That’s Entertainment!: Historic Savannah Theatre celebrates 20 years under current regime

This month, the Savannah Theatre is celebrating 20 years of entertaining locals and tourists by returning to their roots.

The Historic Savannah Theatre is the oldest continuously operating theatre in the United States, having now been in use for over 200 years; but the current theatre company running it, founded by actors Mike Zaller, Bill Minihan, and Matt and Michelle Meece, took over in August 2002.

“I was just sitting on stage in the theater the other day with Matt Meece and asked, ‘What were we doing 20 years ago today, right now?’ and we both got this pit in our stomach,” recalled Zaller.

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“We were giving that theater a big ol’ facelift. We replaced all the seats and painted every square inch of every wall, and carpet and everything else. We did as much of the work as we could because we didn’t have any money. It took us back to a place that is good memories, but also, ‘Wow, did we really do that?’”

Always a spot for live entertainment

In the 1980s, when Savannah was not quite the vibrant tourist destination we know today, the Savannah Theatre was owned by the Weis family, who also owned several radio stations, and what is now the Trustees Theatre. Then when The Little Theatre of Savannah was looking for a new space, they bought the Savannah Theatre and began operating as the Savannah Theatre Company, a non-profit community theatre.

Finally, in the early 2000s Sean Callen and the Callen Trust bought the Savannah Theatre and invited Zaller and his partners to take over operations.

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“We came in and acted as the general contractors on a bunch of work they wanted to have done to it as well, but we could have input by acting as the people in charge of getting the work done, to have it meet our requirements. We came to town in May of 2002 and worked for three and a half months everyday from noon until 2 a.m. everyday. We got it to the point where we opened the show on August 10, 2002...somehow.”

There was, and to some extent still, a misconception that Savannah Theatre were a corporation coming into Savannah with deep pockets, but that was far from the truth.

“We were a bunch of mid 20-year-old performers who put every penny that we had saved in our life, and then on top of that went to our parents and begged them to loan us money, to start a company,” said Zaller. "So if we weren’t going to sell tickets it was going to be done. It was pretty exciting when we started selling tickets and saw that people actually wanted to come and support it.

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“My biggest feather in my cap about our small business, in 20 years we’ve never missed a payroll and I take a lot of pride in that.

Zaller was drawn to Savannah because he and his partners knew that they might be able to both get local support and attract tourists. They had previously spent time performing in Mackinaw City, Michigan, where they relied heavily on summer tourists to fill seats.

“We worked in a theater for half of the year,” explained Zaller. “It was an 850 seat theater in a town that had 820 year-round residents, so it was a summer tourist destination. That’s the formula we were coming out of. When we came here, we knew we needed the individual tourists, but we also knew we needed the motor coach industry, the group tours as a component to our success.”

The core of Savannah Theatre’s ownership are performers, with five of them performing in shows regularly. The rest of the cast was rounded out with two more actors from out of town, and local singer Huxsie Scott.

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“We heard through the grapevine that [Huxsie Scott] might be interested in auditioning for the show, and she came in to the lobby of the theatre while it was under complete renovation and torn apart, and auditioned for us and we were blown away,” said Zaller.

“We immediately asked her to join us and be our featured vocalist in the show, which she has been and still is from time to time. With so many things the stars aligned and that encouraged us to keep going.”

As people came, the shows came

At the beginning, the Savannah Theatre had only one show, a 50s music revue called “Lost in the 50s,” that they performed regularly for over a year and a half. Then they noticed that local fans who had seen the show several times were getting hungry for something new, so they created a new show that focused on music from the 50s through the 70s called “Jukebox Journey.”

“It had a little more leeway because with the variety of decades of music we could change it up a bit,” explained Zaller. “We also started experimenting with doing more traditional book show, Broadway style shows. But, that wasn’t our main thing, that was just something fun for us to do from time to time. Fast forward to about 2010, we started to realize our local audience wants to see us do more traditional theater, so we produced ‘Les Miserables.’ We did ‘20th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee,’ and shows like that.”

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Savannah Theatre’s most popular show, of course, is their annual Christmas show, which over the years grew from a 30 minute segment in “Juke Box Journey” into its own holiday extravaganza.

“There are other things that go on during Christmas in Savannah, but I have a feeling we would be the thing,” said Zaller. “Our Christmas show that has been running for 15 years, is the longest running annual thing that happens at Christmas.”

With 20 years gone by, Zaller and his partners are heading into a transition period. For example, the mature actors can no longer pull of playing teenagers in shows like their recent production of “Grease.”

“Matt, Michelle, and I are still here from the original ownership group, and of course Shannon, my wife, is still here, but we have officially decided we should not be playing high schoolers anymore, as 46-year-olds. There’s a transition of doing a show like ‘Grease’ where we can’t use ourselves in the main roles which is an interesting thing because I think there is still a part of our loyal audience that wants to see us in all the main roles”

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Of course, the core cast is still terrific in age appropriate shows like “9 to 5” and “Mamma Mia.”

For “Grease” Savannah Theatre hired young actors from SCAD, local high schools, and local actors returning home from college for the summer.

“I actually directed the show, so that’s different for me,” said Zaller. “I’m used to being on stage. Although, I do make a guest appearance. It’s definitely different being out front and trying to guide everyone as opposed to being on stage and taking care of your own character.

The core group of actors at Savannah Theatre has been so consistent over the years that Zaller’s wife, Shannon, who joined in 2005, is still considered the “new kid.”

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“In theatre, you typically get hired for a show to come in for a two or three month contract and then you leave and you’re on to the next city and job,” said Zaller. “We’ve always been a little different in that you have to make the choice to come to Savannah and be a part of this knowing you’re not going to make as much money as if you were working somewhere else maybe, but have the opportunity to have a ‘normal life,’ and be in a city and put down roots.”

“We’ve always come from the standpoint of being in the show is really a part time job. It’s a twenty hour a week job. But some people chose for that to be their main thing and live on their show salary, but most people took the opportunity to start other careers, whether it be Matt and Michelle and I running the operations of the theatre, or my wife Shannon doing photography and other things, Bill Stelzer got into real estate. Everyone had the opportunity to do other things outside of the theatre, as well. Not to mention we all started families and have a whole mess of kids. 10 kids between the three couples.”

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To celebrate their 20th anniversary, Savannah Theatre is going to revisit “Lost in the 50s,” the show that started it all, one last time — even though they had promised themselves they would never do it again.

“At least if we did it was not going to be us being the high schoolers in the show,” Zaller said with a laugh. “Well, we broke that word. We decided to do it for one more weekend. We’ll do it a little tongue in cheek and acknowledge the fact that we know we are way too old to be going to the high school prom. We couldn’t imagine doing another show on the 20th anniversary.”

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“I was trying to figure out how many performances I had personally done of it and I realized it’s at least 1,500 performances. Its a bunch. But I love doing it. It’s a great show.”

For Zaller and the rest of the cast, the show will be two levels of nostalgia — nostalgia for the 1950s, and nostalgia for the early days of Savannah Theater. Some old cast members like Bill and Gretchen Selzer are returning for the production.

“We joked for years about, ‘Are we still going to be doing the 50s show when we’re in our fifties?’,” said Zaller. “Bill Minihan, who was with us when we opened is going to be here from Kentucky for a couple of the performances, and he turned 50 a few months ago, so we’re going to have a good time with that. He finally hit the age.”

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Historic Savannah Theatre celebrates 20 years of entertaining