Pictured (left to right): Ryan Leonard, Mary Williamson and L James in SENDER by Ike Holter. Photo by Dylan Jon Wade Cox.

Like countless other performing arts organizations across the country right now, Urbanite Theatre is looking to stage a comeback. The coming season is already locked, loaded and ready to go, with a season announcement expected early September and the first show of a four-show season hitting the blackbox in October, but Urbanite already has at least one eye firmly set on the season after that, launching a yearlong capital campaign aimed at not only setting the theater back on its pre-pandemic footing, but positioning the company to climb even higher.

Aptly named “Staging A Comeback,” the just-launched yearlong campaign calls on supporters to help the theater raise $300,000 by June 30, 2022. And while the figure itself represents nothing out of the ordinary for a yearly theater budget, according to Urbanite cofounder Brendan Ragan, the stated goals for those funds signal something of a sea change for how Urbanite Theatre sets about staging shows in Sarasota.

For transparency’s sake, the campaign launched with a clear indication as to how the raised funds would be utilized. Some, such as HVAC upgrades and rent, a new expenditure for a theater that has previously benefitted from donated space, are self-explanatory. The need to rehire administrative staff furloughed during the previous year comes as a result of a global pandemic. (“We’re just not going to be able to do what we normally do without that administrative backbone,” says Ragan.) But many of the biggest changes to be implemented with this new budget stem not from such external pressures, but from an internal determination to change the way theater is made—and for the better.

“One thing we all learned from this pandemic,” says Ragan, “was that, in the theater industry, sometimes we’re all so thankful for the opportunity that we overlook the conditions that we work in.” Somewhere along the line, the famous “show-must-go-on mentality” transformed into a toxic mandate and six-day weeks crammed with 14-hour days became “an unfortunate tradition” that everyone came to expect. “But it doesn’t have to be like that,” says Ragan. “In order to give great performances and do even better than we have in years past, we have to take care of people.”

And so the most high-profile goals of this Staging A Comeback campaign aren’t about building new stages or buying fancy toys, but about investing in the humans who make theater possible. This includes a mandated five-day workweek with reasonable hours, equal pay for both union and non-union actors and a $15/hour minimum wage for all interns and apprentices. And no longer will tech nights and rehearsals be crammed into overstuffed schedules that mount up days before the production and pile the pressure on everyone involved, but spread out over a longer period of time, allowing everyone involved to give their all without sacrificing their health. 

It costs more, says Ragan, but it will be worth it.

“Everybody benefits,” he says. “It’s going to be a stronger environment to work in and a better artistic product. If we nurture the artists, the art is better.”

Learn more at the website below.

Pictured (left to right): Ryan Leonard, Mary Williamson and L James in SENDER by Ike Holter. Photo by Dylan Jon Wade Cox.

Urbanite Theatre: Staging A Comeback