FST celebrates family bonds in diverse lineup of plays and musicals

As it continues to rebuild audiences and welcome new patrons during troubling and divisive times, Florida Studio Theatre has selected a 2023-24 mainstage season that puts a focus on family and the connections that bring people together.

The thematic undercurrent of the four-show season may have been coincidental, but Producing Artistic Director Richard Hopkins said it’s part of the theater’s effort to connect with audiences through shows that speak to the lives of a diverse group of patrons.

Family themes run through Sharr White’s “Pictures from Home,” which had a recent Broadway run; the acclaimed play “The Lehman Trilogy,” about the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers; and the Florida premiere of “Troubadour,” a play with music about a family of country musicians.

You might also look at the characters in the season-opening musical “Little Shop of Horrors” as a chosen family, as it depicts the struggling people trying to survive on Skid Row.

The mainstage productions are complemented by three cabaret shows that have been growing in popularity each season as the theater rebounds from the pandemic. Last season, FST extended the runs of seven different productions and saw its cabaret show “The 70s: More Than a Decade” run for a record 23 weeks with more than 21,000 tickets sold.

So it may not be a surprise that the theater is going back to the 1970s to explore a different type of music from the period. “More Than a Decade” focused on pop music hits, while the new “Taking it to the Limit,” highlights the folk-rock sounds of such artists as The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Linda Rondstadt.

It is one of three home-grown cabaret shows, including “Up on the Roof,” which features songs that emanated from the famed Brill Building in the 1950s and 1960s, by Carole King, Burt Bacharach, Neil Sedaka, Jerry Leiber and Richard Stoller and others, and an updated version of the 2006 show “The Flip Side,” which features music by top comedic songwriters of the 20th century.

Richard Hopkins creates the cabaret shows with his wife, Managing Director Rebecca Hopkins, along with contributions from writer Sarah Durham and longtime arranger and resident pianist Jim Prosser. Associate Artist Catherine Randazzo is scheduled to direct the three productions.

The new season will be the 50th for Florida Studio Theatre, which Hopkins has led since his arrival in 1980, making him the longest-serving artistic leader in any Sarasota arts organization. He has also overseen expansive growth from one theater space to five and plans announced last year to build a residential and theater tower on FST's campus.

Here’s a look at what the theater is planning for its mainstage, cabaret and children’s theaters seasons.

Mainstage

‘Little Shop of Horrors’

Opens Nov. 15, Gompertz Theatre

Florida Studio Theatre first produced this Alan Menken-Howard Ashman favorite, based on Roger Corman’s 1960 horror classic, in 1987. A current off-Broadway revival reminded Hopkins “that this is not just kind of a good musical, this is a great musical.” With its 1950s doo wop-style score, it’s about an overlooked clerk in a struggling Skid Row florist shop who begins enjoying success when he discovers a man-eating plan with a hunger for fresh blood. “It speaks to today and our fear of being taken over by some monster, which is always in the background, ready to eat us, whether you think it’s politics or international issues or whatever,” Hopkins said.

Sean Daniels, the new FST Associate Director, will stage the show.

‘Pictures From Home’

Opens Dec. 13, Keating Theatre

Sharr White’s play is based on the 1992 memoir of photographer Larry Sultan who set out to learn more about his parents by interviewing and photographing them. The pictures he created and discovered revealed different sides of the family.

The play had a Broadway run earlier this year with Nathan Lane and Zoe Wanamaker as the parents and Danny Burstein as the photographer.

“We were so happy to get this play so quickly,” Hopkins said. “You get to know these people in a unique way and learning and seeing these people from different sides. The photographing of these people makes you look at them one way and you realize we all see each other differently. No one is seeing each other the same way.”

The production uses Sultan’s actual photographs, not photos of the actors in a production. Kate Alexander will direct.

‘The Lehman Trilogy’

Opens Jan. 31, Gompertz Theatre

Stefano Massini’s acclaimed play, adapted by Ben Power, gets its Florida premiere at FST. It is a three-act play that follows the lives of three immigrant brothers from when they first arrive in America and start to create their own investment firm through the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. It features three actors playing multiple roles. The Broadway version in 2022 won five Tony Awards including Best Play.

“It covers a huge swath of American history. It deals with immigrants coming to America and the first brother to step off the boat and tracks their rise from Montgomery, Alabama,” said Hopkins, who will direct. “In the course of three acts you see everything that’s great about capitalism and everything that’s not great. You get to follow a family from the day they first set foot on American soil and they’re melting into the melting part.”

‘Troubadour’

Opens April 3, Gompertz Theatre

The Florida premiere of a show by Janece Shaffer with original music by Kristian Bush, one half of the Sugarland duo with Jennifer Nettles. The show was developed by and premiered at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in 2017.

“It was a huge hit for them and one of their biggest sellers ever,” Hopkins said. “It’s a play with music about country music and goes back to the mid-20th century in Nashville, and captures that era of the South in a unique way.”

The characters include an aging country music star, who is preparing to retire, and his up-and-coming son, and the stress their different situations create between them. Alexander will direct.

Cabarets

‘Up on the Roof’

Opens Sept. 27, Court Cabaret

FST favorite Jannie Jones returns, along with Sarasota’s Brandon Wardell, for this cabaret show that highlights iconic songwriting teams like Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and others that created hit after hit in the legendary Brill Building in New York City.

‘Take it to the Limit’

Opens Nov. 29, Goldstein Cabaret

The theater describes this cabaret show as a “tribute to the music of the 1970s Rock & Roll rebels,” the artists who combined folk, country and R&B for a new sound that captivated an era and generation. It will cover everything from the Allman Brothers Band to Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles and Linda Rondstadt. The cast, which will include frequent FST performer Joe Casey, will feature singers who also play instruments.

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‘The Flip Side’

Opens Feb. 7, Court Cabaret

The season ends on a humorous note with this revue that features songs by Shel Silverstein, Ray Stevens, Randy Newman and other artists who took dark, funny and satiric looks at the world. It features such songs as “I’m My Own Grandpa,” “The Ballad of Sigmund Freud,” “Killed by a Coconut” and others. It is an updated version of a show the theater originally produced in 2006.

How to get tickets

Florida Studio Theatre’s box office is at 1265 First St., Sarasota. For ticket information and more details call 941-366-9000 or go to floridastudiotheatre.org.

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Florida Studio Theatre celebrates family connects in 50th season