After 23 Years, Orlando Theatre Project Disbands

Last week, after 23 years, Orlando's oldest professional theater company, Orlando Theatre Project, has elected to disband. The Orlando Sentinel cites the struggling economy and the fact the the small arts collective has no full-time professional staff to raise funds as reasons.

Says former volunteer development director Cid Stoll, "We don't have anyone with the time in their life to focus 40 hours a week on finding money for OTP."

The Project was founded in 1985 by members of Sak Theatre, which started the Orlando International Fringe Festival and produced it for several years. But the company flourished in the mid-1990s, when it moved to Seminole Community College in Sanford for nine seasons, producing such works as Molly Sweeney, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Wit, Doubt and Copenhagen.

Reportedly, when the group moved back to Orlando in 2005, the combination of no home base and a drop of government funding (on which it heavily relied) began the demise.  Though the theater owes less than $10,000, they could not get through the upcoming season without borrowing at least $30,000 more.

Volunteers of the organization, which traditionally produced edgy adult plays, acknowledge that the lack of children's programs and plays appealing to "underserved" communities most likely led to the drop in funding.  Reaching out to a broader base could perhaps have yielded a different outcome.

To read the full report in the Orlando Sentinel, click here.

Orlando Theatre Project will take part in Orlando Shakespeare Theater's PlayFest and the Fringe next spring.