set in that world 'cause it was such a magical world. 

LK: Mm-hmm. 

PW: And, uh. The book it won the gold medal in the Florida Book Awards, and I was really gratified because as I early on doing it, I would send the stories around and they weren't getting well received.

LK: Mm-hmm. 

PW: I applied for a grant and got told, “What the hell is this?” So when the book went out and won the award and got a lot of good coverage and people bought it and liked it, then that was very gratifying. 

LK: So that's a…

PW: …and that's another thing about keeping on because of the obstacles. Uh, you know, if I had listened to the critics before that book came out, I would've put it all away. And, and I'm so glad I didn't. 

LK: Me too, because it, it is hard. It's, it's hard being a writer. It's hard putting yourself on, on a page is what I think writing is. Um, I used to teach language arts, um, and history and I, I know how hard it is for, for students, especially in middle school, some more than others. Some really like to write, some, not so much, and just to start writing it's hard enough, but then when you have a story, what do you do with it? And then if you share it, what are people gonna say about it? So you really have to be, I used to tell my students more like a turtle where you have a hard shell on the outside, but you still have a warm heart so that you can still move forward. 

PW: That’s good.

LK: But what do you do in an instance when, you know, how did you get through that time where you weren't getting good reviews, you weren't hearing good things about your book? 

PW: Yeah, fortunately all those before the book actually came out, so it was more just, I was, you know, sending my stories off for, for things. And I, I guess because I had a track record as a successful writer, uh, and had won a lot of awards for my journalism, I felt like, I think this writing is good. I felt strongly about the stories, and so some of it was sort of, damn the torpedoes, I'm gonna keep going. Uh, and there was one point where I was pretty down and I got a note back from one of the, uh, the national publications that said, “ You got an honorable mention?” So it wasn't a win, but it was a honorable mention and that was enough to really say, all right, I got it. I'm going ahead. 

LK: Yeah. 

PW: And when the book came out, it, it was a really bestseller in the Tampa Bay area and around Florida and it, people liked it and people still talk about it. 

LK: So say the name of the book again so we can run out and get it.

PW: It’s called Cigar City and the subtitle is, Tales of a 1980s Creative Ghetto 'cause Ybor was sort of a creative ghetto. A ghetto is not, a ghetto just means a place where a lot of similar people live. And it was all artists and it was just a really exciting time to be there and to be young and having fun. 

LK: I, and I wonder if that speaks to your, your upbringing as well, where your grandparents were around and you heard, I'm sure you heard stories of their upbringing in Sicily and to gravitate towards Cigar City. We know Ybor City as Cigar City because it was started by Mr. Ybor who created, um, a, a thriving industry around cigars, making cigars.

PW: Right. And that industry really put Tampa on the map. And it brought so many immigrants here, uh, including my great grandparents and, uh and Tampa without the cigar industry would be a pretty boring place.

LK: Mm-hmm.

PW: Even today, I mean, it really gave Tampa the flavor that made it incredible. And uh, and it was this big melting pot, Ybor City in my great grandparents' day. And my grandmother's day was Italians, Sicilians, Cubans, Spaniards, uh, a lot of Jews from Eastern Europe who came and, uh, and everybody was, it was that immigrant story. And you know what's funny, in light of today, uh, there were headlines in the newspapers in those days and people speaking out saying, this is the death of America. All of these low rent, you know, dark skinned immigrants coming to America will destroy our country. Well, guess what? It made our country the greatest country in the world.

LK: Mm-hmm. 

PW: And anybody who doesn't understand that he is fooling themselves. 

LK: Yeah. Well, I know something I had a hard time understanding that you and I have talked about is your book called Florida Hustle. 

PW: Yeah. 

LK: It's because it's, it's basically a screenplay that's been converted into a book, but you're reading storyboards, so…

PW: There are, yeah, 

LK: I mean, I, I've worked in film as we talked about, um, the Kitty Daniels and Majid Shabazz documentary. Um, so when I read Florida Hustle, it's you're reading a storyboard and it's page after page of a storyboard. What I didn't understand was that the main character was just putting down, or what you see on the storyboard is just what he's kind of thinking about, or a fantasy or these are his ideas. This isn't actually happening.

PW: It's a, you know, it's a fully fleshed out book, but there are, and we actually had, I hired an artist friend of mine to draw the storyboards and I said, “Don't make 'em too good. I want it to look like a 16-year-old a drew em,” because my main character is actually 17 at this point, and he, uh, he's obsessed with a screen queen. The book is set in the eighties, early eighties, and what we, after Friday the 13th and Halloween, uh, there were over 400 slasher movies were made by Hollywood and a lot of 'em were made on the cheap in Florida. A lot of my actor buddies got killed in the woods, you know, in Florida, in making bad slasher movies. And so he's obsessed with a screen queen and she's shooting in the Everglades. He lives in Palm Beach and, uh. He's determined to get to her and show her better ways for her to die, but everyone else just thinks he wants to kill her. So it makes for a comic fun novel and it's sort of a road novel and, uh, it's a lot of fun. I had good times with it. 

LK: And I think it should be a movie. 

PW: It won a star from Kirkus [Review]. It, uh, was named on the “100 Best Indie Books of 2022”. And, uh, one of the big agencies called and asked to, for, to look at it. I haven't heard back from 'em yet, but it is in the hands of, uh, one of the big agencies that processes these things. And it was the real folks. My agent said, “Yeah, those are the real people.” So, you know, but there's a lot of material out there. 

LK: So…

PW: So far nothing, it's been a good ride.

LK: So I think, um, you know, now that you've explained to me before that the story behind Florida Hustle. Um, I'm wondering if your agent has any connections to Reese Witherspoon.

PW: I don't know. I'll have to talk to him about that. 

LK:Well, we'll have to look into that. 

PW: Yeah.

LK: So, well, the other thing talking about movies is you've married a movie star. 

PW: I did and uh, yeah, and we met in Los Angeles. I was working for the Associated Press and she was living up there. And, uh, I think, and when I, you know, met her, of course what you did and still do, I guess, is Google the person and she showed up as being in movies and TV and including a vampire role, which she hates talking about. But, uh, so we got married and moved here and she's done a lot of big movies, uh, since we moved here and, uh, because you now can audition from anywhere, so you don't have to live in LA or New York so much anymore. 

LK: So we're talking about the wonderful Eugenie Bondurant.

PW: That's right.

LK: I love her name.

PW: It's just a, it's a great, she has great New Orleans name and Bonderant is a great, uh, name. There was a, it's a family that, uh, French Huguenots who came and they're spread all over the United States. There's a great movie called Lawless about these moonshiners, uh, in Virginia. And they were Bonderants and based on a real, real stories and, uh, so it's quite a colorful family. And, but she's had a great run as an actor and she's really talented and, uh, got a unique look. Nobody looks like Eugie.

LK: No. Um, so she's, she's in films. So one of the films is, uh, The Conjuring 2.

PW: Mm-hmm. Devil Made Me Do It.

LK: And then also Hunger Games.

PW: Mm-hmm. She was Tigris in the Hunger Games. She's listening right now. 

LK: She's, she's in, she's off in the wings right now.

PW: And she hears her name... 

LK: Yeah.

PW: …and just responds.

LK: Yeah. But…

PW: Yeah. She's done Marvel and she's done a lot of TV and things, so she's had a good run and uh, and she's ready to do the next project when it comes up. 

LK: And she's also in your cabaret show. 

PW: Yeah. We made her into a singer. She had never performed like that in public before, but when I put her on stage to do one little bit, uh, in our cabaret show, she stole the show. And so she's trained her voice and now she's the star of the show. And, and people say, “Eugenie is in the show, right? We don't just want you, we, we need her,” so.

LK: Wasn't, wasn't the, the act was she, she had um, sort of like these big cards, she was holding up big cards that had words on 'em. 

PW: I brought out, we were doing, yeah, we were doing a Cole Porter review. I'm doing it actually at the Palladium before I got hired. This is how long that goes back. I, I was performing at the Palladium, uh, when they hired me and I fired myself. I was the first person I fired. I said no more of that guy. But, uh, we were doing a Cole Porter review. She had beautiful gloves on and she was holding cards for, “Birds, do it, bees, do it.” And she would flip 'em except the gloves wouldn't let her flip 'em properly. And she became like, Lucille Ball. And when I'm playing, the audience is howling laughing and I'm thinking the song's funny, but not that funny. It was her. So…

LK: Yeah.

PW: She's a star. 

LK: She is, 

PW: Yeah. 

LK: She's a natural.

PW: Yeah.

LK: She's, she's just such a wonderful actor. 

PW: We put her on stage and turned her loose. 

LK: Yeah.

PW: She just did a beautiful video for us, for our seat campaign 'cause we're renovating the Palladium and we're selling seats. We raised like $12 million for this renovation and she had done a Neste commercial, I don't think ever aired years ago, which he played sort of a scowling, scary schoolmarm kind of, you know. And so I, we, I wrote a, I wrote a script for her to do and uh, that's how we've been selling our seats. She's on the website as that scowling schoolmarm saying, “Buy some new seats!” So it's fun. 

LK: She is scary in some of her roles. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say she's scary in person though. 

PS: And she can't really watch horror movies. She's terrified of them. She gets up and leaves the room.

LK: Wow.

PW: But horror movies like her and, 'cause she has got a great unique look and…

LK: She does.

PW: And she's done some pretty bad things. 

LK: Yeah. But she, she's also on the runway in Paris. 

PW: She's modeled, she modeled, uh, before her acting, she modeled in New York and Paris and, and then after in The Conjuring, uh, her character is the villain, and she has to walk to where she's gonna die. And it's a model, kind of a walk and, uh, Denma from then Balenciaga saw her and said, get her. And, uh, they reached out and, uh, she ended up doing six shows for them, uh, in New York, in Paris. And I got to go to Paris a few times. It was great. 

LK: Was it in the springtime? 

PW: Yeah. 

LK: I love Paris in the springtime. 

PW: We were there in every time cold, hot, warm, spring. It was beautiful. 

LK: Yeah. 

PW: And, uh, anyway, it was a really nice thing and she, she was great in all those shows, so it's been a fun ride. 

LK: Yeah. Well, you're also on stage with John Lamb. 

PW: Sometimes.Sometimes he doesn't need me, but sometimes, uh.

LK: But sometimes he's on stage at the Palladium or the Side Door, which is the smaller venue downstairs…

PW: Right.

LK: …at the Palladium Theater. 

PW: Yeah. I actually hired John and Nate [Najar] couple times to work in my cabaret. Uh, I really, I, I don't pay myself to perform at the Palladium. Occasionally I'll get up and do something with John, but I try not to be the guy who shows up on stage at his own theater too often 'cause I've got plenty of work. If I wanna work, I can work outside. 

LK: Yeah.

PW: But John and I have done stuff together and we're honoring him. We, you know, we've been celebrating his birthday for a number of years and we're doing a ninety second this year and I just said, well, it's just ninety second. We'll do it in the nightclub. Well, it sold out two weeks in advance 'cause everyone loves John. 

LK: Well he's so, um, approachable. He's, he really cares about teaching youth. He is a bass player, upright bass. Um, and he worked for Duke Ellington and toured with him.

PW: And he's a good human being.

LK: Yeah. But, so he had the lifestyle of touring with Duke Ellington. 

PW: Yeah. 

LK: Which is amazing. But, but he also had the lifestyle of being married, having, um, you know, a steady family home.

PW: He's an educator here for many years as well. A lot of the jazz guys in that we hire now credit John with, you know, giving them advice and lessons and, you know, guidance. And I think having someone like that who's been through it all, uh, to advise you if you're aspiring a jazz musician, is just incredible. And so you see the love of not just the audience, but the musicians really love John. He gives him hell, he, he does, you know, he'll say, well, you're not playing right. He, I've watched him, you know, he's not like this pushover. He said, oh, the beat's not right, or whatever. He lets him know, you know, he specs a high standard.

LK: Yeah. But he did a, a beautiful, um, show with, uh, Lisa Casalino. Where she sang one of my favorite songs. Um, A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That, which she wrote, and the two of them are just so beautiful on stage at the, um, uh, at the Side Door downstairs. But speaking to him being a mentor, um, who do you mentor?

PW: You know, uh, I have a godson who we talk all the time and he's very proud of him. He's gotten his master's degree. He started his career and, uh, he's just an incredible guy. And, uh, so, and he was the first in his family to graduate from college, uh, from his side of the family. And so it's really impressive. And he, I didn't have to do much, but I did try to show him what the world could be like. You know, by getting to college and when, who, just introducing him to people who are successful and doing wonderful things. And he's taken that ball and run with it. And he's got a great career now. And, uh, and he, he speaks fluent Spanish. He's a huge, uh, waspy looking kid, but he's, you know, he's just had an adventurous life. And then anybody young who comes in and needs something, I try to be open to that 'cause I got some of that and I try to offer it back. 

LK: Mm-hmm. 

PW: You know, we have a lot of young people at the Palladium who come through in part-time positions and performers, and I try to give 'em my best advice without telling 'em what to do ‘cause you gotta make mistakes. I made plenty of mistakes and learn from 'em. 

LK: So, with a minute left, how can we answer, I have three questions, so let's see if we can do this. Um…

PW: We'll do it fast. Lightning. 

LK: Okay. What do you hope to do next? 

PW: I wanna keep writing books and I'm proud to say that we've raised enough money that the Palladium will get a full renovation starting August 1st, so that's exciting.

LK: Okay. If you could give one piece of advice, um, to, let's say your godson, what would you think one, the best piece of advice be?

PW: Always be creative. Continue to always be creative. Uh, you, it pays great dividends.

LK; Okay. And what's the best way to contact you?

PW: Uh, really, uh, I'm on the Palladium website. It says, uh, contact us, and, uh, my email is there. My phone number is there. 

LK: And what's… 

PW: So if you just go into palladium.org, you can track me down very easily. 

LK: My Palladium dot org.

PW: O-R-G. Yeah.

LK: My Palladium dot O-R-G.

Thank you so much for joining us at Shaping Our Story. Thanks to our guest Paul Wilborn. His constant creative work is proof that he combines his passion with perseverance. 

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