FLORIDA PLACE TO EXPLORE
Venice Theatre
Sarasota County · Gulf Coast
One of the larger community theaters in the country, in the old Kentucky Military Institute building, rebuilding after Hurricane Ian tore it open.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
The theater has been going since 1950. In 1973 it bought the building at 140 West Tampa Avenue that the Kentucky Military Institute had left empty in 1971, paying 78,000 dollars for it and spending another 225,000 turning it into a performance space. It runs two houses: the Jervey mainstage with 432 seats and the Pinkerton with 90. Everything on those stages is done by people who live in Venice and do something else for a living, which is what a community theater is, and this one runs at a scale most cities cannot manage. In September 2022 Hurricane Ian took a large part of the building apart, and the theater kept its season going on a makeshift stage while the damaged sections came down. Rebuilding has run for years since, paid for by insurance, grants and local fundraising. It is the kind of institution a town notices the loss of
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