The biggest perk to my job as a storyteller is the opportunity to meet Good People. Two of the best people I’ve met in Pensacola are Jeff and Mandy Glickman.
At an event years ago, I immediately bonded with Mandy through our shared connections to south Arkansas, and I’ve continued to admire her warm spirit, outstanding artistic abilities, and family stories.
I only recently met Jeff and was not surprised that he was endearing, sincere, and every bit as delightful as Mandy. Pensacola is fortunate to have the creative energy of artists like the Glickmans who bring cultural, social, and economic value to our community.
I believe art fosters a connection between people, something desperately needed in our society. The arts also inspire creativity which is a catalyst for critical thinking and problem-solving.
Pensacola is fortunate to have a thriving arts community with all of the major art forms professionally represented through the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra, Pensacola Opera, Ballet Pensacola, the Pensacola Little Theatre, and the Pensacola Museum of Art.
In addition to these organizations, the experimental art gallery Artel relies entirely on volunteers and The Gordon Community Art Center offers a space for artists to create, study, and enjoy the arts. Every year in the fall, Pensacola celebrates Foo Foo Fest, a 12-day celebration with “high artistic and cultural caliber events.
Jeff is as multi-faceted as the city he now calls home. He was born and raised in Philadelphia with intentions to move with his best friend to Southern California, following high school.
The pair were both musicians, two days away from trekking cross country when his friend decided to stay and go to college. Jeff’s response to this change of plans changed the course of his life.
Scrambling to pivot, he took a job in upstate New York. Another musician friend was working at a Shakespearean Dinner Theater at The Majors Inn Elizabethan Manor and Jeff joined him. It was a room and board job and they needed warm bodies. Without other plans, Jeff headed for the theater with intentions of helping out, but none of acting.
“They gave me lines and I started to act. It was fun and strange and I liked it,” Glickman reminisces.
When the summer was over, he returned home and made the Dean’s List at the Philadelphia School of Music during his first semesters. After his successful chance endeavor into Shakespearean acting, he began doing community theater, before landing at Circle in the Square Theater and School in New York City.
Although he loved the theatre, a young Jeff struggled through acting. Perhaps his passion for acting infused with an internal wrestling empowered Jeff as a director. While trying to find his identity in the theater world, he also began working on set design for film and television. As many actors do, he had many creative odd jobs, including one installing restored antique American picture frames.
While working for the company, he was sent to Pensacola on an installation and met his future wife, Mandy.
They decided to take a chance together in early post-911 New York, but returned to Pensacola, starting Big Finish in 2004 – right before Hurricane Ivan.
With all of his early life spent in big cities, Jeff embraced life in the deep South.
“There’s a certain easiness to the people in general,” he says.
And there’s a certain easiness to him, as well. Filled with a variety of early experiences would prove invaluable once he moved to Pensacola, because “it’s really up to you to manifest and inspire,” he says of the mostly volunteer effort of creating music, theatre, and art locally.
Like his pivots and changed courses, his decision to produce a play by Tennessee Williams led to another play, to another.
While performing “27 Wagons Full of Cotton” at the Tennessee Williams Festival a man in the audience who produced the Provincetown Tennessee Williams festival, was taking notice. Several years later he asked Jeff if he could produce, “Will Mr. Merriweather Return from Memphis?”
The theater decided to say “yes” and Jeff raised $4,000 to haul 9 actors and 28 period costumes to the Provincetown festival, bringing the play to life.
It was a first for the Pensacola Little Theatre. Jeff played the banjo, directed, and performed a character.
Within three years, Jeff performed three leading roles at PLT. He’s also recently directed A Man for All Seasons.
It wasn’t long before Provincetown was calling Jeff to partner with them on the music. Like he learned during his life in New York, your life could change with one phone call. His continues to change with new arts opportunities.
“I think the most important thing is to have something creative to look forward to. More than my voice, my body, my mind. I have trained and studied to use my imagination. And in certain cases be able to live in my imagination. It can become better than real life. Having that next thing to work on keeps me vibrant and interested. It allows me to create a present tense that I enjoy,” he says emphatically. ‘You do it for the love of it – there’s no end game here. If something does happen here, it’s a bonus, but there’s no end game.”
In addition to his work in the theatre, he works with Mandy at Big Finish and plays with The East Hillbillies at venues around Pensacola. Long before he became an actor, he was a musician. He sings and plays guitar, banjo, mandolin, and harmonica.
When he was a little boy, Jeff would just hold his Dad’s guitar because he thought it was cool. He took lessons but had difficulty reading music, so he’s learned by ear and by chords. He would sit with other guitarists and eventually taught himself. He still practices every day for at least two hours.
When asked what advice he would give to a young artist, he said, “Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know; you don’t have to prove anything. That’s where the gold is. Find people who know more than you. If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”
“Instead of working smarter, not harder, my Dad would say, ‘Work Well’” Glickman adds.
He has clearly taken his father’s advice because I don’t know what works any better than a life filled with love, a compatible partner, the arts, and rich experiences – a life The Glickman’s certainly share.
The East Hillbillies will play next at Calvert’s on May 11 at 4 p.m. I think it’s safe to say we can also continue to look for Jeff Glickman’s name on Pensacola productions and playbills.
