It wouldn’t be everyone’s first choice as the site for a multi-disciplinary arts and community center. Well, maybe the community part — the 2100 block of Main Street in the Old West Tampa neighborhood just north of I-275 is a hub of activity, whether it’s the guys playing board games in the park or local characters just hanging out.
But as a destination for “edgy” art — kind of a cross between Studio@620, freeFall and the 92nd Street Y? A tricky endeavor anywhere, but in a former chicken restaurant not far from the (soon-to-be-history) North Boulevard Homes, one that seems extra ambitious.
Or at least it would in the hands of anyone else but the talented triumvirate who are building The Space at 2106 Main. Their combined expertise suggests this unlikely dream will come true. According to the owner of the building, real estate investor Robert Morris, “This can’t fail.”
Morris, 42, put aside early dreams of studying film at UCF and instead decided to “get a business degree and make a lot of money,” but never left his artistic interests behind. A hobby composing electronic dance music connected him, via a mutual acquaintance, with actor/director Jared O’Roark, 36, and the two men — the straight, fast-talking scion of a “very strict” Lebanese family and the ebullient gay theater guy raised as a Jehovah’s Witness in Little Rock — became friends. When Morris saw the powerful stories O’Roark was able to draw from the students in Project: Shattered Silence, his award-winning youth-empowerment-through-theater series at Ruth Eckerd Hall, he was so impressed that he helped fundraise for the project and started talking franchise. That idea went nowhere, but over the years Morris kept telling O’Roark that it was high time for him to break free of his longtime gig as a Ruth Eckerd staffer and start pursuing work on his own.
Which he did this spring, after 14 years there. Meanwhile, Morris had been exploring Old West Tampa, the neighborhood bordered by Armenia, Columbus, Main and Rome, and saw great growth potential — so great, in fact, that he’d started buying up vacant properties and even moved into a home in the ’hood himself. When he asked O’Roark if he’d be interested in operating a theater in the former restaurant space on Main Street, rent-free, he liked the idea. For an artistic partner, he brought in his friend Erica Sutherlin, a faculty member at Pinellas County Center for the Arts.
Morris is having to contend with a more improvisational approach to a build-out than he’s used to (“They’re changing things as we go!”) as well as the unfamiliar demands of a theater (“You have to cover my skylights?”). But O’Roark is unequivocal in his admiration for Morris’s business acumen: “This may sound tacky, but I would never take a [business] risk like this with a fellow theater person. Our brains work in a different manner — we don’t work in line items.”
The theater person he is partnering with, Sutherlin, is a highly regarded African-American actor/director/filmmaker/poet who moved here eight years ago from L.A. As artistic managing director, Sutherlin brings a positive spirit tempered by pragmatism. “The fact that I’m managing is very good because sometimes we want to do a lot of things, and I have to say, ‘Hold up!’”
For all of the partners, it’s paramount that The Space at 2106 involve the Old West Tampa community. Morris is making a point of hiring locally, including chef Eric Holland of E.V.E. Catering, who was raised in North Boulevard Homes. O’Roark and Morris, eager to get non-residents acclimated to Old West Tampa, have invited Facebook friends to join them for pop-up lunches at local mom-and-pop dining establishments. O’Roark is buying a house in the neighborhood from Morris.
There’s no question The Space is generating curiosity among the locals. “They thought it was a gay bar,” says O’Roark. “Maybe I should not walk in as much.”
On the other hand, says chef Holland, there were rumors that it was going to be a strip club. “I guess they figure if [anyone’s] going to put anything halfway decent there, that’s what it’s gonna be.” But mostly, says Holland, the community is “ecstatic” about the project, and so is he. “I think that whole block has potential.”
For O’Roark, inclusiveness is key. “One of my goals is to make sure that every person has a reason for wanting it to succeed. … They’re walking in, no matter what race, no matter what sexual orientation, no matter what religion, they’re walking in and actually seeing themselves on stage.”
What they’ll see at the moment remains a work in progress. (The grand opening is slated for Oct. 24.) But even in its under-construction stage a few weeks ago, signs of a smart design aesthetic were already visible amidst the sawdust. Artist Ashtyn Tyler created custom woodwork for the interior, including a sleek but rustic wall collage. A curved red counter will serve as the beer-and-wine Lucky Bar — named after Morris’s dog — and there are plans for a tea garden. Some of the furniture pieces are built-ins, some are on casters, to accommodate a variety of staging options.
“Any time you come in it’ll be different,” says O’Roark.
And the same goes for the programming. The theater plans a three-show season of what Sutherlin calls “edgy” material: “New work, work that’s not normally produced in the area — work that would allow us to cast who we want to.” Along those lines, she’s opening the season in November with a production of Ntozake Shange’s powerful 1975 Tony winner, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf… With auditions coming up Sept. 12-13 she’s open to all options in casting (“All black? All minority? Or just all women?”) and staging (“I’m looking forward to putting somebody up on top of that red bar”).
More plans are afoot. Joe Redner, who owns the park across the street (he famously lent it to protesters during the RNC in 2012), has invited the Space to organize an arts festival there. O’Roark and Morris have visions of convincing the city to create an Old West Tampa Arts District, embracing not only The Space but the arts magnet program at Blake H.S.
“We’re going to throw all the spaghetti at the wall,” says O’Roark. “Some of it will stick, and some of it won’t. It’s trial and error, it’s the first year.”
“This can’t fail,” reaffirms Morris. “I mean honestly, look, there was nothing here. So for us, when we open, it’s only up from here.”
UPDATE: The opening date for the Space at 2106 has been changed to Oct. 24. That change has been added to the story.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2015.
