ON THE WHEELS OF A DREAM: PART ONE

THE NEXT THREE SEASONS IN FLORIDA THEATER

 (This is the first of an in-depth three-part series about the future facing Florida theater over the next three seasons, examining what you’ll see to what it will cost patrons and artists to whether it will survive at all. The second part focusing on the extreme problems caused by climbing costs and funding losses will appear Tuesday Jan. 6. The third part will be posted Thursday, Jan. 8 focusing on who is available to act, direct and design future productions, whether there even are enough experienced and/or talented artists in the local pool.)

 By Bill Hirschman

Theater is ephemeral.

A staging of Death of a Salesman might only last a few weeks with never-the-same performances. And then it’s gone.

If the art form itself is eternal, the survival of a sturdy unbowed theatrical community is far from guaranteed — as the past few years have proven.

As the curtain cautiously rises again this year in South Florida, profound questions are dogging audiences, artists and companies about what the next three seasons will provide as local theaters grapple with rising costs, a mercurial talent pool, fluctuating funding and deciding how far to nudge the proverbial edge of the thematic envelope.

Interviews with 22 local artistic directors, producers, actors, varied artists and government officials cemented no unanimity or universality, save one clear optimistic commitment. Even Miami’s City Theatre whose Executive Director Gladys Ramirez acknowledges it’s facing “serious trouble” pragmatically reaffirms that as it enters its 30^th year, “We’re going to rally.”

Indeed, most of South Florida theater located from Vero Beach to Key West, Wilton Manors to Naples has fought paralyzing COVID hibernation back to not quite pre-COVID levels – with significant crippling asterisks from theater to theater.

The region is home to at least 66 professional or semi-professional companies, 15 community theater companies, 13 presenting houses and 11 university-based production companies.

Today a few companies feel almost as healthy as they have ever been. Yet for even those, a tactile apprehension infects them about an uncertain future: What you will see on stages, even who will still be producing at all in three seasons from now.

A bare bones staging of Zoetic Stage’s The Pillowman with Michael McKeever, Ryan-Didat and Gabriell-Salgado (Photo by Justin Namon)

SOMETHING’S COMING

“It’s a Hard Knock Life” – Annie

Intersecting trends and diagnoses emerged in the diversely contradictory interviews.

They cited audiences’ staggered return, the pressing need to build a new generation of patrons and artists, and, above all, fear of funding cuts from grants, donors and government subsidies.

Margaret Ledford

“Look, the Miami City Ballet, the Arsht Center, they’re going to be okay,” said Margaret Ledford, artistic director of City Theatre. “But people like us, these mid-sized organizations that have been around for three decades, that’s who it’s going to hurt.” The predictions are even more unpredictable for smaller companies with smaller budgetary demands.

Fortunately, some significant expansions underwritten by commitments remain solidly in the works including building new performing spaces in Broward and Miami-Dade.

And some companies’ leaders are guardedly optimistic, such as Bari Newport, the producing artistic director who has led GableStage’s notable rebirth after the death of legendary predecessor Joseph Adler.

“We’re going to continue to push ourselves to be increasingly ambitious. We’re going to continue to give people who live in this region the opportunity to see some of the newest, biggest, most acclaimed productions that have happened in New York over this past year, so they don’t have to go to New York.”

But many others with long acclaimed histories are immensely nervous, said Andie Arthur, executive director of the South Florida Theatre League.

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t be panicked about the funding cuts. We should totally be panicked about the funding cuts,” she said.

State funding cuts last season forced City Theatre to shrink its 29^th annual Summer Shorts to four staged readings with minimal rehearsal at a lower-cost space.

Ramirez echoed several other companies. “Upward of 20 percent of our budget is now either gone or in question. It’s like after COVID, you didn’t know what was going to happen, right? You have to hedge your bets a little bit and not assume that this magic is going to come from the sky with a wad of money.” PH

Andy Rogow

Andy Rogow, artistic director of Island City Stage in Wilton Manors, notable for gay-themed work, said, “It would be very difficult to make up what we would lose from the county if that ever went away. It would clearly affect how many shows we could produce, the size of them. We would probably have to do less challenging work, things that are more familiar.”

Some companies post-COVID slipped into the gray space of unlimited hiatus which means producing a show when the spirit moves them – if at all. The Broadway series at Lauderhill Performing Arts Center shuttered. Pigs Do Fly that featured actors and characters “over a certain age” closed last month after a nine-year run.

But in the past and current season, some tiny companies are emerging such as Creatives Under No Theater, Lesbian Thespians Theatre and the older LakehouseRanchPng in Miami Lakes.

A full list of companies past and present is listed here at a-list-of-current-and-former-theaters-in-the-region.

It’s not just money. Audience traffic is just now rising, again not equal to pre-COVID levels at several theaters. Some attendees have lost the habit, others have diverted their attention to other interests such as online arts. There are exceptions: GableStage sold a record number 1,300 subscriptions for the current season.

But “theater is still having a hard time attracting people back, the performing arts in general,” said Phillip Dunlap, director of the Broward County Cultural Division. “The pandemic disrupted so much, from people (how they chose to use) their discretionary time (to) folks getting used to staying at home.” 

The world premiere of Tsunami by Miamians Nilo Cruz and Michiko Kitayama Skinner ,at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center.(Photos by Monica Juarez)

WHAT YOU EXPECT YOU’LL SEE – AND WHAT YOU DON’T

“In olden days, a glimpse of stocking….”

Of course, what audiences – and artists – most want to know is what will they see on stage over the next three seasons: what titles, what production values and what aesthetics.

The upcoming challenges merge and mix, from audience preferences to financial restraints to restocking seats left by aging-out patrons. There is remotely no uniform answer, but interviewees sketched out several schematics.

First, and most obviously, definitely expect more of the specific aesthetics that lifted each company out of their COVID attendance losses. Many will stick with their fine-tuned mission statements that vary theater to theater. The bets range from classic musicals you have to keep from singing along with, to recent NYC successes, to titles you’ve barely heard of, to locally-developed new work that no one knows.

“How can we still put together a season that checks all the boxes?” said Andrew Kato, Producing Artistic Director/Chief Executive of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. HD?

The Maltz’s last season did a large-scale family musical Frozen, but its older audience opted-out because they weren’t familiar with the film or stage version. Then it did the acclaimed three-act drama The Lehman Trilogy, which lost audience at the first act intermission but was loved by those who stayed for the drama with an outstanding reputation. But then, came a reinvented classic Guys and Dolls; that did especially well. PH

But it’s hard to forecast: In the Maltz’s new black box expansion initially meant in part for smaller serious plays, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf attracted customers so limply that the stage was moved forward to where some of the seating had been.  This season, there is only one entry with a one-man comedy.

Steve Trovillion and Cate Damon in Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Photos by Jason Nuttle Photography)

Many theaters have been reticent to experiment as assiduously this season they did pre-COVID. Theater is a balancing act of art and business, so few are apologizing for their disinclination over the next few seasons.  Instead, they are concentrating now on consistency and a deliberate step up in the quality level.

Rogow’s Island City Stage fare reaches across a broad spectrum, but the titles all have “a beginning, middle and end that’s not overly avant-garde, but has a fairly straightforward storyline.”

Audiences “enjoy plays… where they feel something. They come to the theater to feel, to laugh, to be entertained,” Rogow said, but he does not intend to flatten titles to schlock. Island City Stage produced Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance last season and this month is following the musical farce Ruthless with Lillian Hellman’s drama The Little Foxes.

Expensive productions can be the most audience attractive productions. New City Players’ fine All My Sons with an uncharacteristic 10 cast members in its intimate space was its second largest ticket sale in its decade-long history.  PH

But everyone is wary. Suzanne Clement Jones, veteran stage manager and a current leader of South Florida Equity, observes, “Theaters that were running for four or five weeks with plays are now running three or even less because they don’t have enough audiences to fill those seats…. There’s nothing worse than playing to half a house.”

Patrons “are not being so risky with their entertainment dollar at this moment,” said Patrick Fitzwater, artistic director of Slow Burn Theatre Company.

Its Executive Director Matthew Korinko agreed that their Fort Lauderdale troupe “used to be able to maintain some of that risk-taking when we were doing the (Abdo) New River Room,” the smaller facility in the Broward Center. “We could do Dogfight, we could do these under the rock stuff. That’s just not viable where we are (now in the 584-seat Amaturo Theater). You look to the new kids in the black boxes to do that stuff like we did.”

While that means sticking to recognizable titles, although that can mean popular titles from the 21^st Century and even those recently well-publicized on Broadway and off-Broadway, such as Eureka Day set for two local productions this year.

TAKING A CHANCE ON….

Luck be a lady tonight – Guys and Dolls

And yet, simultaneously, several other artistic directors are increasingly enticed toward work that reflects and resonates with what current audiences can relate to personally.

“The thing I love most about new work is that it’s being created in the same time and usually general place in which you are inhabiting and you are living,” said Matt Stabile, producing artistic director of Theatre Lab at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton that solely develops emerging plays that may get a full production in the future.

Stabile favors taking chances with his audience’s motif preferences. “They might hate it, but you got to push them. That’s why I went with (this season’s) City in the City in the City. It’s very nontraditional. You’re not going to go and see the living room and watch the family. City in the City in the City is two performers who play 30 roles. There are no props and no set pieces in the play. So it’s just got to be about these two actors.”

Vaishnavi Sharma and Niki Fridh in two of their 30 roles in Theatre Lab’s The City in the City in the City (Photos by Morgan Sophia Photography)

Companies like City Theatre seeking younger long-term audiences aggressively pledge to “work that is reflective of the time,” a goal emphasized by their audiences, said Executive Director Gladys Ramírez. “We’ve never got an impression that they only want to see patriotic, America-first art.”

Nicole Stodard, founder of Thinking Cap Theatre, said “Should we be doing more to find out from potential audience, an existing audience, what they want? Or should we be giving them something that they didn’t know they wanted all along, like something fresh and something new?”

For instance, Michel Hausmann, artistic director of Miami New Drama, said, “You’re always going to see something related to Miami history, a part of Miami history you didn’t know existed. You always know you’re going to get a multicultural experience.”

Miami New Drama’s The Cubans with James Puig, Ruben Rabasa and the Company; (Photo-Justin Namon)

“But I think it’s going to flip,” predicted Tim Davis, producing artistic director of New City Players in Wilton Manors. “We’re constantly searching for some opposite experience than what our consistent experience is… as our consistent experience becomes more and more technological.”

Stabile acknowledges a limit: “For me, it’s like, I really don’t want the concept of new work to be conflated with ‘This is going to be a preaching session.’ I just would rather it be like you’re going to see the human experience explored in ways that might feel familiar or ring bells for you and you draw your own connection…. It’s like, ‘Dude, if I wanted a lecture, I would go to a lecture series. Sometimes I want to just go see a play.’ ”

Actors are pleased for any work, but they too yearn for assignments that reflect them and their times, said veteran actress Karen Stephens. “Now in my life, I lean more towards art that is reflective of culture and ethnicity and overcoming struggle and being triumphant over adversity.”

THE EDGE OF THE ENVELOPE

Anything Goes

But these heightened emphases carry costs for some audiences, said Ledford.

“Work that came out right after we were allowed to be back in space together (post-COVID, it) challenged audiences in a way that they didn’t want to be challenged.”

But bowing to that, audience reluctance will carry a more profound loss in the coming seasons, Ledford observed.

“All the theaters that aren’t challenging, reflecting whatever that may be for their audiences, they’re trying to self-preserve…. But it’s going to lead to (their) downfall because… audiences are looking for a certain experience.”

Therefore, for some, actively injecting into the existing substance of the community has become a priority such as New City Players’ “build a city” ethos that includes community playwriting labs and forums about mental health.

“They’re so focused on how they can be an integral part of the community and make theater giving back a part of the habit for South Florida in the art scene,” said Caryl Fantel, Broward County Cultural Council member and Music Coordinator/Music Director for the Department of Theatre and Dance at FAU.

And there are inventive selections of “traditional” plays that echo present issues, such as Palm Beach Dramaworks slating Arthur Miller’s McCarthy redolent The Crucible, said Clement Jones.

Even mainstream companies like Slow Burn will choose a lesser-known title like Catch Me if You Can after a high-profile hit like last season’s musical Anastasia.

For all too familiar titles, some companies are reimagining if not radically reinventing, such as when Zoetic Stage mounted Fiddler on the Roof last season with a smaller, impassioned cast plus life-size puppets to fill out the tight thrust stage.zoetic

The Cossacks swirl in the tavern in Zoetic Stage’s Fiddler on the Roof (Photos by Morgan Sofia Photography)

But already this season two editions of The Marvelous Wonderettes played simultaneously. Don Quixote will roam La Mancha at opposite ends of the region: at Actors’ Playhouse this past fall and Maltz Jupiter Theatre this spring. Two companies will produce 2025’s prize-winning Eureka Day four months apart.

Some artists fear that conservative title stasis may diminish choosing recurrence of plays and musicals addressing diversity, equity and inclusion. “If people don’t see themselves, they’re not going to come,” Stephens said. Still, Palm Beach Dramaworks opened its season with Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop in which Martin Luther King Jr. and a mysterious maid meet in his Memphis hotel room the night before his assassination.

Christopher Lindsay and Rita Cole in Palm Beach Dramaworks’; The Mountaintop (Photos by Curtis Brown Photography)

HAVING TO FIND A NEW AUDIENCE

“That’s How Young I Feel” – Mame

The other key issue is company heads are painfully aware that their menu over the next two or three seasons will be key to achieving their second priority: building a new, younger audience that has little interest in seeing The Odd Couple or Hello Dolly. Everyone, even the companies known for traditional offerings, know that their long-time subscribers, supporters and donors are aging out. Given the horrendous traffic jams, many won’t drive past county lines – even city limits.

“In the next five years, there’s going to be a huge, huge change unless we’re able to figure out innovative ways to get (the current generations’) children to not just become subscribers and come, but to be philanthropists in the same or larger ways,” Bari Newport said.  If not, “then there’s really, really, really going to be a huge, huge crisis.”

Part of that proposed appeal goes beyond titles and topics to creating imaginative and innovative presentation. Ronnie Larsen Presents has mounted free productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Sound of Music and The Boys in the Band in a Wilton Manors park.

There’s an increase in technology projections and computer videos such as Dramaworks’ newsreel opening of Camping With Henry and Tom. Slow Burn played with it in The Little Mermaid. 

The word “immersive” arose repeatedly in interviews as an escalating option, such as Miami New Drama’s 2024 Lincoln Road Hustle staged along storefronts on that commercial street. Others talked about trying even less traditional structures that can be advertised as “events.”

An audience on the street views Miami New Drama’s streetwalk Lincoln Road Hustle

Toward that end, companies are investing marketing time and money into videos on Facebook and wooing online “influencers” who have more than 10,000 followers. The Arsht Center’s pre-Broadway tour series attracted scores of diverse social media figures to a light-hearted bash on its stage.  Slow Burn posts cast lists and head shots on Facebook weeks ahead of curtain time. Actors’ Playhouse released videos of performers rehearsing its recent The Spitfire Grill songs with the pianist.

Nicole Stodard

Many like Thinking Cap Theatre, GableStage and Florida Atlantic University’s theater departments are aggressively expanding their outreach to programming bringing in youth to free performances, hiring interns and trainees, holding classes specifically for teens and twenty-somethings.

“We’ve been in a period here for many years where we needed to think about the why we are making theater,” Stodard said “I mean, you can tell people the warm and fuzzy thing, which I really do truly believe in… how our heart beats synchronize when we gather in spaces in numbers… But it’s continuing to ponder that Why? Why we do this thing called theater?”

Yet the uppermost life or death issues are, one, whether the artists exist here to satisfy the need for a growing community, and two, how will it be paid for.

That provides the focus of the second part of the series to be posted online here Tuesday, Jan. 6.

Karen Stephens and company in Theatre Lab’s Motherhood

(Please feel encouraged to comment on these pieces at [email protected] or in the comments section on this page.)