The Magic of the Olympia Theater

Ms. Piazza's memoir is a walk through the 18-year journey of her career at the Olympia Theater from student-intern at Florida International University to director of theater operations in the City of Miami's 1920s treasured Olympia Theater at Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. Her personal stories of daily occurrences fill the pages of this memoir told through the loving vision of the author as she pulls aside the curtain for audiences to peek behind.

"Life gives us what we need, when we need it, and my belief is based on my faith," Ms. Piazza states. So often the author has had moments of sheer magic in her life and she loving tells the incidents in her memoir, "The Magic of the Olympia Theater, A Peek behind its Curtain." As a student-intern at Florida International University, she began her intern program at the Colony Theater and then at the Olympia Theater. Upon graduation, she became a staff member at the Olympia Theater at Gusman Center for the Performing Arts where she enjoyed the stimulation of the dazzling events of the day-to-day Renaissance of the Olympia Theater as it turned a decaying Downtown Miami into a center of cultural excitement and star-studded entertainment from 1983 to 2001. Read her true stories that fill the pages of this memoir told through the loving vision of the author as she pulls aside the curtain for audiences to peek behind to see human side of geniuses who have graced the stage of the Olympia Theater.

Jeannie Piazza-Zuniga is an author who has written articles for Preservation Magazine, Theatre Historical Society of America and the Miami Herald. She has a BFA in Theater from Florida International University and often attends Miami Writers Institute for creative writing. She's a member of South Florida Writers Association, The South Florida Organ Society and The Theatre Historical Society of America. She became the Director of Theater Operations at the Olympia Theater after beginning as a student-intern at the Colony Theater and then at Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. She studied music at the New England Conservatory, and has sung with the NE Conservatory Chorus. She continues to sing as a member of the Civic Choral of Greater Miami. She has even sang as member of a classic rock band, The Dreamcatchers, a Miami band. Her acting has been in No Exit, Sweet Charity, West Side Story, and Jesus Christ Super Star. She has played Mother Goose to hundreds of children in Miami through Alphabet Theatre Productions and continues to substitute teach in elementary schools for Dade County Public Schools.