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          What brought The American Theatre Critics Association to Sarasota, Florida, for their annual conference last week?  This small city on Florida’s west coast is best known as the winter home of the circus, initially Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, now 16 smaller circuses.  John Ringling wanted to put his adopted home town on the map and his influence has culminated in Sarasota Opera, Sarasota Ballet, a world-class museum, and a varied selection of live theatre.

          The conference opened with a dual reception by two of the city’s largest theatres.  Asolo Repertory Theatre’s board president Ron Greenbaum and wife Rita opened their breathtaking gulfside home for a cocktail party where we watched the sun sink over the yardarm.  Then we went on to the Florida Studio Theatre’s satiric cabaret, “Laughing Matters”, created by Rebecca Langford and a wickedly talented young cast, directed by Richard Hopkins, FST’s Artistic Director.  FST has three stages and we saw excellent productions in each of them during our stay.

          Our keynote address “Perspectives on Criticism” was delivered this year, not by a critic, but by Michael Reidel, theatre columnist for The New York Post, who also chairs “Theatre Talk” on PBS.  If you thought after Walter Winchell they broke the mold, think again.  Although he claims Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen ranged from sentimental to scalding, Reidel’s column is pure show business.  Astute, funny and dedicated, he likes face-to-face interviews.   He writes about plays that he believes are in tune with his readership but comes down hard for a point of view.

          The Asolo (pronounced Oslo) Repertory Theatre comes not from Norway but from Italy.  It’s a beautiful 19^th century space, spotted by John and Mabel Ringling on one of their talent and artifact collecting trips.  They brought the whole thing here where it housed live theatre until the needs and programs grew and now is preserved in the Ringling Museum for lectures, etc.  Its name lives on next door in a huge state-of-the-art theatre space which presented smooth professional productions of Shaw’s “The Devil’s Disciple”, Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale” and Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Murderers” during our visit.

          The Ringling Museum is really three museums.  There’s the classical art collection of Ruebens, Van Dyck, Titian, Gainsborough and others, artfully hung on many-splendored brocade walls.  There’s Ca d’Zan (House of John in Venetian dialect), the Ringlings’ opulent gulfside mansion inspired by the Doge’s Palace in Venice, and there’s the Circus Museum, which contains costumes and artifacts from Ringling’s historic circus world. 

One of the most amazing is the monumental model circus layout, created over 50 years in exquisite detail by Howard Tibbals who was there to talk to us about it.  Before you ask, yes, the Ringling circus goes on but it’s not under a Big Tent any more, it’s in indoor spaces large enough to hold the trapeezes and the animals.

          At the Golden Apple, the longest-running dinner theatre in America, we experienced the pleasures of eating, drinking and a well-staged production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat”.

          Performance and creative arts spread to the littlest Sarasotans.  There are classes in circus skills.  We met Steve Smith, former Dean of the Clown College which is based here, and were reminded that only in the U.S. is circus regarded as a children’s art form.  Not so in Europe where, in Italy alone, there are 500 circuses. 

Among the conference panels was one on jobs in theatre criticism, work on the internet, the future of dramatic criticism, the future of arts organizations and how Sarasota became Florida’s cultural capital.  That panel included Jim Ragona, Managing Director of Circus Sarasota who told us about the touring life of a circus today.  Deborah Walk, Curator of the Museum Circus Galleries, Rodney Huey, former Ringling Brothers VP for Public Relations, Patty Campbell, director of PAL Sailor Circus, a 60-year-old youth circus, Peggy Williams, first female graduate of The Clown College and the hilarious Steve Smith made a dynamic panel.

The Florida Studio Theatre has spearheaded the Write A Play program which includes Under Six, written by kids sixth grade and under, and, to date, has reached over a million students.  We saw a sample of their dramatic and touching plays Saturday afternoon with teen-age performers who were among the most ebullient and delightful casts all week.

          Saturday afternoon and evening wound up the conference at The Florida Studio Theatre, whose emphasis is contemporary theatre.   We saw “Blackbird” by Scottish playwright David Harrower, the 2007 Olivier Award-winner for Best New Play, which explores child abuse from many unusual angles. Although it started over the top, giving the actors nowhere to go dramatically, it was so fascinating and strongly done by Dan Patrick Brady and Sarah Stockton that it held the stage.

In “Black Pearl Sings!” by Frank Higgins, a songseeker (Forrest Richards) tries to unearth songs from an African-American prisoner (Alice M. Gatling).  Richards, who has done mostly cabaret, played a dramatic role here.  We were dumbfounded to learn that Gatling, a professional actress, made her singing debut in this role, and is a talent to watch.

          We shoehorned in time to enjoy the hotel’s pool with its waterfall and the silken aqua waves of the Gulf of Mexico with their white sand beaches.

          For those who had never been to Sarsota, it was an amazing revelation.  It’s a great place to visit and, judging from the circus people who have made their homes there, a great place to live.  Two journalists in our group interviewed the famous Flying Wallendas who have been trapeze artist royalty for generations.  The scenic beauty and the circus influence which gave birth to a proliferation of classic, contemporary and musical theatre make Sarasota a unique theatre town in the tropics.