It's 8 p.m. and members of Gala Corina's board of directors are ready to get down to business.
There's just one problem: no electricity.
It's the cleaning lady's fault. She has arrived to vacuum out the law offices that are next door to the unfinished 30,000-square-foot warehouse space the group is using this year. Gala Corina organizers are borrowing electricity (with the law firm's permission), but they can only run so many electrical things at once or all the power will go out.
So the dozen board members sit in the dark on carpet remnants arranged in a circle. A wall of filing cabinets stands between them and a pile of debris they've cleaned out of the space: lumber, bricks, stuff they found sitting in a coat of sawdust and concrete dust in the former mill. A pair of flashlights and the occasional cell phone project giant shadows onto the wall — a fitting background to a planning meeting one night before Halloween.
Watching the group in its humble surroundings, it's hard to imagine that one of Tampa's most anticipated art and cultural events will emerge as the product of their labor. For less money than the cost of a typical artwork at the Tampa Museum of Art, they'll stage a combination underground art fair and fringe festival likely to draw several thousand visitors. Opening and closing night parties will bookend a weeklong exhibit of over 100 artists with performances by artists, poets, drag queens and rock bands. The free food and alcohol (donations appreciated) probably won't hurt attendance either.
The event takes its name from the Corina cigar factory just south of Ybor, where the first Gala took place. Ever since 2003, when a last-minute crisis led to nicknaming the event Milagro, or miracle, each Gala has also revolved around a Spanish word chosen for its symbolic relevance. The theme of this year's event is Esperanza, or hope.
Seven years after its debut, Gala Corina still cruises bravely toward opening night on a wing and a prayer ... and a couple of amps, a keg and some donated plywood. But as organizers look for ways to make sure Gala Corina has a future — a future inextricably linked with the still-nascent state of downtown Tampa and the regional arts scene — "hope" is indeed the operative word.
Gala Corina is the product of a passionate group of volunteers — so passionate that it can feel, as it does the night of the board meeting, like too many cooks in the kitchen. As Gala president Amy Kroslak goes down the list of crisis situations, she's answered by a chorus of voices, each suggesting a creative, but not always practical, solution.
News that plans for a donated sound system have fallen through is greeted by a couple of offers of two-channel amps and some mic stands instead. In response to a request for a keg, one board member says he's got a cold plate if they can buy a couple of $150 CO2 tanks and find someone who knows how to rig them up. Perhaps MacGyver could swing by and take a look at it, another board member suggests to general laughter.
"Let's work on free first. If we don't have something by the end of the week, then we look at payment options," Kroslak says.
She looks nervous. These jury-rigged solutions are threatening to send the group over its $12,000 budget, nearly half of which has been spent on liability insurance. She doesn't have the few hundred bucks it might take to solve any one of these problems. When the meeting dissolves into a half-dozen conversations and people start answering their cell phones, she snaps, pleading with the group to be quiet.
The lights come back on. The cleaning lady is done.
Kroslak's mission as president is to bring a little left-brain organization to Gala, which has been staged yearly since 1999 by an ever-changing group of artists and architects.
Two years ago, Gala Corina faced a decisive moment when founder John Langley stepped down as president, explains Steve Kroslak, Amy's husband and a longtime Gala artist and volunteer. After spearheading six Galas, Langley decided it was time to decrease his time commitment to the event. Kroslak and his wife stepped in, agreeing to take on the responsibilities for the show: He would manage the construction aspects of getting the space ready, and Amy, who manages the cruise department for a Tampa-based travel agency, would take care of the money, paperwork and administration by becoming president.
They've tried to take steps that will make Gala more stable and less dependent on a single leader. Amy Kroslak, took on the task of turning Gala, which was already a corporation, into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to obtain tax exemption and make the group more attractive to foundations and corporate donors. They've also brought new members to the board of directors as old ones have fallen away, creating a mix of artists and nonartists with skills in PR, graphics, event planning and sound production. Each board member has a pet project.
