A View of St. Petersburg’s Past
By Aaron R. Fodiman
The Palladium Theater and the American Stage
Theatre Company will join forces to present a
concert version of Bill Leavengood’s Webb’s City:
The Musical, which was written and directed by Bill
with music and lyrics by Lee Ahlin. They created the show
for the Pinellas County Millennium Celebration in 1999. It
is based upon the life and times of J.E. “Doc” Webb, who
opened his first drug store in 1925 and kept expanding his
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enterprise over the next five decades until it covered ten city
blocks in St. Petersburg and attracted 60,000 visitors a day.
The musical was performed in 2000 at both Ruth Eckerd
Hall in Clearwater and the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg
and then again the next year at the Mahaffey, where more
than 10,000 people saw it. Webb’s City: The Musical was
again performed at the St. Petersburg Little Theatre a few
years later.