Art League of Bonita Springs' new theater draws strong attendance
BY AMY SOWDER New-press.com
When the Art League of Bonita Springs moved its shows this season, you followed. No, the main campus with its art gallery, studios and classes remains on Old 41 Road near the U.S. Post Office, but its performance art shows are rounding out its first winter season at a new location.
People flooded inside the new theater inside the northwest section of the Promenade at Bonita Bay, the pink-colored shopping and dining district on U.S. 41. Unit No. 114 was previously occupied by the restaurant-bar Alligator Rocks. The new theater location has been working since October 2009.
"It's tripled the attendance," says Susan Bridges, the league's executive director. "Before, we had limited seating and sold-out shows so we kept turning people away. It was wonderful and awkward."
When the league's music, theater and dance shows moved to its larger location, Bridges changed the name of the Wednesday night series from "An Evening With ..." to "Live at the Promenade" to clear up any confusion of where people should show up.
The new stage is about 20-feet-wide-by-10-feet-deep and 1-foot high.
At the gallery in the main campus where shows were previously held, there is no elevated stage, no theater lighting and no sound board. It made having shows like flamenco dancers quite difficult.
Staffers had to do a lot of set-up and take-down with lighting, seats, sound equipment and more. Now they can leave the equipment where it is.
So Bridges, and Tabitha Cuomo, the membership services and theater director, created a combo effect: auditorium rows surrounded by the cabaret-style tables.
"Now we don't have to turn people away and we can add another performance," Bridges says.
"It feels like it's expanded, but it's the same relaxed atmosphere," Alexiou says of the Promenade. "It's a creative place with art and the garden in the middle. It's just a peaceful place to be." The winter season included four children's theater programs and many musical events.
A retired teacher, Ivonne Garcia, 59, was drawn to the art league by the children's classes and programs when she moved to Bonita two years ago. So she joined the league and started volunteering. She enjoyed seeing the the "Assisted Living: The Musical" show by Compton and Bennett. "I thought that was so real and wonderful," Garcia says. "And they're coming back the 14th so you know who's going to volunteer that day."
The league can add more dance and theater because of the stage and added space, Cuomo says. Cuomo is working on confirming events for the summer and coming fall and winter seasons. She's trying to draw in more families and the year-round crowd, which includes younger people.
That means you can expect a Jimmy Buffet-style island night, a spicy Latin night and a coffee-house night this summer.
Cuomo started with the art league in 2007. She was a theater director at Corbin High School in Kentucky and studied communications at Cumberland College while working as the college theater's assistant technical director.
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