Interview: Winter Park Playhouse's Roy Alan Talks Bringing Musical Theatre To Florida

BroadwayWorld sat down with Broadway Veteran Roy Alan, owner of the Winter Park Playhouse in Winter Park, Florida. Find out what happens when a Broadway vet comes down South and sets up of the only exclusively musical theatres in Florida!

Starting on Broadway as a swing in PIRATES OF PENZANCE in the 80's, Alan went on to work in the business side of theatre. From being a stage manager in NINE to opening his own theatre and musical school in Florida.

After much success, the Winter Park Playhouse has become one of the only equity theatres in Florida to only play musicals.

As a performer and a behind-the-scenes worker, Alan and his wife have been putting on musical hits since 2002.

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What makes someone on Broadway move down to the Sunshine State?

I grew up in Texas, and I'm used to this [Florida's] weather. It's the same in Houston -- it's humid, and hot in the summer. Then I moved to New York, and the last year I lived there, there were seventeen blizzards, the last one in April. So I said "I've had enough of this winter stuff" and I started to look for a place to move.

I started to look at Chicago, but the weather's the same, and I looked in LA, but they have Equity Wavier Theatres, where actors are paid around $100 in hopes that a casting agent will see them. We realized that there wasn't much theatre in Florida, so my wife and I founded the Winter Park Playhouse in 2002.

We started very small in a 74 seat theatre, and opened the theatre with I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE off-Broadway. It's a small cast - two men, two women - hysterically funny, and we opened the theatre with that show. People were freaking out about it, and since that time, we've done it six more times because people kept asking for it! We do a lot of shows from off-broadway.

We moved in next door and added 50 more chairs, and considering expanding to 175. It's very much like an off-broadway theatre.

So, you're basically responsible for bringing Off-Broadway shows to Orlando area!

We do a lot of shows that no one has seen, or rarely heard of. People go to New York and go see a Broadway show, and don't see off-broadway shows, some of which are just as good! We do very feel-good, very uplifting shows, people come out whistling and tapping their toes. We don't do deep musicals, and we're too small to do something as big as LES MISERABLES.

We're starting to branch out and do some of our own works, we've done a few world premieres of shows that were tributes to composers - Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, the Gershwins. The audience loves to see a lot of tap. I love to tap, I grew up dancing with Patrick Swayze and dancing with his Mom. So, dance is very important as far as I'm concerned.

Musical theatre in general, in terms of being an original art form, like jazz music, is an original American art form. One of our dedications for this theatre is to promote musical theatre and keep it alive in this country, which can be hard because it's so costly. Especially down in Florida. We always have live music, not recorded music. Everyone is a professional in our theatre, we're one of two left in the state that only does musicals.

We're now members of the National Alliance of Musical Theatre, which has hundreds of theatres in the country, as well as in England, and we've been recognized as one of the only theatres that is solely dedicated to musicals. So we go up to see their new musical festival every year and see if we can bring back any new shows.

We just announced that we're going to present the first Florida festival of new musicals. We're getting applications and authors from all over the country for musicals to come in and present their musicals. We have a selection committee and will pick six musicals that we'll present next August. We're also inviting producers, and hopefully they'll take them to their city and they might be the next Broadway hit.

Even as an actor, you were a stage manager too. How did that come to be?

When I was growing up and studying theatre, the woman who was running the school was very strong that everyone learn everything there is to know about theatre. The more you know about theatre, the more opportunities you have. I learned how to design lights, run props, be a dresser, as well as stage management and choreography. This allowed me all different opportunities for work. So when I got to the point where I wanted to have my own theatre, I knew a lot about what we needed to do to create the theatre.

Because if you only knew acting, then you'd definitely have more trouble.

That has happened many times, actors who start a company but don't know the business side - who to contact, how to license the show, how you turn in box office receipts. There are so many aspects of running a theatre that people don't even realize.

As a small theatre, how is your relationship with the patrons?

We call ourselves a "forget your troubles" theatre. You come in here and forget about politics, forget about the recession, forget about everything going on out there. It's a lot like in The Depression days where people pay 10 cents to go and watch the movies to forget their troubles and escape, and that's how it is here. You come in here and just escape, and that's pretty much what it is here. It makes a big difference and has changed a lot of people's lives. Some people come in here who are very ill and say that the show has made their month. It's so nice to see the change.

Our audience feels like they have ownership, and we tell them that it's their theatre. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't be here and we want them to know that. My wife, Heather, who is the Executive Producer of the theatre is very hands on with the public. We know a lot of our audience by their first names, our patrons come in and she gives them a hug when they come in and when they leave. We have a meet and greet to allow the audience to meet the actors, and when we have a new member they say "Please tell them we'd love for them to bring you back!", as if they were one of the producers. They tell us what they like and what they don't like.

Every once in awhile they bring us a show they saw in Tampa and say "You need to do this show!" and we get ideas from them all the time. We also try to keep different decades in, do a 50's show, a 60's show, something in the 40's.

Let's talk about your current show, ALL HANDS ON DECK.

It's a Central Florida premiere, and was written by Jodie Madaras. It was styled after a 1942 Bob Hope tour. It's very authentic when it comes to the things that they talk about in the show. It's a lot of 1940's swing band music, there's also the Bob Hope style patter. The references are very similar.

The first act is very much a USO Bond Tour, they're trying to get people to buy bonds for the war. The second act is a radio broadcast which is broadcast to all the troops around the world. They have a section that is GI Jill with GI Jibe, and they take letters from the servicemen who are told they need to send in a request for their favorite song or to say hello to their wife. And the guys out in the trenches will hear that and boost morale.

There's tap dancing, great ballads. The performers are amazing - we have Todd Mummert as Ted Crosley, Josh Roth is playing John Handley - new to film and new big heart throb. Rebecca Jo Cross plays Betty Blake, who is a big Broadway star out on the road, and known as the "Bond Bombshell". Kayla Kelsey Moralas is playing Daisy Maxwell, who is Hollywood's newest "sweater girl". All of these people are out selling bonds and helping promote winning the war.

Each of these performers have wonderful voices that really lend themselves to the 1940s music. They sound very authentic when they sing individually, as well as the four part harmonies, and sound absolutely gorgeous.

At the end of show there's a salute to all the parts of the military where they sing all the different songs for each branch. It's a very emotional part of the show because we have many veterans who come and see the show. During that section, the performers ask the veterans to stand while their section's song is playing. Then at the end, they sing America the Beautiful in acapella and people put their hands on their hearts or salute. It's extremely patriotic and a wonderful uplifting show.

Was the current political climate the reason that you chose to do this show?

Actually, we didn't really think about it. We try to get a tap show into every season and this show has tap. Our patrons crave tap dance. I'm a big time tapper. We decided to do this show over a year ago, so the climate hadn't gotten to where it is now, but once we got to this summer, I said "You know, this show is going to go over really really well" because it makes us feel good about our country again.

What's up next for the WP Playhouse?

The next show coming in will be A MARVELOUS PARTY: THE NOEL COWARD CELEBRATION. This was done on American Stage almost three years ago. It's licensed out of England, but it first started at Edinstein, Indiana where they did the World Premiere. Noel Coward is one of my favorites, and I don't think our audience know him that well. Once our audience get in to see it, they're gonna love it - it's so witty and so funny, and the music is gorgeous.