The Footlight still has specific challenges: Shows can’t run long and interrupt nightly drag-queen performances. With the new ticket packages, those who can’t commit to the entire season, can buy discounted tickets for groups of three or six performances (details at /footlight-tickets). This season has just begun with “Rent Boy: The Musical,” a comedy that plays through Saturday. Still, the theater sold 7,800 tickets last year. “Naked Boys Singing!” was a hit at the Parliament House’s Footlight Theatre. For the rest of the year, we did smaller shows.” “The numbers just dropped to nothing here, especially at the theater,” Evanicki said. Things were jelling, thanks to strong interest in cheeky off-Broadway show “Naked Boys Singing!” when last year’s massacre at Pulse caused attendance to dry up. He “jumped at the chance” to become the Footlight’s artistic director at the end of 2015. He had experience as half the creative team behind “Bathhouse: The Musical,” a gay-themed comedy that debuted at the 2006 Orlando Fringe Festival and then was staged in the U.S., London, Paris, Canada and Australia. The upshot? Evanicki reinvented himself again, this time as a producer. I had put my heart and soul into that school … and it was gone.” “The board was met with some challenges and voted to close,” Evanicki said. But life took still another unexpected turn. “I thought that was going to be what I retired from,” he said. Eventually, he transformed the Maitland Academy of Performing Arts into a nonprofit, handing ownership to a board of directors. So in 2012, Evanicki went into business for himself, opening a music-instruction studio. That ended after the classically trained singer was transferred from Epcot’s Voices of Liberty and American Vybe to Mulch, Sweat and Shears - a rock cover band. In 2004, Evanicki moved to Florida and began working at Walt Disney World. “Then I found I was choosing to show apartments over going to auditions,” he said. He started climbing the corporate ladder at restaurant company BR Guest but then “got worried I would be there forever, so I left.” He returned to showbiz - but got his real estate license to pay the bills. “I was good at it, but I didn’t necessarily have a passion for it,” he said. To his surprise, he discovered that professional singing didn’t live up to youthful expectations. Beth Marshall, head of her own production company, will star in Bible-based comedy “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told” and direct “Mothers and Sons,” a recent Broadway drama.Įvanicki earned a degree in vocal performance from The Juilliard School in New York, where he performed at the Metropolitan Opera and in “Candide” with Kristin Chenoweth and Patti LuPone. Eric Pinder, a director for Opera Orlando, will direct “Jeffrey,” a comedy made into a 1995 movie with Patrick Stewart. To reach a broader audience, Evanicki enlisted familiar names in Orlando’s arts scene. Parliament House’s name recognition “is going to make it a lot easier” for Evanicki, Alexander said: “It’s wise to first appeal to the built-in audience, but then widen that.” “As long as I have the passion and determination, I think it can work.” “I want people to look at the Footlight as a theater and not just a gay show bar,” said Evanicki, 35, who just began his second full season at the helm. For the first time, the Footlight is offering season ticket packages, as other major theaters do. He has formed new marketing partnerships, such as one with Goldstar, an online ticket seller that works with the popular Groupon and Living Social websites. Located at Orlando’s Parliament House gay resort, which has seen its own ups and downs, the Footlight has staged plays for years - though often under the mainstream radar.Įvanicki is diversifying the 162-seat venue’s offerings and recruited new directors and actors. His latest challenge: taking the Footlight Theatre to the next level. Or sing in a rock band.īut the Orlando resident has done all three in a career full of unexpected roadblocks and surprising detours. Tim Evanicki didn’t expect to work in a nightclub.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |