It's been years since Anna Brennen has performed any other role but Anna Brennen. But watching Stageworks' founding artistic director during a recent photo shoot in her company's brand new space (opening August 11 in the Channel District), I realized what a compelling actress she must have been — or, rather, still is. On stage, discussing parts she played before focusing on directing, she shifted through a rapidfire repertory of facial expressions — clownish, earthy, manic — then quietly talked about the moment it hit her that Stageworks' new home, after years of dreams deferred and openings delayed, was finally becoming a reality.
"When I first walked through the door and looked up at the catwalk, my eyes filled like they do now," she said. "'It's the beginning of a theater!'"
Illuminated by the photographer's spotlight, she might have been delivering the final monologue in a play by Ibsen or Brecht; she'd make a great Mother Courage.
As anyone knows who's met Brennen or worked with her — actors, colleagues, students, critics, donors, developers, subscribers, even construction workers — she's always been a bit larger than life. (Full disclosure: I acted in Stageworks' production of The Chosen in 2008.) But that's part of why she's been able to keep a theater company going for 28 years without a home of its own, including the seven years it took to plan, build and fundraise for the $1.2 million, 8,000-square-foot Channel District space. She's had to cajole, berate, seduce, inspire — and most of all, endure.
In all these tasks she's had the invaluable aid of Andrea Graham. president of Stageworks' board for the past six years, she's the high-energy redhead well-known to audiences for her razzle-dazzle curtain speeches. (She brought a top hat to use as a prop for our photo shoot; it didn't take long for her to realize she could pass the hat for donations during some future speech.) Her life in Tampa parallels the life of Stageworks; a New York City corporate PR woman who did theater on the side (she literally helped build an early home of the Roundabout Theater Company in NYC), she moved to Tampa 28 years ago with her first husband (she's now married to financial advisor Jeff Simon), and the first person she called before moving was, on the recommendation of a friend, Anna Brennen.
"No, you're going to hate it here!" she remembers being told by Brennen, who also had lived in NY before moving to Tampa. "But come on down!"
"Actually," Brennen interjects, "what I think I actually said was, 'Come down, we need you!'" Graham, one of the people who laid the groundwork for what would become the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, made sure that Stageworks would be one of its constitutent groups, and helped Brennen realize her vision of a theater with a social conscience; Brennen's passion for student and minority outreach has long been one of the company's strong suits.
Graham estimates that in the run-up to opening she's been spending 100 volunteer hours a week on Stageworks. The apparently inexhaustible Karla Hartley is another key player; she's the associate artistic director/technical director/Jill-of-all-trades. She's also directing the inaugural show, the David Friedman musical revue Listen to My Heart.
"Directing the first show and opening the theater was probably not a good idea," she said a bit ruefully while taking a brief respite in the theater's new seats, upholstered in a rich shade of purple (Brennen and Graham's favorite color). But she's happy to be returning to Listen "with three years of life in me." (She directed a previous incarnation of the show at TBPAC.)
The sentiments of the musical — open your heart, dare to trust — seem uniquely aligned with the scary enterprise of building a theater. In a sense, a leap of faith built Stageworks' new home: the co-developers of Grand Central at Kennedy, Ken Stoltenberg and Frank Bombeeck, donated the space it occupies (it's in the ground floor of the condo complex's West Building).
If Stageworks succeeds there, it'll be a testament to the developers' faith in professional theater as an amenity attractive to downtown residents — and a tribute to the Tampa Bay theater community's own Mother Courage.
This article appears in Aug 11-17, 2011.