Community theaters see surge across Orlando area

Throughout Central Florida, community theaters are charging ahead.

In Winter Garden, the new Mimi’s Community Theater will open its first regular show Friday. Meanwhile in Sanford, Dangerous Theater is putting the finishing touches on its new space, which will debut by month’s end.

South of downtown Orlando, up-and-coming Theater on the Edge has extended the run of its critically acclaimed third production, “Tape,” through this weekend. And two troupes have recently found new homes: Spotlight Theatre of Central Florida, which had been a traveling company, just wrapped a production of “Spamalot” in its new Sanford venue, while the College Park Arts Center has moved into a spot on Edgewater Drive.

“It’s a surge,” said John DiDonna, a longtime theater observer and producer who chairs the theater program at Valencia College in Orlando. “There’s an energy, there’s a passion right now — whether it’s political or social or creative, it’s exciting.”

Community theater refers to troupes in which the actors and creative team are generally unpaid volunteers, although professional actors might sometimes appear. A few spots offer small payments to participants.

The community theater scene often has an ebb and flow: Maitland’s Theater at the J, a program at the Roth Family Jewish Community Center, recently went on hiatus while the organization develops a new youth-theater partnership with Theatre South Playhouse, based in Orlando’s Dr. Phillips neighborhood.

Fans still miss Theatre Downtown, which in 2015 ended a 25-year run in Orlando’s Ivanhoe Village neighborhood after losing its lease. But in the way such troupes become part of a community, seats from that old space will be used at Dangerous Theater Sanford.

Winnie Wenglewick plans to open Dangerous on March 31 after spending nearly $40,000 renovating the downtown Sanford space, which formerly housed the Princess Theater. The former Fringe Festival volunteer owned Performance Space Orlando in the 1990s.

The renovations to her newest venue have “been a comedy of errors,” said Wenglewick, who’s opening weeks later than originally planned. Her experience illustrates common challenges that face community theaters: a small staff and a big cost.

Financial considerations caused the Jewish Community Center to revamp its theater program.

“The key for us is having a financially sound business plan, where our partner shares in the financial risks as well as reaping the benefits,” said executive director Robby Etzkin. “As a nonprofit, our margin for error with all of our programs is very small.”

For start-up theaters, as Wenglewick learned, creating the right space can be the biggest expense.

In Winter Garden, Mimi’s Community Theater founder Lorraine Patria found a partner in the city’s Masonic Lodge, where the comedy “Squabbles” will open Friday. It’s the troupe’s first regular show after a trial two-day Christmas production in December.

“I am very, very fortunate,” said Patria, who decided to start the theater after retiring from property and retail management. “I have a place to do shows where I don’t have to pay a lot of money.”

Working with the Masons has helped integrate the theater into the city, she said, as have “very helpful” meetings with staff from the nearby Garden Theatre. Patria had volunteered at the Garden, which presents large-scale, professional works.

She hopes the two theaters will complement each other, with children from the Garden’s education programs joining her troupe’s productions.

In the same way, Wenglewick would like to work with Sanford’s Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center.

Community theater forges bonds in other, more personal ways, said Patria, who was involved with a troupe near Port St. Lucie before moving to Winter Garden 20 years ago.

“Everyone involved has the same passion for theater, and you make friends you keep for years and years,” she said. “I hope someday a kid who was in our Christmas pageant comes back and brings his own kid.”

Over time, a community theater can grow into an institution: The Bay Street Players in Eustis have been around more than 40 years. In Mount Dora, the Sonnentag Theatre at the IceHouse has been going strong since 1949.

Time will tell if the new crop has that longevity — but even as they entertain audiences today, they are planting seeds that will benefit the theatergoers of tomorrow.

“I started in community theater, we all did,” said DiDonna, who co-owned a small theater in downtown Orlando during the 1990s. “This is where the next generation of theater artists comes from.”