Moving to the Kravis Center in 2010

Posted by Nancy Barnett, Managing Director

It's finally over – the sneaking around, the whispered rumors, the covert meetings.  And it's finally out – the headlines blared it for the world to see. The tryst has been exposed – Florida Stage and the Kravis Center have coupled up and are moving in together.

A few quick facts: We'll finish the 09-10 Mainstage season in Manalapan, then pack up our things and head for the West Palm for the summer show.  There will be 275 or so seats, a thrust playing space that is, like our current space, not raised, and an intimate audience chamber with new platforming and seating so that it feels like Florida Stage.  Our current staff will have offices at the Center. And Florida Stage at the Kravis will have the same mission and artistic goals as Florida Stage in Manalapan – to produce the best new and developing work in the nation.  It's a dream come true for us – to have the company in the center of the community, in a space that will enhance our technical abilities, reduce our overhead and give us security for the future of Florida Stage.

Selfishly, I am very excited about the fact that I’ll have an office with windows and only one door, that I won’t have to drive to Manalapan in the middle of the night in my pjs because the alarm’s going off, and that we’ve most likely done our last barrier island evacuation for a hurricane.  I’m sure the Florida Stage staff will miss my regular rantings about someone using the last of the toilet paper, the audience members making off with the hand soap or the state of the kitchen.  I’m sad to be giving up my daily drives down A1A along the water, the bartenders at Callaro’s who know what I want even if I don’t, and the Manalapan civil servants who have always managed to seem amused at the antics theatre-folks can get up to on a regular basis.  But oh the joys of not having to buy 10 ton AC units, direct traffic in the parking lot while wearing high heels, or spell MA – NA – LA – PAN. 

Last night, during the press conference, I had a chance to look across the room at an astounding cross section of my adult life – 23 years of actors, co-workers, board members, and friends who were all just as excited as I was (or nearly – I'm afraid I might have actually been classified as giddy at some points during the evening), beaming with delight over our upcoming collaboration with the Center. New folks, too – the trustees for the Kravis, the cast of Storytelling, those newfangled internet arts critics – all seemed to agree that this was a pretty flippin’ great idea.  Sometimes the best choice is the one right in front of you.

Don’t you love it when old friends become something more?  When everything syncs up and a dream becomes a reality?  When good things come to those who wait? I do – and I’m oh so glad that it’s happened to us. 

And that we don’t have to keep it quiet any more – it’s so much more fun to talk about it….