In the four years since James Brendlinger installed Penguin Point Productions inside a storefront at the Oviedo Mall, the small theater has grown into the anchor of an artistic empire that's led a revitalization of the once-moribund marketplace.
So when he announced the sale of Penguin Point — followed by the potential sale of neighboring record and vintage stores — there was naturally some concern for the artistic community that's grown up around it.
Recently, I sat down with Penguin Point's new owners, executive director Sarah Fanok and theater director Steven Johnson, to learn about the space's imminent transformation into Imagine Performing Arts Center, and walked away not only reassured that this valuable venue is in caring hands, but excited about the expansion of its mission.
Fanok and Imagine should already be familiar names to fans of Penguin Point, because she's been running the Imagine Dance Academy attached to the complex since the start. A classically trained dancer from Sarasota, Fanok took a decade-long detour into corporate work and motherhood before returning to take a dance class; she was partnered with Johnson, a longtime Universal Orlando entertainer and then a ballet novice.
"We just became like the best of friends," Fanok recalls. "We had such an awesome time dancing together, and we were offered teaching jobs at this other establishment at the same time. So we just kind of grew as dancers and teachers through that space."
After befriending Fanok through a mutual acquaintance, Brendlinger offered to sublease her the space that became Imagine Dance Academy back when he first built out Penguin Point's Oviedo home. Although she initially considered the idea of owning her own studio "crazy," she created an LLC and "started with three students. Slowly the word got out and [now] we're up to 75 students over the course of the last four years."
The school opened in August 2019, only about six months before the pandemic shutdown, but bounced back in 2022 with summer camps and has been "growing, growing, growing" ever since.
Over that time, the pair have also watched the Oviedo Mall transform to become (as Johnson puts it) "more about experiences than it is retail."
Fanok praises the mall's predominance of independently owned small businesses, saying "there's a couple of businesses that we just have gotten to be really good friends with the owners, and kind of have each other's backs." So when Brendlinger decided to focus again on teaching, the pair were eager to buy him out.
"Several years ago, I had said, 'Just tell me where to sign and when to get a loan, I'll do whatever you want with you,'" says Johnson. But after a failed attempt to secure a substantial loan — "They were like, 'Eh, here's $16,000,'" says Fanok; "that's gonna do nothing for me" — Fanok and her spouse (a banker turned free-diving instructor) dipped into their retirement funds to finance the purchase. In the end, she says it's the perfect solution.
"We were at a place where we needed to move; we were getting too big for our one room. So it worked out really well because our only other option was to move somewhere; try to get a loan to build out a place, start over somewhere, [and] make a new place. For me personally, as the type of person I am, it was a much easier transition because I already felt at home here."
Imagine is holding an open house on July 27, ahead of classes beginning on Aug. 7, and the takeover will be celebrated with a gala next month. But beyond the change of name above the door, much about Penguin Point will remain unchanged, at least initially.
The Ensemble Company and Wildfire Players will continue to perform in residency in what will be known as the Barbara Lynn Johnson Theatre (renamed in honor of Steven's late mother). They've also renovated the space in the lobby's rear into a proper second theater with a sprung dance floor, and hope to continue hosting a diverse array of shows; Johnson himself wants to don the director's hat and helm a new script by a New York playwright.
Most interestingly, as a pending 501(c)3 nonprofit, Imagine is also planning to greatly expand their educational and artistic offerings for neurodivergent children and adults.
"When we started the studio, one of my intentions was to serve the special needs community because it's just always been something on my heart," says Fanok, citing improv and tap classes that welcome typical and atypical students alike.
"Our whole focus for this whole entire place is not just inclusivity, but it's being non-exclusive; those seem like they're the same thing, but they're really not. ... We want everyone [to] feel like you have a place here."
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