Sarasota's Players Theatre to move to Lakewood Ranch

SARASOTA -- The Players Theatre is no more.

On Monday, theater officials made a couple of major announcements. The 86-year-old Sarasota community theater has changed its name to the Players Centre for Performing Arts.

Even more significantly, the company plans to move from its deteriorating theater on Tamiami Trail to a spectacular new home in the Waterside development of Lakewood Ranch. The move should happen in about three years, company officials said.

At an invitation-only event at Michael's on East Monday evening, Players artistic director Jeffery Kin made three announcements that he called "game-changing."

"Our first move is the re-branding of our soon to be 87-year-old theater," Kin said.

Most people have called the Players Theatre "Sarasota Players," which has never been its actual name, Kin said. Changing the name might help alleviate that annoying trend, but more importantly it will more clearly define the company's scope and mission.

And the scope and mission will be enhanced in the new facility, which will include a 480-seat mainstage, a 125-seat black box theater and a 100-seat cabaret stage with food service, plus the Arnold Simonsen Players Studio, the education arm of the organization.

The price tag is expected to be about $25 million, Kin said, so the Players Centre also announced a new cap

ital campaign. to raise the money.

That's a daunting amount of money, but the sale of the company's current property should bring in between $12 million and $15 million, company officials said. The property is officially on the market now.

The building on Tamiami Trail is in need of major renovations, including a new air conditioning system that would cost more than a half-million dollars, roof repairs, new seating and technical renovations backstage. Construction in the area has also interfered with parking at the theater, and has limited the company's ability to grow. It came down to a choice between relocating and moving.

"All roads have been pointing toward moving," Kin said.

The new facility will be located just north of Fruitville Road and just east of I-75.

That's a new and burgeoning area, far from the high-density arts district the Players has resided in for years, within blocks of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, the Sarasota Opera House, Florida Studio Theatre, Starlite Players, Urbanite Theatre. But Kin noted that the Players Theatre helped create that arts district, and said that he hoped it will help create a new arts district in Lakewood Ranch.

There should be no interruption in the production season, company officials said. The hope is that they can sell the current property, and then lease it back from the buyer, who will almost certainly be a developer. If the developer is not amenable to that arrangement, Players will still continue to produce shows, using spaces from other area theaters.

Kin acknowledge that part of the impetus for the move was that his company watched Manatee Players launch a successful capital campaign and move from their similarly decrepit theater into the luxurious Manatee Performing Arts Center. He's looking forward to making the move into something even newer and larger.

"It'll be nice to be the shiny new penny for a while," he said.

Marty Clear, features writer/columnist, can be reached at 941-708-7919. Follow twitter.com/martinclear.

This story was originally published May 3, 2016 at 10:59 AM with the headline "Sarasota's Players Theatre to move to Lakewood Ranch ."