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Cultural arts center still a New Tampa goal

Once again, the artistic director of New Tampa Players is hoping for financial progress from its annual fundraiser toward a future theatrical home.

By MICHAEL VAN SICKLER
Published February 20, 2005

HUNTER'S GREEN - It's become a spring ritual for Doug Wall.

This week he mailed hundreds of invitations to a fundraiser for a proposed New Tampa cultural arts center.

The black-tie event resembles the ones from the five previous years. About 250 people will attend the Wyndham Hotel in Harbour Island, munch on filet mignon, and watch Broadway performers sing standards from Cats and Les Miserables.

And, as last year, Wall said he hopes to raise more than $25,000 for the project.

"It's become the annual event that everyone looks forward to," said Wall, the 43-year-old artistic director of the New Tampa Players, an acting troupe. "It's tradition."

But the champagne may taste a little flat this year for Wall and those who had hoped the event's cause celebre - a cultural arts center - would be further along.

Just last year, supporters believed they were on the verge of getting land set aside for the center. As late as August, it looked like county commissioners would set aside 6 acres across from Hunter's Green.

But in September, commissioners nearly killed the project by attaching a number of conditions to the land, including a requirement for a $10-million endowment.

Commissioners and City Council members also voted to limit the project's scope, scaling it back from the original dance, theater, visual arts classrooms and two theaters for 875 people. The slimmer model would hold no more than 350 people, so as not to compete with the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.

"It's not dead, it's only a roadblock," Wall said. "We can get around it."

This isn't the first time Wall has seen his dreams for a community theater crushed by fickle politics.

In the 1990s, Wall was a member of Masque of Temple Terrace, another acting company that, like New Tampa's, had no home. After years of patient lobbying, it appeared the City Council there was going to give some city land for a theater. City officials even snared nearly $3-million in grants for a theater.

But in 2001, a new City Council revoked the offer after some residents complained there were better uses for the land.

"It was a shock," Wall said. "Just like that, all those years of effort were wasted."

A Hunter's Green resident, Wall had heard a group in New Tampa was trying to build its own cultural arts center. The group's leader, Graeme Woodbrook, told Wall that they had the support of key city officials, such as then-Mayor Dick Greco.

"This group had the support from Tampa," Wall said. "That convinced me to leave Masque."

That didn't sit well with some Masque members who, though disappointed they didn't get the land, weren't about to give up trying for a Temple Terrace theater.

"We felt abandoned to some degree," said Mary Jane Neale, acting president of Masque. "He didn't tell anyone he was leaving. He needed to do what was best for him, but we didn't think it was best for us."

Among those who left with Wall for New Tampa was Ruth Kegel. She said actors frequently move between community theaters and that it's an accepted practice.

"I think everybody understood Doug's frustration," said Kegel, who has since returned to Masque and is now its artistic director. "Sometimes you have to take a break, and that's what he did."

For a time, at least, it appeared Wall would realize his dream of getting a theater. Tampa contributed nearly $50,000 for feasibility studies. Commissioner Ken Hagan and Tampa council member Shawn Harrison were frequent boosters of the project.

But after September, Woodbrook's campaign collapsed. The group had to either disband or regroup. It decided to try it again.

Woodbrook said he's organizing another round of meetings with commissioners. This time, Jerry Bever, who's active in the local Republican Party and former president of New Tampa Rotary, will lobby commissioners on behalf of the project.

A prime objective will be to remove the conditions on those 6 acres of land along Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

"We need to go back and rebuild relationships with commissioners," Woodbrook said.

"These things typically take 10 years or so," he said. "The challenge will be to sustain the momentum that we had last year."

Neale, Kegel and Masque of Temple Terrace got their theater last year. It's in an old T.J. Maxx store. The group pays Temple Terrace $1 a month.

"We are ecstatic," Neale said.

"It's wonderful," Kegel said. "There's nothing like having your own space."

Temple Terrace plans to build a $150-million mixed use project, and officials have promised Masque a new theater after it's built.

Wall and New Tampa, meanwhile, are still looking.

In March, the New Tampa Players will perform The Miracle Worker at a city recreation center on 22nd Street. They have only two days before the performance to set up the stage in the middle of a gymnasium.

"We're competing with basketball and volleyball," Wall said. "We need more time, and we're just not getting it."

Wall, who owns a telecommunications company and a dog grooming operation, said he's not thinking about returning to Temple Terrace. With three kids in New Tampa's schools, he's happy where he is.

"My goal is for New Tampa to have a cultural arts center," he said. "If that fails, there will still be a New Tampa Players."

Kegel can relate.

"New Tampa is going through the same aches and pains we went through," Kegel said. "I don't think it's a lost cause at all. I hope Doug doesn't give up."

Michael Van Sickler can be reached at 269-5312 or mvansickler@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 19, 2005, 08:08:05]