The opening of the Florence Little Theatre on Dargan Street signals a dramatic change from the old to the new. But I guess drama is a theater’s business.
To go from performing on makeshift stages in Sanborn Chase’s backyard and a loaned storeroom behind downtown buildings to a $10 million theater is a tribute to a number of things.
One of those things, of course, is the $10 million contribution to the project by the Drs. Bruce & Lee Foundation, which made the building possible.
RISING TO NEW HEIGHTS
The Morning News and Florence Little Theatre celebrate the new, state of the art facility on South Dargan Street with a special web site that highlights what the theater has meant to the area since the start of the last century. On that site you'll find:
Like Little Orphan Annie, FLT has had many homes with lots of drama.
New facility features improvements in space and technical capability, a far cry from theater days past.
See what the Florence Little Theatre has planned for the 2008-09 season and remember some favorites from years past.
Then there is the dedication of FLT members who have done the hard, sometimes dirty work of putting venues together over decades, and the talented actors and directors and backstage people and musicians who have drawn audiences to the shows. Sometimes the talented people that we have around here and the dedication with which they come together in these productions is breathtaking.
And there is the audience and other community supporters such as show sponsors that FLT has had as it evolved into the splendid community theater it is today. Audiences of successful FLT shows number in the thousands.
Local historian and theater supporter Nick Zeigler says South Dargan Street is becoming the “Acropolis” of Florence with structures that sometimes startle passersby — and there will be more. The new FLT, with its accompanying offices, shops, dressing rooms and rehearsal hall, is an eye-catching complex. On the next block going south is the new county library that looks like it ran away from the Washington Mall. In final planning stages is a new Francis Marion University performing arts hall that will be a block and a half away.The Drs. Bruce & Lee Foundation, with about $35 million in donations, made all of these possible. Some day, a new home for the Florence Museum might even be found in the area.
It’s a new kind of fame for Dargan Street, well-known in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century for providing unique recreational opportunities for male customers along its north stretch. (Those establishments might not have been the best little places of their kind in Texas, but they are said to have been among the best of their day in the Southeast.) Now the south stretch is set to become famous for local art and culture. These are exciting times for South Dargan Street.
Forty years ago, FLT moved into the theater on it abandoned just this summer. The capability the Cashua Drive house offered could only have been dreamed of previously. The new venue will be another step up with several exciting features not the least of which are better restroom facilities, which should reduce the long, uncomfortable-looking lines we witnessed on Cashua Drive during intermissions.
Believe me, many community theaters — maybe most — around the country would nearly die just to have the old Cashua Drive building. And look at what we have now.
Let’s hear it for Florence Little Theatre and for the Drs. Bruce & Lee Foundation as the theater occupies its new home.
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