Theater notes
Duo wants to start company in Tampa
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 17, 2003
Hope springs eternal in the theater.
Meet Levi Kaplan, who hopes to start a professional theater in Tampa, even though he does not yet live in the city. Kaplan and his business partner, Stefan DeWilde, have been pitching their idea for a company called the Acorn Theatre.
"If it works as planned, we'll have a space by Jan. 1 and begin a season by September 2004," Kaplan said. "But we'll make it happen however long it takes. We're committed to creating this theater in Tampa."
Kaplan, 27, who just received a master's degree in directing from DePaul University in Chicago, is planning to return to Florida, where he went to the Harrison Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, a magnet high school in Lakeland. He and DeWilde studied several cities in the state as candidates for a professional theater. Tampa won out over Jacksonville and Miami.
"Tampa had a younger demographic than Jacksonville, and the number of community theaters and arts organizations in Tampa was much higher," Kaplan said. "Personally, I'm not crazy about Miami. It's too overpopulated. There's also a lot of professional theaters in Miami. We would feel more needed in Tampa."
Even though Kaplan and DeWilde have worked as lighting technicians at Disney World, they did not consider Orlando. "Orlando felt very transient to me because of its touristy nature," Kaplan said.
Kaplan thinks there's a niche to be filled between touring shows that predominate at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and locally produced theater. He is not very familiar with the work of bay area theaters that are professional (in varying degrees), having seen only Jobsite Theater's production of Suburbia and American Stage's Romeo and Juliet in the park; he hasn't attended plays by Gorilla Theatre or Stageworks. Nor has he seen TBPAC's homegrown shows.
Acorn has the blessing of Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio. "Her excitement about the project spurred us on," Kaplan said. "If she hadn't been freshly elected, I don't think we would have gotten to meet with her. Everyone we've talked to about this has been very excited. We've encountered very little negativity."
In describing what he envisions for Acorn, Kaplan mentions plays ranging from Hamlet to Sam Shepard's Fool for Love and musicals such as Little Shop of Horrors and Children of Eden. He figures a debut season of four shows with non-Equity casts would require an operating budget of about $500,000.
As for the theater's space, Kaplan has his eye on a brick building and is talking to the owner.
"We found a building we absolutely love," he said "It's the old Rialto theater on Franklin Street just north of I-275. It was built in 1926 as a performing arts space. In the '40s, it closed and then was a machine shop, which is what it is now. But the proscenium is still there, the fly house is still there, the balcony is still there. We'd build it with temporary decking and movable seating risers so we could take it from proscenium to thrust to arena on a show-to-show basis, with seating from 400 to 600 at the biggest."
Obtaining and renovating such a space would be costly. Kaplan didn't say where the money would come from, but his belief in the project was clear.
"The question is, well, if no one will pay you to direct, then create your own theater," he said. "Twenty or 30 years from now, we may not have the energy to create this. So we're passionate about it now."
"Parallel Lives' progress
Parallel Lives, the Bill Maxwell-Beverly Coyle play that premiered at American Stage in May, had a staged reading this month at Primary Stages, an off-Broadway theater. The authors rewrote the play, and two actors not in the St. Petersburg production, Ann Fleuchaus and Isaiah Whitlock, performed the reading.
"Some things were taken out; some things were added," producer Ray Sawyer said. "Bill and Beverly are working on increasing the theatricality of it. It's an evolving process." Sawyer is hoping to mount a production of the revised play.
Gorilla Theatre season
Gorilla Theatre opens its 2003-04 season Sept. 4 with a musical, Diva, Dy, D.B. and Me, with book, lyrics and music by Janet Scaglione. Other shows on the recently released schedule are Rocky Horror Show Oct. 23-Nov. 9; Sherlock & Shaw: The Adventure of the Missing Vampire Diaries by Gorilla founder Aubrey Hampton (March 4-21); Aunt Dan and Lemon by Wallace Shawn (April 29-May 16); and the annual Young Dramatists' Project (June 24-27). A holiday show is to be announced. Call (813) 879-2914 or see www.gorilla-theatre.com
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Theater notesDuo wants to start company in Tampa
