Arts & Culture Magazine - November/December 2007 - (Page 44)

BACKLOT THEATER By Judy Pokras Mark Marvell says his liking to go barefoot is the Florida part of him. “And everybody gets a hug, regardless, ‘cause everyone always needs hugs.” Marvell is a maverick, a facilitator of the arts, a rainmaker. He founded Backlot Arts several years ago to foster “unbridled creativity and diversity, unencumbered by politics, game playing or personal agendas, as an exciting new cooperative arts and education facility to provide accessibility to the arts, sports and education for under served audiences and children of all ages.” There is a New York theme running through Backlot Arts. The decor in its atmospheric and warmly cool East Village Cabaret, named after a Manhattan neighborhood known for independent artists, includes New York Street signs and a large Statue of Liberty figure that was left over when neighboring Carmine Goldberg’s Real New York Deli shut down. Marvell says, “So many people down here have said, ‘We want a little of New York, give us a little of New York.’ “ Backlot likes to seed Sarasota with artists from New York and everywhere else, who come here to see their aging parents. “They’ll teach while they’re here, work on shows and also workshop their shows,” says Sarasota native Marvell. And in the same way, Backlot also takes its productions far and abroad, including a recent trip to Russia by Sarasota-based theater artists Andrei Malaev-Babel and Margaret Eginton with the hugely successful Russian play My Mocking Happiness that Malaev-Babel translated into English and adapted. While sitting on a bench outside The East Village Cabaret (so as not to talk over the superb jazz that the Michael Royal Trio is playing inside), Marvell says, “Backlot’s charter was October 2003, became incorporated as a not-for-profit in July 2004, and moved into the industrial park in October 2005.” Marvell connected with Carol and Harvey Vengroff, major property owners, who wanted to build Backlot on Fruitville as a major arts organization. “But there were problems with the city because Harvey cuts to the chase and doesn’t follow all the rules,” he says, adding that he is the same way. “It was a frustrating time, trying to get the city and the Vengroffs on the same page. They’re wonderful people, but it got to the point where it wasn’t going to happen that way.” Vengroff owns the warehouse that has been Backlot’s temporary home for two years. The organization has been looking for a place to buy or rent, without success. “Everyone’s been land-banking property,” Marvell says. But there are at least two problems with being in the industrial park: it is not zoned for theater, and local people do not want to attend theater there. “The sooner we can get moving, the better,” Marvell says, because Backlot missed the county’s September 1 moveout deadline. Backlot might temporarily take another suite in the plaza where its East Village Cabaret is located and then decide whether to buy downtown or broaden its horizons. “Backlot needs to go where the needs exist,” Marvell says. “People say, ‘If you move downtown, I’ll support you.’ But I say, ‘Why don’t you support me first and then I’ll move downtown.’ Since we moved here, people are supporting us. They say, ‘Please bring us something for our kids, please do this.’ I’m even getting this from Palmetto and Bradenton now. And now that our stuff is starting to go around the state, country and world, maybe downtown Sarasota and the usual suspects don’t need another theater down there.” Marvell continues, “We run our business with our ears. That’s 44 : : arts and culture magazine

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Arts & Culture Magazine - November/December 2007

Arts & Culture Magazine - November/December 2007 Contents Extra! Extra! Modern Times Gallery Interview - Jopseph Caulkins Exhibitions Dodi Reifenberg and Bradley Wester Profiles Center Stage Carnevale Horse Feathers Grill & Lounge Dancing on the Stage of Life Gallery Guide Calendar of Events

Arts & Culture Magazine - November/December 2007

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