Our History

A Brief History of Theatre Odyssey

Theatre Odyssey began with a series of discussions among members of the cast of METAMORPHOSES, the national-award-winning production of the Manatee Players honored in 2005. During the run of that show, which began with rehearsals in July of 2004 and ended with the national AACT Festival in June of 2005, Tom Aposporos, Cheryl Clifford, Larry Hamm, Jody Huebert-Hamm, Fred Zimmerman and Laurie Zimmerman began to talk about creating a local theatre company that could work in multiple venues and perform avant-garde material.

In the Spring of 2005, Clifford, along with Jeff Goldman, formed City Arts Productions, which produced a successful six-night event, BRILLIANT TRACES starring Clifford and Aposporos, at what was then the Fogartyville Café in Bradenton. Though City Arts did not continue, it was apparent from the response of the audience that there was a desire for challenging and less familiar theatrical productions in the Sarasota-Bradenton area. At the same time, when METAMORPHOSES was in competition in Greensboro, North Carolina, Aposporos picked up several anthologies of ten-minute plays published through the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

In December of 2005, Aposporos and Hamm met with a local playwright who wished to have his play read by skilled actors in a formal setting in front of an audience. In the course of their discussion, they again began to talk about the tremendous amount of artistic energy and talent in the region, and, subsequently, plans were made to schedule a festival of ten-minute plays on a date approximately a month after the reading. In January 2006, Theatre Odyssey was created with these immediate goals in sight.

Both the reading of Robert Lipkin’s SWEETER THAN JUSTICE and the initial festival took place at the Arts Center Sarasota, and both, directed by Thomas Griffin, exceeded expectations in terms of audience. The first festival was performed only for one evening and to a capacity crowd of one hundred and twenty.

Encouraged by this response, Theatre Odyssey sought out another potential event and, learning that the Arts Center had an exhibition themed on the Day of the Dead, decided to create a show themed on the same subject to be held in that venue. Hamm envisioned a show that would employ not only the works of local playwrights but use the talents of local poets, dancers and musicians as well. Theatre Odyssey then handed this idea to Broadway veteran Jack Eddleman, who, as the director, added his own ideas and created a unique mixture of poetry, dance, music and short plays. A CELEBRATION OF ALL SOULS sold out its two performances.

Almost immediately, Theatre Odyssey became involved in casting and staging a reading of Federico Garcia Lorca’s THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA, which also sold out at The JABU Center in Sarasota. Directed by Richard Garcia, the evening gave many people in the area their first exposure to Lorca’s play.

Following the reading, Theatre Odyssey produced the second Ten-Minute Play Festival at The Backlot Theater in Sarasota, this time to approximately four hundred over a three-day run. For the 2007 Festival, Jeffery Kin took on the role of Artistic Director and Jack Eddleman directed five of the eight plays. Mark Marvel, Executive Director at The Backlot said that the Festival was the most successful production held in that venue.

Buoyed by a growing following, Theatre Odyssey decided to move the 2008 Festival to Players Theatre in Sarasota and, once again, nearly four hundred viewed the event, this time in only two performances. The Festival continues to grow not only in popularity, but in the rising quality of plays submitted and performed on stage.

The quality of the plays submitted by local playwrights was made evident in 2008 when noted New York play publishing house Smith and Kraus announced that two plays each by Sylvia Reed (AMERICAN FLAG and WORKS IN PROGRESS) and Larry Hamm (DO-OVERS and PRECONCEPTION) would be included in Smith and Kraus’ BEST TEN-MINUTE PLAY series.

In 2009, those plays were brought to the local stage one more time as part of Theatre Odyssey’s first season. The 2009 season also launched a new partnership between Theatre Odyssey and The Historical Society of Sarasota County, owners and caretakers of the Crocker Memorial Church, the venue for the 2009 festival. Last year's winning play was Stormy by Walton Beacham.

The philosophical purpose of Theatre Odyssey remains the same: to encourage and promote the efforts of local playwrights and actors. For actors, Theatre Odyssey shares profits from productions so that some compensation is provided for an actor’s time commitment. For playwrights, Theatre Odyssey offers a potential means of play production and a fair source for feedback on a given work. Plays for the Ten-Minute Play Festival, now an annual event, are chosen by an anonymous group of three readers, and judged in competition by three adjudicators. It can reasonably be said that, in addition the 2009 winning play, previous Festival winners--COULD by Christa Kriemendahl, CLAWS & EFFECT by Mike Phelan, and PRECONCEPTION by Larry Hamm--earned their Best Play Awards by pleasing not only the three readers and three judges but audiences as well.