A city committee is helping the theater group look for locations that would benefit nearby businesses.
By BABITA PERSAUD
Published September 5, 2003
Stageworks Theatre Company wants a home.
After 20 years of providing professional theater productions all over the Tampa Bay area, the local theater company is seeking a permanent space for rehearsals and performances.
And Tampa City Hall is helping them.
A 14-member ad hoc committee co-chaired by council Chairwoman Linda Saul-Sena and theater consultant Andrea Graham has been formed to identify potential sites.
This is what the theater company wants:
- Space to hold an audience of 150 to 175 people.
- 6,500 to 10,000 square feet.
- 20- to 40-foot ceilings for lighting.
- A facility with wings for rehearsal space, a backstage area and dressing rooms.
- Shop, prop and costume rooms.
- A box office, lobby area and office space.
Committee members plan to look at the Channel District, Ybor City, downtown Tampa and Seminole Heights.
But why is City Hall helping?
Because theater helps the city, Saul-Sena said.
"Stageworks has such a terrific reputation for high-quality theater that a restaurant or bistro would greatly benefit from proximity to the theater," Saul-Sena said. "I always go out either before or after a performance. The location of Stageworks in an area would give the surrounding businesses a boost."
Director and founder Anna Brennen said a permanent home will allow the company to set its own schedule rather than work around dates blocked for other events.
Up to now, Stageworks has floated between several different venues, including the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Last year, Gorilla Theatre rescued them.
The nonprofit theater group, which gets most of its money through ticket sales and fundraisers, has earned fame for using local and regional talent in award-winning plays and often gutsy productions.
Stageworks presented Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Eve Esler's The Vagina Monologues before it became popular.
Most recently, the theater group did the first part of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, Tony Kushner's epic on gay life, AIDS and Reagan-era politics, at Shimberg Playhouse.
"Stageworks has outlasted most of the other theater groups in Tampa," Graham said. "It is about time that we find this wandering theater company a home."
- For more information, call Anna Brennen at 251-8984.
