By Charles Baran
Ronnie Larsen wants to turn you around. Literally.
On a recent mid-March afternoon, I stood with the charismatic South Florida theater impresario, Ronnie Larsen, in a warehouse space directly behind his popular Foundry Theater. Squeezed between racks of old costumes and boxes of props from his past successes, Ronnie gave a one-armed sweep around the tight quarters.
“This is going to be our brand-new theater. We open at the end of May. That’s the target!” I looked around. Really? But I had no reason to doubt him. As I’ve come to realize over our six-year-plus friendship, if Ronnie Larsen tells you he’s going to do something, he definitely will. “Okay, Ronnie,” I replied, voice recorder poised to pick up every detail, “tell me about it.”
“It’s something that’s never been done before. A new twist on theater in-the-round. The audience will be here, in the center, and four stages will surround you. You’ll sit in these swivel chairs”—a swivel chair magically appeared out of nowhere and Ronnie pushed me into it. “And you can turn and follow the actors as they move around the room from stage to stage. Sometimes you’ll be in the front row and sometimes the back. It depends where the scene is taking place. Watch.” He gave me a spin as he sang the opening bars of Sondheim’s Company.
“Oh!,” I said, growing more and more excited as Ronnie painted the picture, “it’s audience-in-the-round!”
“Right!”
Ronnie is certain that by placing the seats in the center of the action the audience will be physically engaged at all times. He is currently developing the program for the first season and looking at plays and musicals that have many locations. “Shows that move! Shows that travel!”
The Swivel Theater, Ronnie’s official name for the approximately 5,000-square-foot space, will seat forty people, with everyone on swivel chairs. It will have its own ADA-compliant restroom and a new light and sound booth. And with only 40 seats, it will be a “boutique experience.” If the shows sell-out, and all Ronnie’s shows usually do, he can extend the run or add more performances per week.
The project is budgeted at $150,000 and Ronnie welcomes donations which can be made through his 501(c)(3) theater company, Plays of Wilton (POW).
It’s not an overstatement to say that Ronnie Larsen is a doer, a big thinker, a risk taker. What makes POW so successful is that he constantly “pivots,” a word Ronnie loves to use, and offers diverse programming. In the span of six months, he’ll produce Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music for free in the park, Truck Stop Sally’s Sex Party, and Daniel’s Husband by award-winning local playwright and actor Michael McKeever.
I asked Ronnie to encapsulate his mission statement. “I don’t want The Foundry to be one thing. I want it to be many things. I’m constantly looking for new ways to tell stories.”
He remains continually grateful to the local community for supporting him throughout all these years. His favorite part of producing plays is thanking his generous donors each night in his curtain speech before the performance begins. “All theater is community theater. Broadway is community theater! One thing we do here, which I am proud of, is that we give people opportunities that they wouldn’t get elsewhere. You have to start somewhere.” He adds, “There are performance spaces everywhere. How lazy were we during COVID? We could have done theater in a parking lot.”
With regard to continuing free theater in the park, Ronnie remains enthusiastic. “Absolutely! But I want to see the other local theater companies getting involved. I don’t want it to be just my play toy. It belongs to the entire community.”
When prodded for a few parting words, perhaps something about his philosophy of life, without hesitation Ronnie replied, “The best thing that ever happened to me in life was failure. Every time I failed, I learned so much. Failure teaches you so much. If I hadn’t failed, it wouldn’t have led to something else.”
For more information on show schedules and donation opportunities visit www.PlaysOfWilton.com.
