Actress and teacher Katherine Tanner launches new theater company in Sarasota
Actress, director and teacher Katherine Michelle Tanner is expanding the operations of her Tree Fort Productions to include a full season of theatrical stage shows at the company’s home base at the Crossings at Siesta Key shopping mall.
Tanner, a graduate of the FSU/Asolo Conservatory who has performed in professional theaters in Sarasota and around the country as well as film projects, has been working with young artists and adults at Tree Fort on stage and film experiences.
Tree Fort Productions Projects is a new non-profit branch of the school and theater program.
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Tanner said she has been encouraged in the last few years by many people to create a non-profit entity for productions “but the timing was off because of the pandemic.” Last season, when she presented three different shows, “it became clear that we have a lovely group of company members committed to doing these projects together one way or another.”
She is planning a four-show season to begin in the fall, but audiences may get a preview of some original work with her production of “Shakespeare’s Lovers,” which will be featured in the first Squeaky Wheel Fringe Festival, running June 9-12 at the Cook Theatre in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.
“Shakespeare’s Lovers” will return for what she called a world premiere run Dec. 1-7. It will be the second show of the season that begins Oct. 13-22 with John Logan’s “Red,” about the artist Mark Rothko and his relationship with a new assistant as they create a new piece. Tanner will revive Jessica Dickey’s “The Amish Project,” a one-woman play she has performed at several theaters. Running Jan. 12-Feb. 11, it is a fictionalized account of the Nickel Mines school shooting in an Amish community.
“It’s the right time to bring ‘The Amish Project’ back in terms of its social connections to the community,” she said.
The final show, running March 8-12, is “The Women of Broadway” cabaret, a musical revue she has conceived and arranged.
Tanner said she wants to “stay pure to our kind of storytelling. We hope our audiences take away that sense of entertainment, but holding a mirror up to life. We will have a nice balance of intellectual theater and entertaining theater.” She said the company will reconfigure the performance space for each show, and there won’t be a “lot of bells and whistles of sets and props. It’s about how can you use yourself to tell the story in every aspect.”
On May 20, her company will present a Youth Theatre production of “Thumbelina” that she has adapted.
For subscriptions and single tickets go to treefortproductionsprojects.com/tickets.
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New Sarasota theater company being launched by actress Katherine Tanner
