After a winter and spring season of shows that were designed to help bring the community together instead of triggering divisiveness, Florida Studio Theatre is aiming for “light and frothy” for the six shows that will keep its multiple stages busy this summer.

The theater also will take a pause on its annual Sarasota Improv Festival in July because of ongoing construction of the new eight-story McGillicuddy Arts Plaza next to the main theater building complex.

Producing Artistic Director Richard Hopkins, who has led the company since 1980, said there will still be plenty of laughs – and something meaningful to think about – with the three shows that make up its mainstage summer season.

The mainstage season begins May 27 with the musical “Honky Tonk Angels” from the creator of the perennial hit “Always… Patsy Cline,” followed by the premiere of Tate Elizabeth Hanyok’s “Dog Mom” and the return of Joe DiPietro’s “The Last Romance,” which the theater first produced in 2012.

The three-show summer cabaret season, featuring touring acts from across the country, will salute 1960s folk-rock hits, female hitmakers of the 1970s and the legacy of Motown superstars.

The theater, which began to cater to a summer audience in Sarasota about 40 years ago, has generally kept the themes light during the warmer months, Hopkins said.
“I remember we used to do one drama in the summer,” he said. “We did some great shows, but the attendance was so poor and we thought it must be the weather. People didn’t want the drama in the summer.”

“Honky Tonk Angels,” created by Ted Swindley, follows three women as they pursue their dreams of country music stardom in Nashville. The title was used for a joint album recorded by Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette in 1993, and Swindley’s show features songs by all three, along with many other country favorites. The audience will hear such hits as “Coal Miner’s Daughter, “‘ Stand By Your Man,” “9 to 5,” “Ode to Billy Joe,” “I Will Always Love You,” “Harper Valley PTA” “Rocky Top” and more.

“Ted always selects good music and builds a story around it with meaningful characters,” Hopkins said. The actors play unknowns who are “coming from Southern pasts and different points of view, but what they have in common is a dream to make it in Nashville. He brings out the truth of the individual in such a simple way.”

Supporting new work

Florida Studio Theatre is one of four theaters taking part in the National New Play Network’s rolling world premiere of “Dog Mom.” The organization arranges for several theaters around the country to present the “world premiere” to reduce the pressure on any one of them and the playwright. FST will be the third theater to produce Hanyok’s play, which she has been able to revise since the first.

FST presented a staged reading of the play in last year’s Burdick New Play Festival. Associate Producer Catherine Randazzo said it “had a good response and a broad appeal.”

It’s about a New York woman named Liz whose life is falling apart until a stray dog shows up at her door and she reluctantly agrees to foster it. That decision changes both their lives.

There are two dogs in the play, both played by human actors.

“They’re not in dog costumes and they don’t wiggle around like a dog,” Hopkins said. “They say things like a dog would if dogs could talk. We’re hearing the subconscious of the dog.”

Randazzo added that Liz responds in kind, assuming the dog understands her as she tries to understand the dog.

The play begins June 24 in the Keating Theatre.

Hopkins said he “really wanted to end the season with a nice comedy with a big heart.” He chose a new production of “The Last Romance,” which begins July 22 in the Gompertz Theatre. It’s about the impact of a chance meeting of a widower and an elegant woman on a park bench.

Hopkins said he has long been impressed with the work of DiPietro, who is best known for the plays “Over the River and Through the Woods” “Clever Little Lies” and the books for the musicals “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” “Memphis” and “All Shook Up,” 

“Joe is big-hearted and very human. His plays are structurally smart and always funny. He’s one of our excellent living playwrights and it will be great to see his work back on our stage.”

Hopkins does feel “under pressure” however to find a male actor who will be as good as the late David Howard was in the theater’s 2012 production. “He was so good in that role, but I know we will find someone good.”

Cabaret series

During the winter season, FST creates three original musical revues that fill its two cabaret spaces. In the summer, it turns those theaters over to outside groups that tour their shows to venues around the country or present them on cruise ships.

For several years, it has connected with artists who previously worked at FST in other productions. For example, Aaron Grandy, whose group “A Band Called Honalee” was presented last summer, is returning with “Leaving on a Jet Plane: A Folk Journey” in the Goldstein Cabaret.

“Our audience really connected with ‘A Band Called Honalee,’ which was one of the first Peter, Paul and Mary shows,” Randazzo said. The new show takes off from where the previous one left off, as it moves more into the 1970s, with songs by Crosby Stills and Nash, Simon & Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan and more. It features three singer/guitar players and a stand up bassist.

“Songbirds of the Seventies,” which begins July 7 in the Court Cabaret, comes from Nancy Allen, who created and produced “Divas 3,” a hit for FST in 2023, and “Rhinestone Cowgirls,” which was presented in 2024.

“She has created this show for us, so it’s a debut for both of us,” Randazzo said. “She really understands what we do here.” The new production is focused on music by women who were inspired by Woodstock to soft rock, including Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks, Anne Murray, Carole King, Karen Carpenter, and Olivia Newton-John.

The season’s final show, “Legacy: Motown & More,” opening Aug. 4 in the Goldstein Cabaret, was created by Justin Reynolds in 2014 and originally featured Broadway performers he had worked with in “Motown: The Musical.” He now has a roster of performers who are veterans of “Motown” and “MJ The Musical.” 

They perform a tribute to Motown and crossover songs inspired by the Motown sound, including some Beatles tunes.

“It’s flashy and high energy and he’s putting together the best cast possible,” Randazzo said of Reynolds, who will be performing in the production.

Comedy and construction

All these shows will be presented while theater leaders watch the progress of the new arts plaza, which will eventually feature a 135-space parking garage, 24 residential units to house artists working at FST, 33 hotel rooms or short-term rentals for arts workers in Sarasota, a new mainstage theater and two new cabaret spaces. The $57 million project will open in stages  beginning with the parking garage and artist residences. The second phase will include the two cabaret theatres and the final phase will include the mainstage theater.

It is named for Dennis and Graci McGillicuddy. He has been president or chair of the theater’s board of directors for many years, and she once served as chair of the Florida Arts Council and has been involved in numerous charities in Sarasota.

While the Sarasota Improv Festival takes a year off from bringing in more than a dozen improv comedy and sketch troupes from around the world, the theater is expanding its improv schedule.

The FST Improv troupe will present four different shows, and the theater is hosting three outside groups. Shitzprobe was presented in late April. Forgotten Broadway from Orlando will perform July 31-Aug. 1 and Murder She Improvised, which features some members of Atlanta’s Dad’s Garage, will be presented Sept. 25-26.

FST Summer Season 2026

floridastudiotheatre.org; 941-366-9000

Mainstage

“Honky Tonk Angels,” Gompertz Theatre, May 27-June 21

 “Dog Mom,” Keating Theatre, June 24-July 26

“The Last Romance,” Gompertz, July 22-Aug. 16

Cabaret

“Leaving on a Jet Plane,” Goldstein Cabaret, May 12-July 12

“Songbirds of the Seventies,” Court Cabaret, July 7-Sept. 6

“Legacy: Motown & More,” Goldstein Cabaret, Aug. 4-Oct. 4

Improv

Bowne’s Lab Theatre

“Blockbusted,” FST Improv, Saturdays, May 2-30

“Comedy Lottery,” FST Improv, Saturdays,. June 6-27 and July 11-25

“Freedom! The Musical,” FST Improv, July 4

Forgotten Broadway, July 31-Aug. 1

“Out of Bounds,” FST Improv, Saturdays Aug. 8-Sept. 19

Murder She Improvised, Sept. 25-26