78 | GRAVITAS MAGAZINE GravitasMag.com
THE ARTS
Urbanite Theatre
Brendan Ragan, Summer Wallace and Harry Lipstein are all attracted to intimate, truthful
and exciting black box theater. eir vision of a different edgy and hip theater recieved a warm
welcome this spring during its inaugural season. Urbanite eatre —the first new professional
theater company to open in the thriving Sarasota arts and cultural community since 2002 —
sold out its first perfomance of "Chicken Shop" to an enthusiastic audience.
"We felt that Sarasota was the perfect fit because of a couple reasons," Ragan explained. "It's a
powerful arts community with passionate and dedicated arts patrons. And, even though there is
magnificent theater here, we felt the city was missing one crucial ingredient: the small black box
theater doing cutting edge work."
Ragan and Wallace, both graduates of the Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory for
Acting Training in Sarasota, serve as the theater's co-artistic directors. Lipstein, an entrepreneur
and co-founder, is also an actor with the company.
e newly designed 1,495-square-foot theater space seats between 50 and 70 people, including
a dressing room for the actors and a lobby. e founders secured funding to build out the space
specifically for the theater through an anonymous benefactor. Ticket prices are $20 for adults
and $5 for students. Ragan and Wallace hope to receive donor underwriting in the future to
cover the costs of the reduced pricing to allow more performances of each show.
Urbanite eatre | 1487 2nd Street, Sarasota | 941.321.1397 | Urbaniteeatre.com
B
Images
courtesy
of
Urbanite
Theatre
