Staged: Asolo Repertory Theatre — The Artistic Director

“The audience is seeing the tip of the iceberg,” says Michael Donald Edwards, producing artistic director at Asolo Repertory Theatre. “When they come and see a show and those doors open, the ushers take them to their seat, and they look at that red curtain before it goes up, they have no idea of the seventh-eights of the iceberg that has been going on.”

Repertory is a loaded word in the theater world. There are 15 League of Resident Theatres with the word repertory in their name across the country. However, none does what the Asolo does: stage three to four individual productions at the same time in the same space. Asolo is the definition of repertory.

“The idea that you would have in production three or four shows that can be performed in the same week, in the same theater, is highly unusual,” says Edwards. “If we were only doing one show, which is typical of most theaters where you open a show and run it for three to four weeks and then you go dark for a week and you put on another one, that model would be disastrous for us.”  

This all has to do with the unique nature of Sarasota as a seasonal vacation and tourist destination.

According to Edwards, if the Asolo were to adopt the traditional theatrical production schedule of a series of sequential shows with no overlap, it wouldn’t reach a majority of its audience that returns year after year during the height of season.
Though it is expensive, Edwards is confident in the investment. And that investment is mostly made in the people within the various departments in the Asolo that make the entire dramatic operation possible.

“It’s the most expensive way of doing theater because it’s so people intensive,” says Edwards.

The producing artistic director said you need to have an organized, talented and proficient acting company that can do all four scheduled shows in rep; a scene shop that understands how to build things that can come apart quickly; a costume shop that can switch out costumes for actors in three shows; and a front-of-house staff that can handle patrons for all four shows.

“It’s like a space shuttle launch,” Edwards says. “It’s so well organized all the audience sees is the rocket taking off.”