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2009: Hard times produced some gems

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Here’s a story that ran in today’s Sentinel:

Hard times produce some gems

By Elizabeth Maupin
Orlando Sentinel Theater Critic

Theater groups struggled. But theater survived.

There’s no other way to look at 2009 from an Orlando theater-lover’s point of view. Like most arts groups across the country during a year when the economy idled and money grew more and more scarce, Orlando’s theater companies fought to keep their heads above water.

Krista Pigott and Jim Howard in Orlando Theatre Project's 'Blackbird.' (Photo by James Berkley.)

Krista Pigott and Jim Howard in Orlando Theatre Project's 'Blackbird.' (Photo by James Berkley.)

A few didn’t make it. The big local cultural news of the year may have been the failure of the 51-year-old Orlando Opera, which shut down last spring. But many theater fans were even more grief-stricken at the loss this fall of Orlando Theatre Project, the small company that, at 23, was the oldest professional theater in town.

Orlando Theatre Project promises to produce one more show, John Cariani’s Almost, Maine, on Valentine’s Day weekend in the Goldman Theater at Lowndes Shakespeare Center. But the little troupe’s many admirers — while sometimes shaking their heads over a group that could rarely get it together to run the business side of its business — are already mourning the loss of a company that, at its best, could produce theater that was very, very good. Without OTP’s stagings of such plays as Molly Sweeney, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Wit, Doubt, Proof, Copenhagen and Blackbird, among others, the Orlando theater scene of the past two decades would have been a much blander place.

Some other theater offerings faltered. At the Plaza Theatre, a season of locally produced theater was canceled abruptly at the beginning of the year, just as that series was beginning to find its footing with a terrific production of The Last Five Years.

You can blame the economy, of course, and the people who run Orlando-area theaters are doing just that as they continue to fight to do more with less. The funny thing, though, is that in many cases they actually managed to do it — to perform feats that brave souls don’t always attempt to do when wallets are fat.

Like opening new theaters. Common wisdom is you wouldn’t do it during a recession, any more than you would spend your savings on a trip to Tahiti or a Hummer that won’t fit into your Hyundai-size garage. Theater, though, is not a luxury to some of us, and those were the people who bet big — building Greater Orlando Actors Theatre’s new stage in a warehouse space in Winter Park, and opening Breakthrough Theatre in a Winter Park storefront, and doubling the size of Winter Park Playhouse (what is it with Winter Park, anyway?) by moving it to plusher and more spacious lodgings next door.

And theater people put on good theater. The Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival may have fought the rain gods and lost, but the quality of the best work was terrific — innovative stuff such as Mike Mathieu and Andrew Connor’s The Cody Rivers Show Presents ‘Meanwhile, Everywhere’ and David Gaines’s 7(x1) Samurai; great storytelling such as Martin Dockery’s Wanderlust; wrenching drama such as Checkerboard Productions’ Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens and high and low comedy like Rob Ward’s The Bong Show With Pepe, Jimmy Hogg’s Like a Virgin, Keira McDonald’s The Bridesmaid and Andy Haynes and Lori McCaskill’s Waiting for Maupin. (Nice title, that.)

Faith Prince and Davis Gaines in 'Sweeney Todd,' a collaboration between Mad Cow Theatre and the Orlando Philharmonic. (Photo: Mad Cow Theatre.)
Faith Prince and Davis Gaines in ‘Sweeney Todd,’ a collaboration between Mad Cow Theatre and the Orlando Philharmonic. (Photo: Mad Cow Theatre.)

Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s PlayFest did good business with a bunch of strong scripts and an appearance by movie/theater star Olympia Dukakis. Mad Cow Theatre continued to set the bar for collaborations, this time with a concert version of Sweeney Todd (with big-deal theater names Davis Gaines and Faith Prince) that sold out Bob Carr.

Notable mileposts: Arnold Breman replaced Donna Law as managing director at Orlando Shakes, while Winter Haven’s Karen Olivo won a Tony Award as a worldly-wise Anita in the Broadway revival of West Side Story.

And terrific theater kept on coming — from Orlando Shakes (Much Ado About Nothing, The

Steven Patterson and Joe Vincent in Orlando Shakespeare T/heater's 'The Merchant of Venice.' (Photo by Tony Firriolo/Orlando Shakespeare Theater.)

Steven Patterson and Joe Vincent in Orlando Shakespeare T/heater's 'The Merchant of Venice.' (Photo by Tony Firriolo/Orlando Shakespeare Theater.)

Merchant of Venice, The Big Bang, Yankee Tavern), from Mad Cow (Amadeus, Fully Committed, I Am My Own Wife, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), from Orlando Repertory Theatre (Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business), from Theatre Downtown (Altar Boyz, Death of a Salesman, The Wiz, The Seafarer), from Empty Spaces Theatre Co. and Riverton Playground Theatre (The Last Days of Judas Iscariot), from Broadway in Orlando (Jersey Boys) and from PB&J Theatre Factory (Snack and Sleigh).

Sounds like boom times to me.


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