Gulfshore Playhouse’s new building takes shape, set to open in 2024

Gulfshore Playhouse’s new building takes shape, set to open in 2024

Gulfshore Playhouse’s new Naples home with ‘magic balcony’ taking shape

by J. Kyle Foster, Naples Daily News (Link to article)

Dreams do come true. Kristen Coury’s certainly do.

The founder and chief executive officer of Gulfshore Playhouse used to sit on her balcony at Bayfront on Goodlette-Frank Road in Naples dreaming about a 400-seat regional theater just across the street. Almost 20 years later, Coury’s dream is under construction, right where she envisioned.

Set to open for the 2024 season in October next year, the Baker Theater and Education Center is taking shape at the corner of Goodlette-Frank Road South and First Avenue South. The roof and outside walls are still to come but the curves of the building that mimic the waves of the Gulf of Mexico and a 16,000-pound curved grand staircase between the first-floor lobby and the second can be seen from outside.

Inside, the Broadway-sized stage, the slope of the main seating area, the balconies and the mezzanine are in place, though the walls and the 368 seats are not.

“It has taken 20 years to get to the goal, to get to the dream and we’re here,” Coury said on a recent tour of the construction site. “It’s my little baby,” she said with a smile, beaming at the building from a sidewalk across the street, her hardhat emblazoned with the name of the non-profit professional theater she created and named.

Bernardo Forte-Brescia of Miami-based Arquitectonica is “the guy who made the design, the curves and the beauty of it,” Coury said.

Gulfshore Playhouse’s new $72 million home (plus a production shop in East Naples) will be 40,243 square feet and two floors with multiple lobbies and bars overlooking gardens with walkways and local plants.

The building includes the main stage and theater ‒ the Moran Main Stage ‒ that will seat 368. Another rehearsal theater ‒ called Struther’s Studio Theater ‒ will have 125 seats and also can be used for productions. It has moveable seats for different configurations such as hosting an in-the-round performance “or take them all out and throw a party,” Coury said.

A founder’s lounge has its own balcony, a bar and a window into a rehearsal room. Back stage, there are dressing rooms; showers; a costume shop; and a green room. There are rehearsal rooms with catering kitchens that can be rented for local events. The education wing on the second floor has its own entrance and lobby; classrooms; and more rehearsal space.

The main theater includes 287 floor seats, balconies that seat four in each for 16 people and 3 rows of stadium seating in the mezzanine for 65 people. Coury calls mezzanine seating the “magic balcony” and the seats the “king seats” with their expansive view of the entire theater and the 100-foot-wide stage. Behind it is the second-floor lobby, which will overlook the gardens, the first-floor balcony and that grand staircase that arrived and was installed in one piece. Windows 25 feet tall will showcase the “beautiful gardens,” Coury said.

“It’s the seats in the Norris Center and the stage in the Norris Center times two,” Coury said. The Norris Center seats 200. No one at Gulfshore Playhouse wanted to lose that intimacy, said Joel Markus, chief operating officer and managing director.

“It’s really fashioned to be a jewel of a Broadway house,” with the intimate feel of the Gulfshore Playhouse, Markus said. “Intimacy is the name of the game because we’ve been used to an intimate space.”

Flood zone means no orchestra pit
What you won’t find in the main theater is an orchestra pit. Because the theater is in a flood zone, it would have been very expensive or impossible to insure, Markus said. Depending on the performance, the orchestra will be either on the stage or in a special sound-proof room on the second floor where the conductor will have communication with the stage. “It is a practice that Broadway has gotten into,” Markus said. “It will be perfect sound in the theater.”

Something else missing in the new building are the Gulfshore Playhouse offices, which will be in a yet-to-come office space up the street when Wynn Properties builds a planned multi-use community with office space. At about $1,000 a square foot, Coury wants the Baker Theater and Education Center to be all about the performances and education.

Gilbane, with 50 offices worldwide including one in Sarasota, oversees the site with its project headquarters across the street. Fun fact: This is the same company that built the 1980 Winter Olympics facility in Lake Placid, New York, where sports commentator Al Michaels famously asked, “Do you believe in miracles?” in the final moments of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team’s upset of the Soviet Union.

Coury believes in miracles, and she sees the fruition of her dream as having been created through hard work but also magic and with “angels on my shoulder.” In 2004, Coury came to Naples from New York and dreamed of staying in theater. She dreamed about leading a regional theater. She went to one of the few people she knew in Naples – Phil Wood, CEO of John R. Wood Properties. She brought him a mission statement and a business plan on two pieces of paper. She still has them.Wood told her that people were looking at Naples and Sarasota and choosing Sarasota for the arts. “He wrote me a check for $5,000 and said ‘get going,’ “ Coury said. “So with that $5,000, I opened a bank account, started a website and bought some business cards,” Coury said. Gulfshore Playhouse held its first shows in 2006 at the Norris Community Center on Eighth Avenue South, which has been its home since.

From there, Gulfshore Playhouse has grown to 50 employees and an $8 million annual budget. The new building fund has collected $61 million of the $72 million budget. Its major donors are on the building (Patty and Jay Baker), in the Moran Main Stage (Sandi and Tom Moran) and the rehearsal rooms and lobbies (Glenda and Rich Struthers; Jane and Steve Akin). The total budget also includes a 20,000-square-foot building for a production shop where Gulfshore Playhouse creates everything it puts on stage.

Hurricane Ian destroys walls, delays theater opening to 2024
Theater construction began in 2021 and was originally slated to open in 2023. It was delayed after Hurricane Ian ripped through Southwest Florida last Sept. 28, bringing 7 feet of water ashore and onto the property. The building was built 12 feet above flood stage, Coury said, so it didn’t flood. However, two inside walls collapsed and had to be rebuilt.

The building may be ready in April, but “that’s when most of our patrons head north, so now we’re at October 2024,” Markus said. The theater and its education center will move from the Norris Center at the corner of Eighth Avenue South and Eighth Street South. The City of Naples is building a parking garage next door on First Avenue that should be completed at the same time. The playhouse has an agreement for valet parking in the public garage, Coury said.

The opening season’s shows haven’t been set but Coury is working on the procurement to make as big a splash with the lineup as the building that will showcase them. Gulfshore Playhouse recently announced its lineup for its last season at the Norris Center. Coury, who also is producing artistic director, will be directing the last play of the season – “She Loves Me” – a romantic musical.

After five shows at the Norris Center, Gulfshore Playhouse will say goodbye to the community center and hello to its own space – Coury’s dream. “It’s really exciting to see this, that what was a dream is a reality and dreams do come true.”