Thanks to only minor damage, the show is on at Florida Studio Theatre.
By Ramon Lopez
Original Air Date: October 11, 2024
Host: The spotlights are on again at Florida Studio Theatre, thanks to only minor damage during the hurricane. Ramon Lopez has the details.
Ramon Lopez: As the massive cleanup continues in Sarasota County and city, and in Manatee County, normalcy is in short supply, and will take time to make a full recovery. This goes for both residents and local businesses. But one well-known local entertainment venue, Florida Studio Theatre in downtown Sarasota, has staged a quick comeback, and the theatre is no longer in the dark.
Rebecca Hopkins, who manages the place, told WSLR News they are open for business, providing entertainment to those who need some.
Rebecca Hopkins: We have a two o’clock matinee today we’re bringing up, and then we have all our shows, our two shows tonight at six and nine. So we’re very lucky here at FST, all of our damage was minor. We had a big tree down. We have a couple of lights that were knocked out, but FPL got our power back on yesterday morning, so we’ve been cleaning up and getting ready to open because we think that’s what we can do. Like we have food service, we have the show. People can escape out of their no power for a couple hours and come down and see a show and get something to eat. So that’s us doing our part to try to help everybody out. We’re back up, we’re running. We’re still not sure if we’re going to be able to go into rehearsal on next Tuesday for our next show, because we won’t bring more actors in until we know all our houses are back up and running. That’s where we’ve taken the most. We have no power in a lot of our artist housing. So luckily, we were able to move the couple casts we have in town now into the ones that do have power, so they’re comfortable. But we can’t bring anybody else into we get everything else back up. So fingers crossed. That happens this weekend. There’s two shows tonight, the 4c are going to be in the Goldstein cabaret, and off the charts is going back up in the court cabaret. And then tomorrow we’ll have three with off the bounds in the improv. And if you need a laugh, which I think a lot of people do right now, that would be a good one to go to. We weren’t up on the main stage yet. We’re that’s the one we go into rehearsal for on Monday. So in that sense, FST was lucky. We’re not at full bore operations anyway, this time of year, it’s just two shows running our children. Show, of course, has been delayed, and that one, you know, go back up speak so. But overall, FST has done really well, and our staff has done a really tremendous job coming in right after the storm and cleaning things up to make the campus ready for the public again. Because we do know that arts can help heal and help people feel a little better right now while they’re dealing with so much damage. And so our staff was really committed and came in to do that. And many of them don’t have power, most of them don’t have power themselves.
RL: This is Ramon Lopez for WSLR News.
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