In 2023 the lack of accessible performance space became ever more acute, as our town’s emerging talents struggle to find stages

One of the biggest lessons we learned during the pandemic was the crucial importance of shared physical spaces to health of any community. That includes the arts community, especially live theater, which is the only art form that (with all due respect to Zoom performances) relies upon in-person communion between performer and patron. As I looked back over the past year's Live Active Culture columns, I was struck by how many of them touched on Orlando's desperate need for more performance venues that are accessible to audiences, affordable for artists and safe for everyone.

Unfortunately, decades of public policy subsidizing high-end development at the expense of storefront stages and warehouse studios has resulted in Orlando's anemic infrastructure for entry-level artists, which provides insufficient opportunity to accommodate our town's emerging talents. (Try to imagine a parallel situation in athletics, if Central Florida had dozens of professional sports arenas, but barely any public courts or fields available to amateur players.) Competition over scarce resources causes creatives to turn on each other like chickens in an overcrowded coop, and over the past year I've observed an erosion of established institutions that control our sacred spaces, as well as a communal failure to nurture the next generation of performers.

The Orlando Museum of Art's FBI bust over an exhibit of ersatz Basquiats (and the increasingly surreal legal proceedings that have followed) played out all year long, reinforcing the wider art world's stereotypes about Florida's failings. But closer to home, the meteoric meltdown at Winter Garden's Garden Theatre — which saw multiple key staff members depart amid reports of problematic leadership — might have even more lasting local impact. Although the Garden has bounced back with well-attended shows by Victory Productions, the social media firestorm surrounding the conflict starkly exposed how fragile the fault lines are within Orlando's grassroots theater community.

Individual productions come and go, but among Orlando's midsized theater companies, the ones that seem to have made the most impact in 2023 were those who have their own space, which provides the stability and control key to creating a consistent guest experience. Renaissance Theatre continues to blossom in their ever-evolving venue, which was best utilized by the thrilling third (and best yet) installment of Nosferatu, their decadent Halloween delight that deserves to draw Sleep No More devotees from NYC. James Brendlinger exited his theatrical mini-empire in the Oviedo Mall, but his Penguin Point has smoothly transitioned into Imagine Performing Arts Center and continues to host Matthew MacDermid's Ensemble Company, whose two-part staging of Matthew Lopez's The Inheritance was the most intimate epic I experienced all year. And although it isn't open to the public, Aaron Safer's New Generation Theatrical has a new workshop inside Fashion Square Mall that's helped them present some spiffy productions like Michael Knight's immersive "Sleepy Hollow" spoof, Gothic Tavern, at the newly rebranded Orlando Family Stage, formerly Orlando Rep (aka the Civic, if you've been here since the 1990s).

However, a far more common refrain recurring throughout my columns has been how wretched Orlando's rental market has become for nomadic performing troupes of modest means. The Lowndes Shakespeare Center has long served as the preferred stage for many smaller groups — such as Little Radical Theatrics, whose recent Rocky Horror Show burst the seams of the Mandell Theater with exuberant energy. But rates at the Shakes have risen, while its facilities are long overdue for major repairs, which will reduce availability during the coming year. The Dr. Phillips Center saw superb tours of Beetlejuice and Into the Woods, as well as ambitious productions from Central Florida Vocal Arts, Opera Orlando and Orlando Ballet; but even with the upcoming addition of a listening room, the complex remains out of reach for many local producers.

Only days after hosting pianist Julian Bond's benefit for NPR arts correspondent Nikki Darden Creston, the Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts announced their imminent relocation across town, and nearby Winter Park Playhouse may lose its lease in 2025. Parliament House's Footlight Theatre used to serve a key role in LGBTQ+ arts, but its downtown successor seems to be stalled; Savoy and Hamburger Mary's have tried to fill the gap, although their stage facilities are far smaller. And after a promising preview, Robert Crane's White Elephant Theatre was ensnared in red tape and never opened, while Theatre Downtown's old space in still tragically dormant, crying out for a group of anarchist actors to liberate it from the cold clutches of Advent Health.

Of course, we must also remember the bonkers bovine that's no longer in the room. Recently, the once-revered Mad Cow Theater officially dissolved, about a year after being evicted from their space at 54 W. Church St. Those stages are now in the hands of Orlando Fringe, which has used their ArtSpace to import national acts like The Coldharts, who debuted the fulfilling finale to their Edgar Allan Poe trilogy, as well as present up-and-coming locals such as Phoenix Tears, which premiered Jeremiah Gibbons' original musical, Ophelia. It remains to be seen whether ArtSpace will fulfill expectations of providing affordable rental space on a wider basis; read more about the departure of executive director Alauna Friskics and January's rechristened FESTN4 winter mini-festival in the first LAC of 2024.

With so much anxiety-inducing scarcity and strife — not to mention continued assaults from the governor's office — is it any wonder that so many Orlando artists chose to exit the state in 2023 and find safer spaces elsewhere? Musical genius Tod Kimbro packed his RV and glamped his way west. Producer/performer Beth Marshall picked up her poker chips and moved to the mountains, leaving her Play-in-a-Day in the capable hands of young Clark Levi. And director Jeremy Seghers left us with a stirring interpretation of Streetcar Named Desire (starring an electric Indigo Leigh) before shuffling off to Pittsburgh. And they are only three drops in the river of creative talents continuing to flood away from our state.

Even if a holiday miracle solved the issue of insufficient performance spaces, and the cultural climate transformed to hold space for every artist, our theater community would still be faced with an existential challenge: Where is tomorrow's audience? Even some of the best productions I attended in 2023 struggled with slumping advance sales and half-full houses, which leads me to wonder: How can theaters make space for younger patrons without pushing out the older generation — especially since they're still paying for most of the tickets? And how can we collectively nurture more spaces that serve as community hubs and homes-away-from-home, where all people (not just the artistic elite) are eager to gather, regardless of what group is gracing the stage?

People who care about the future of performing arts in Orlando had better come up with some good answers to those questions in 2024; otherwise, will the last artist to exit please leave the ghost light on?