Eight years after selling their longtime home for more than $9 million and pouring through cash amid several failed attempts to create a new theater venue, the Sarasota Players is looking to raise the funds needed to complete a new performing space at the historic Payne Park Auditorium.

At a Sept. 10 ceremony with donors, patrons, board members and elected officials, leaders of Sarasota’s oldest performing arts organization launched the Payne Park Sprint to raise $500,000 in 180 days. Katie Weiss, the chair of the board of directors, said the focus is on local businesses and corporations that might buy naming rights for different parts of the new facility.

Weiss became board chair late last year after an organizational shakeup that led most of the previous board members to resign and allow new leadership in the wake of financial losses. The board also eliminated the position of CEO that had been held since 2021 by William Skaggs, who left the theater. In the most recent tax filings available, the theater reported a loss of $1.6 million in 2024, following a $1.2 million loss in 2023, $914,000 in 2022 and $1.1 million in 2021.

In 2018, the Sarasota Players raised more than $9 million by selling the property where it had produced shows for more than 80 years on U.S. 41 across from the Municipal Auditorium. Two years earlier, leaders announced plans to build a new theater complex in the Waterside community in Lakewood Ranch, but that project was eventually dropped, and the board began searching for new sites.

Weiss said the previous board “felt what they were doing was truly in the best interest of the Players. They made decisions that significantly diminished the funds from the sale of the last theater. A lot of that was going towards the false stops and starts that you’ve seen, studies, architectural drawings and details that didn’t yield any benefit for the plan that we have in place now.”

She would not say how much of the $9 million remained, but added “there is still money left” and enough to pay for most of the other improvements needed at Payne Park, such as walls to create a box office, dressing rooms, offices and more. She said the new campaign is for funds to supplement lighting, sound and other equipment that will be moved from the existing theater, which is smaller than the auditorium.

In 2024, the Sarasota City Commission approved terms of a 30-year lease for the theater company to use the auditorium for $100 a year plus $1 for each ticket sold for programs presented there. That lease agreement ended the theater’s years-long search for a permanent home that also included an attempt to lease the Sarasota Municipal Auditorium.

A long wait for new space

After the Players abandoned plans for the Lakewood Ranch move, the company converted a former Banana Republic clothing store at the Crossings at Siesta Key shopping center into its theater.

The theater spent some of the money from the building sale for designs and drawings for a pitch to Sarasota city commissioners in 2021 to lease the historic Municipal Auditorium. The commission voted against the plan because of previous agreements with leaders of The Bay Project.

City officials, not wanting to lose the theater company from its jurisdiction, instead suggested Payne Park as an alternative, but that idea was nearly scuttled when the Players suggested adding on a 17,000-square-foot theater building that would be attached to the auditorium. Public opposition to the addition, which would have encroached on the surrounding Payne Park, led commissioners to reject the idea.

The two sides eventually reached agreement on making only needed interior renovations to turn the auditorium into a functioning theater, with no expansion possible.

Announcing the Payne Park Sprint, current leaders stressed they are trying to provide donors with “transparency and confidence that their contributions are being used for the purpose for which they were given.” Executive Director Jason Ellis also has said he is working hard to reduce costs for productions in the coming season while still maintaining quality.

Weiss said she and other board members have heard many questions from people in the community about how any new donations would be spent.

“That’s how I would feel if I donated to previous capital campaigns and there’s nothing to show from it at this point. It’s something we want to acknowledge. It would be irresponsible not to acknowledge that component.”

In a release, the theater said “no campaign funds will be used for administrative overhead, campaign salaries, studies, unrelated operating expenses or other soft costs. Every dollar raised through the campaign will be dedicted to approved renovation expenses at Payne Park Auditorium.”

Weiss said that the company learned a lot about doing more with less from its last few years at the roughly 130-seat shopping center space “where we have staged some of the most compelling original and imaginative productions in our nearly 100 year history. Our time in that little theater has taught us how to create high quality theater anywhere. We’ve learned how to prioritize storytelling, how to lean into partnering with our community of artists and volunteers and to stay mission-focused.”

Weiss said the theater company is being realistic in its needs. “We are not building the Sydney Opera House or the Met. Our renovation aims to focus on the essential improvements needed for us to produce high quality, innovative theater that we’re known for quickly and efficiently.”

“Payne Park Auditorium will be transformed over the next coming months into a home for the Sarasota Players and a valuable community asset that will serve Sarasota for decades to come.”

When plans for the 2026-27 season were announced in the spring, Managing Artistic Director Thayer Greenberg said the theater was hopeful the new space would be ready for the Jan. 7 opening of the Mel Brooks musical “The Producers” but Weiss said it is more likely to happen later in the company’s 97th season.

“We’re still waiting for sign-offs from the city on the project and we don’t know exactly when that will happen,” Weiss said. “But we are ready to begin when it does.”

Ellis said it will take about four months to complete the renovations, which include an in-the-round theater space that will be named the Muriel O’Neil Theatre in recognition of a $1 million bequest from a fund created in the donor’s memory to support local arts programs. The auditorium, which opened in 1962 as a community center in what was then a mobile home park, had most recently been used by the city of Sarasota’s Parks and Recreation department.

Touching on history and superstition

At the Sept. 10 ceremony, the theater company broke with tradition to kick off the launch of Payne Park Auditorium and the fundraising campaign by plugging in a ghost light, which has been part of theatrical history and superstition since the 19th century.

“Where’s the ribbon and the giant scissors?” Greenberg joked.

“Traditionally, a ghost light is left burning on a dark stage when the theater is empty,” she said. “Practically, it keeps you from falling into the orchestra pit, which thankfully, we don’t have, or tripping over scenery or discovering just how many dangerous things theater people are willing to leave out in the dark.”

But there is also a belief that every theater has its ghosts.

“This light gives them a chance to take the stage when everyone else has gone home. So, we’re leaving a little light for the ghosts to do their timesteps,” Greenberg said. “Others say it’s to keep bad luck and unwanted spirits away and after nearly 100 years we definitely are not taking any chances with that.”

To learn more about the Payne Park Sprint, naming opportunities and how to support the renovation, visit theplayers.org/PayneParkSprint or contact Director of Development Amy Gorman: [email protected]; 941-365-2494