Artistic roots

Imagine that your great-grandmother Helen Browning Johnston was a member of the Sarasota Women’s Club. Your great-uncle Young Johnston was the first Sarasotan aviator to die in World War II. And your great-great grandfather was an integral member of the primordial stages of Sarasota’s history: Sarasota’s first architect, Alex Browning. But you have never even been to the Gulf-side town your family shaped.

Kaylene Torregrossa was born in Tucson, Ariz., and had never visited Sarasota, where her mother’s family is from, until after she graduated the University of Arizona in 2010. She was searching for internships at regional theaters, and quickly realized her best opportunity coincidently happened to be in her family’s old hometown, at the Florida Studio Theatre.

“In the theater industry, internships are an industry standard,” says Torregrossa. “They’re the bridge between the academic and professional theater sectors.”

Torregrossa continues to discover familiar coincidences. Florida Studio Theatre’s Keating Theatre space was the former clubhouse of the Sarasota’s Woman’s Club, where her great-grandmother spent considerable time. Johnston left an indelible legacy for Torregrossa to follow. The late Johnston, who died in 1984, was a founding member of the Players Theater, the Sarasota Art Association, the Florida West Coast Symphony (now the Sarasota Orchestra) as well as a member of the Opera Guild and the Sarasota Historical Society.

And immediately adjacent to the FST complex on Palm Avenue is the Frances Carlton Apartment, which Browning designed. Both buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places.

“I definitely feel that it’s an affirmation that this is where I need to be right now as I discover more and more the connections my family has to the area,” says Torregrossa. “It’s almost like a magnet pulling me and keeping me here.”

The affable, buoyant and determined Torregrossa dove into her apprenticeship at the regional theater and left an impression on her theatrical supervisors and peers. She rose through the theatrical ranks and is currently the Florida Studio Theatre’s director of community programming.

Torregrossa’s duties include collaborating with local organizations to use the space, training interns in customer service and deportment and overseeing volunteers. Regarding any interaction between the public and the theater, Torregrossa adds her impassioned touch.

According to Torregrossa, the first years of a young theater professional’s life in the business is one of constant travel, and the fact that she’s been able to stay in Sarasota for four years right out of college is rare. She certainly feels at home here.

“Alexander was an architect and his daughter was an artist and actively involved in the community, but my parents aren’t involved in the arts and I’m involved in theater and my brother is a photographer,” says Torregrossa, “so I think I’m here to fulfill and be a continuation of my ancestor’s artistic service to Sarasota.”