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By Charles Runnells
crunnells@news-press.com
Originally posted on October 03, 2007
It’s fitting that Gulfshore Playhouse is launching
its first “mini-season” with the comedy “Life
x 3.”
The troupe plans almost three times the scheduled shows
as last season.
Two of the shows will run about a month
each — roughly
three times longer than last year’s offerings.
And if you talk to theater management,
they’re apparently
bubbling with three times the enthusiasm.
No wonder. Things finally are starting to happen for the
fledgling theater.
“We’re so excited,” says
artistic director Kristen Coury.
All this from a theater that doesn’t even have it’s
own building yet. Gulfshore Playhouse is still at least two
years from breaking ground in Estero, Coury says. The professional
theater troupe — which uses actors from New York and
other big markets — will be part of the upcoming Estero
on the River project.
“Everything takes time,” Coury
says.
She and the theater’s board of directors, however,
aren’t letting a missing building get in the way of
bringing drama and comedy to the masses. They’re forging
ahead with the 2007-08 mini-season, and they’ve already
hired a general manager to handle the troupe’s day-to-day
business.
The theater exists, Coury says. Gulfshore
Playhouse isn’t
just something drawn on blueprints. It’s alive, and
it’s happening right now.
Exhibit A: “Life x 3,” a comedy by French playwright
Yasmina Reza, who wrote the popular “Art.” It’s
the first time the show has appeared in Southwest Florida,
Coury says.
The show opens Thursday at the Alliance for the Arts in
Fort Myers. Then it moves to The Norris Center in Naples
from Oct. 18-27.
“Life x 3” follows what happens after a couple’s
important dinner guests arrive a day early. In three different
scenes, Reza shows how different moods, actions and circumstances
could have changed the outcome of the same dinner — and
the couple’s life.
“It’s interesting and thought-provoking,” Coury
says.
After “Life x 3,” the theater’s next show
will be the musical comedy “Married Alive!” in
March. So far, the show has been performed in only three
other places in the United States, Coury says. And never
in Southwest Florida.
On top of those official Gulfshore Playhouse
shows, the troupe will reprise its searing drama “Oleanna” at
BIG Arts on Sanibel Island Jan. 16-17.
The play features Coury directing the
same cast from last year’s version at FGCU. But it’s not an official
Gulfshore Playhouse production, Coury says. It’s done
under the umbrella of BIG Arts.
All these shows give theater lovers more
Gulfshore Playhouse than ever before. Last season had only
one scheduled show, “Oleanna.” Another
show, “Romeo and Juliet Redefined,” was added
later.
“Oleanna” ran for just six days, and “Romeo
and Juliet” for just two days. This season, the two
official shows each run about 16 days over four weeks.
Theater management credits that to good
timing and newly opened stage space. Earlier this year,
Alliance for the Arts opened up its Foulds Theatre to outside
theater groups. And in Naples, troupes Stage 88 and Compton & Bennett
left The Norris Center for Bonita Springs.
Suddenly, Gulfshore Playhouse had found two new homes.
“We feel so fortunate to have theater space,” says
Playhouse board chairman Bob Harden. “We literally
are going to have two months of theater, which is great.”
Still, their ultimate goal is to perform
shows in Estero. “Oleanna” played
at FGCU last year, but this season the university theater
is booked solid with shows and rehearsals.
“We’d love to perform in Estero,” Coury
says. “There’s just no space right now.”
That being said, Coury stresses that
Gulfshore Playhouse isn’t meant to be just an Estero theater. It’s
a regional theater. So the new shows in Naples and Fort Myers
should help attract people to Estero when the playhouse building
finally opens.
“We don’t belong to any particular town,” Coury
says. “We belong to the entire region.”
These shows also will help with fundraising when the theater
kicks off its capital campaign in a year or two. The playhouse
building will cost an estimated $20 million.
Once people see what the troupe can do,
they’ll be
more likely to open their wallets to make sure those shows
keep coming, Coury says.
“We’re giving people something to hang their
hats on,” she says.
Right now, the theater is concentrating
on staging live shows and raising money for its $500,000
annual operating budget. Once the groundbreaking gets closer,
they’ll
launch that big capital campaign, Coury says.
In another step toward becoming a fully realized theater
company, Gulfshore Playhouse has hired a new general manager
to take care of the daily operations of the theater.
“He’s on board and running with his hair on
fire,” Harden says.
John Pike is a contracted employee and
won’t work
a set work week. He makes $40,000 per year and will help
put together the financial and organizational framework for
what’s to come, Harden says.
“Before, Kristen was a one-person show,” Harden
says. “Now she’s got some support and help.”
Pike, who has an extensive background
in theater and theater management, says he’s just as excited as everyone else
about Gulfshore Playhouse and everything that’s to
come. The new “mini-season” gets the theater
moving and on its way to the eventual goal of five or six
shows a season.
“This is getting our feet wet,” he
says.
Everyone is enthusiastic about what’s
to come, and that enthusiasm is contagious, Pike says.
“I’m always excited about a new theater,” he
says. “Always. The rules are yet to be written.”
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