A New Performing Arts Hall Takes the Stage
Edison 8 movie theater becoming Victory Center for the Performing Arts
BY NANCY STETSON nstetson@floridaweekly.com
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THE SOUNDS OF SIMON Click image for video |
Gary Waldman has high hopes. He and his partner, Jamison Troutman, are opening a performing arts theater in Fort Myers.
They’ve taken over the Edison Park 8 Cinemas movie complex located across the street from the Edison Mall. The multi-plex has been shuttered for four years. After renovating, they plan to open in July, then start their 2010-2011 season in late September.
He knows it’s a tough time for arts organizations. And on the east coast, he says, actors with talent left the state, because there isn’t any work for them.
But theater’s in his blood.
Besides, he believes he can fill a niche in the Fort Myers area that no one else is. For example, he’s not planning on putting on yet another production of “Nunsense” or “Footloose.”
“We looked at the big guys in town we have to compete with, those who are big size-wise or reputation-wise,” he says, naming the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall, the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre and the Florida Repertory Theatre.
“What we do is right in-between…not at any of those three venues.”
The Mann Hall brings in touring Broadway shows and one-night concerts, he says. “And the Florida Rep is more artistic. It’s a nonprofit. They sell out like crazy. They do very well, so they can be riskier. They do more plays than musicals. The Broadway Palm? It’s not what we do. You’ll never see ‘The King and I’ here,” he says, referring to the musical currently playing there that closes April 10. “You’ll see things you haven’t seen before: a lot of original work, all musicals.”
“Shenandoah” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Passion” are two of the shows planned for next season. And he’ll open in July with “I Write the Songs,” which he calls “A Celebration of the Music of Barry Manilow.” It’ll preview July 7-9, and open on July 10. And later in the season, a year from now, the theater will present another show Mr. Waldman conceived: “The Sounds of Simon,” featuring the music of Paul Simon.
They’ve taken over the Edison Park 8 Cinemas movie complex located across the street from the Edison Mall. The multi-plex has been shuttered for four years. After renovating, they plan to open in July, then start their 2010-2011 season in late September.
He knows it’s a tough time for arts organizations. And on the east coast, he says, actors with talent left the state, because there isn’t any work for them.
But theater’s in his blood.
Besides, he believes he can fill a niche in the Fort Myers area that no one else is. For example, he’s not planning on putting on yet another production of “Nunsense” or “Footloose.”
“We looked at the big guys in town we have to compete with, those who are big size-wise or reputation-wise,” he says, naming the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall, the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre and the Florida Repertory Theatre.
“What we do is right in-between…not at any of those three venues.”
The Mann Hall brings in touring Broadway shows and one-night concerts, he says. “And the Florida Rep is more artistic. It’s a nonprofit. They sell out like crazy. They do very well, so they can be riskier. They do more plays than musicals. The Broadway Palm? It’s not what we do. You’ll never see ‘The King and I’ here,” he says, referring to the musical currently playing there that closes April 10. “You’ll see things you haven’t seen before: a lot of original work, all musicals.”
“Shenandoah” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Passion” are two of the shows planned for next season. And he’ll open in July with “I Write the Songs,” which he calls “A Celebration of the Music of Barry Manilow.” It’ll preview July 7-9, and open on July 10. And later in the season, a year from now, the theater will present another show Mr. Waldman conceived: “The Sounds of Simon,” featuring the music of Paul Simon.
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| Click image for video |
For the thousands of patrons who he hopes come to see the shows, he has a pledge.
“I promise that if they come here, they’re going to have fun,” Mr. Waldman says. “I swear I’ll never bore them and that they’ll not see something they’ve seen 55,000 times before. Always be prepared to see something you might never have seen before.
“That’s what I like to do,” he says.
But right now, he’s standing in the lobby of the garishly decorated Edison movie theater. The concession stand has been torn out to make room for a bar. The old carpeting is still down — it’s Barney the Dinosaur purple, with oversized yellow and blue stars.
The walls, too, have all the subtlety of a clown outfit: bright purples, glowing greens, flamingo pinks and overly sunny yellows.
“It’s like a pre-school,” Mr. Waldman says, looking around. “We have to tone this town. We’ll paint it one color, with an accent. We’re bringing in top-quality management from New York who’ll turn this into nightclub chic.”
Although Victory Center for the Performing Arts isn’t a dinner theater, he also plans to open a restaurant, though it hasn’t yet been determined whether it will be within the theater itself, or in the Cachet Bar and Grille next door.
The large movie theater in the rear, where he plans to put the main stage, will seat approximately 350 people. Then, for the following season, he plans to knock down the wall between the two main theaters to create one larger space that will seat anywhere from 650 to 800 people.
He also wants to turn one of the smaller, 150-seat theaters into a bridal chapel. (It has a center aisle, he points out.) He plans to keep the red cloth movie seats with gray plastic trim. He envisions it as a multi-purpose space, being used for meetings, as well as chamber music and a jazz series.
“Real jazz, not jazz lite,” he clarifies. “I’m a jazz nut. I love jazz vocals, especially. I want it to be like the Village Vanguard in New York, which was a breeding ground for talent.”
Musicians played there, then would later get booked at The Blue Note and make more money, he notes.
“I want to create things,” he says, noting that he was a concert promoter before he was a theater director. Perhaps he’ll start a chamber group from scratch, or a jazz society, he says. Maybe both.
He and Mr. Troutman looked at various small multi-plexes around the country. They were interested in one in Charlotte, N.C., but when that fell through, they concentrated on South Florida. They were looking in Orlando, but decided to come to Fort Myers. The Edison 8 theater was bigger and “had more promise,” he says. “We were able to do more here.”
Also, “competition is much lower on this side of the state. Business is cutthroat on the east side. The entertainment business there was extremely clique-ish. We’re in business to work hard. We work night and day. We didn’t want to become part of the clique. Every theater left and right were leaving the business, actors were leaving the area.”
They decided to leave too.
Mr. Troutman handles the business end of things, while Mr. Waldman is the artistic director.
“I perform, produce, direct,” he says. “I usually have more than one role.”
For example, he conceived the Barry Manilow and Paul Simon shows.
They’re not revues, he says.
“What I did, I put together what is legally considered a nightclub act,” he says. “There’s no speaking. It resembles (a revue) very much, but it’s not. I arranged the songs (so they’re) presented in a whole new way. I took the songs apart and put them back together in new ways. I made fast songs slow and slow songs fast.”
For example, he says, the music for “I Can’t Smile Without You” doesn’t match up with the lyrics.
“If you listen to the words, it’s an angry ballad,” he says. So he gave it a stronger arrangement to express the anger.
The show, he says, takes place in a penthouse setting and is “very martini smooth — all gowns, tuxedos. There’s no storyline at all. I make the cast comment with what they’re singing, and there’s a beginning, middle and end, somehow.”
As for his “Sounds of Simon” Paul Simon show, “it takes place in a park where everybody is a bum…
There’s not a style (of music) he hasn’t touched upon. I’ve totally reinterpreted his music. I break them up and make them production numbers with multiple persons singing them.”
But before he can start hiring actors and running rehearsals, he has to renovate the building.
“It’s four months to opening,” he says. He has to put in lights, a sound system, a stage, and make the space more acoustically friendly. But he figures the first major hurdle’s already been jumped.
“It’s already a theater,” he says.
A note ... the Victory Center never opened.
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