Rollins College
is
working on a replacement for its Fred Stone Theatre, which was knocked down last week and had been in use on the campus since the early 1970s.
When students return to Rollins College this month, they’ll discover a familiar sight is no more: The curtain has closed on the venerable Fred Stone Theatre, which was demolished last week.
“There’s a lot of attachment to that space,” said David Charles, chair of the Winter Park college’s department of theater and dance. “A lot of students did their first design work, or first directed there, or tried a new work there. So many students had educational ‘firsts’ there, it was a challenge to say goodbye.”
The building, a more utilitarian companion to the fancier Annie Russell Theatre, had been in use on campus since the early 1970s — but it was far older than that. It was built in the 1920s and served as a Baptist church elsewhere in Winter Park before being moved several blocks to the Rollins campus. There, it replaced an earlier wooden theater — also named the Fred Stone in honor of the 20th-century circus-vaudeville-Broadway star — that dated from the 1930s.
The second Fred Stone Theatre suffered hurricanerelated structural damage in recent times, and in the spring, university officials declared it unsafe several months earlier than its planned closure.
“Memories were literally holding that building up by the end,” said Charles, who calls the planned replacement theater the “Fred Stone 3.0.” “At the end of the day, safety has to come first.”
Students turned to social media to express their sorrow at the building’s demise.
“I love that theatre deeply and as sappy as it sounds, I feel indebted to it,” Lily E. Garnett posted on Facebook. “The Fred was as any genuine piece of art … a work in progress, filled with honesty and heart. Goodnight, Fred. Thank you, buddy.”
The theater was used for student-run productions, which gave up-and-coming
theater professionals a chance to experiment.
“For majors, minors, and others involved in the department, it was a place that was truly ours as students, where we felt safe and free to learn, create, and perform,” wrote Mary Vickers in a farewell column for The Sandspur, Rollins’ student newspaper.
Local troupes also used the “real workhorse,” as Charles put it — and the building served as classroom space for multiple theater-department courses.
“During college, some of the best classes that I took were held in that space,” wrote Garnett, a theater major who graduated in 2017. “I learned how to write sketches and to host events, how to move and sing freely, how to perform Shakespeare, how to be kind to my voice and body, how to sound design, and in fact, my first leading role at Rollins was performed in the Fred Stone Theatre.”
The department is temporarily using space in Rollins’ Pioneer Hall, a few minutes away at 203 Lyman Ave. But the college is committed to building a new theater and classroom space, Charles said, which will most likely be on the site of the demolished building. A brand-new structure will allow for up-to-date technology and a better learning environment for students, he said.
Plans are in early days, though: A budget has not yet been determined and meetings with architects have only just begun. The goal is to have a new building within two years, Charles said.
“It’s an exciting moment of looking forward, but also a nostalgic moment,” he said. “That building served us long and well.”