GETTING NEW ACT

Theater school space pleases Burt Reynolds

Earlier this year, Donna Carbone was worried.

The lease was running out at a North Palm Beach shopping plaza where the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film & Theatre was headquartered. Would this end up being just another stop in the school’s nomadic journey over the years from Jupiter to West Palm Beach to Tequesta to Lake Park?

Carbone, the institute’s managing director, hated to think this would be the last stop.

But at the last minute, like one of Reynolds’ numerous comebacks, the tiny school that is close to the actor’s heart got one more reprieve. Space opened up in the same plaza, the Village Shoppes at U.S. 1 off Northlake Boulevard, and only a few doors down. It was smaller — about 1,500 square feet — but the rent was more affordable.

So, in a familiar ritual, volunteers spent weeks packing up the stage, all the posters from Reynolds’ long career and the chairs with the bright red “BR” cushions.

And then something unexpected happened — once the stage was built, the posters rehung and the 36 chairs set up, including Reynolds’ comfortable black chair on the front row, everybody had one thought: This is better than the larger space.

It reminded them of the setup inside the lamentably lost Burt Reynolds and Friends Museum, which shuttered seven years ago to make way for the Harbourside

BEACH POST LARRY AYDLETTE / THE PALM Inside the new space for the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film & Theatre at the Village Shoppes of North Palm Beach.

BEACH POST LARRY AYDLETTE / THE PALM Donna Carbone, managing director of the Burt Reynolds Institute, on the stage of the new theater complex.

Burt Reynolds