Mad Cow announces Sondheim opener for new theater

'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,' by Georges Seurat

Mad Cow Theatre is just hinting at what will make up its 15th season, which will start out in the two current theater spaces on Magnolia Avenue and move, in January 2012, to 54 W. Church St.

But they’ve opened up about one thing, and it’s a biggie: The musical opening the new theater spaces, from Jan. 27 to Feb. 19, 2012, is Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park With George.

Encore Cast and Choir concert to benefit Dr. Phillips Center

Disney’s Encore! Cast and Choir is at it again, and this time it’s to benefit the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (now under construction — and isn’t it great to be able to say that?).

Every year the Disney cast members who make up the Encore! Cast and Choir perform a concert to benefit a local nonprofit. This year it’s the Dr. Phillips Center, and the concerts at Disney’s Hollywood Studios begin this Friday night. Tickets are $20-$30, and you don’t have to pay theme-park admission to see the show. Here are all the details:

Dr. Phillips Center gets a boost (and aims to build a concert hall)

Artist's frendering of the Dr. Phillips Center

Davis Gaines, who’s on the board of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, forwarded me this email from Richard Russell, who’s in charge of raising the money to get the center built.

Some of it is from the favorable press the center got during last week’s groundbreaking. And some of it is more encouraging to fans of the project — that the center’s proponents are trying now to go ahead and raise the money to build the shell of the concert hall that will complete the project. That would make us fans of classical music, dance and opera very, very happy. Here’s Richard:

Cirque pledges money to Dr. Phillips Center

The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts has received another pledge — this one for $250,000 from Cirque du Soleil.

Here’s the official word:

Orlando invites public to ground-breaking festivities for arts center

Well, we never thought we’d see it, but next week the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts is finally breaking ground.

And you’re invited. Here’s info from the Dr. Phillips Center office about what’s going on. My buddy Davis Gaines will be there — will you?

Good news for Orlando’s arts-center project

Orlando’s planned performing-arts center project received good news Wednesday: It’s a go, and construction is likely to start in June.

Here’s the story from the Orlando Sentinel’s Mark Schlueb and David Damron.

Architect’s hand to be lopped from arts center?

Barton Myers plan for the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

Interesting little snippet of a story today by Mark Schlueb in the Sentinel, in which Barton Myers, architect of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, worried that his design will be screwed up if it’s built the way planners are talking about it now.

Dr. Phillips center receives another big gift

Deborah Sciarrino

The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts announced another million-dollar gift today — this one from Winter Park residents Michael and Deborah Sciarrino.

This gift is notable because it comes from somebody who isn’t already on the arts center’s board — and that’s meaningful because it indicates that the arts-center folks are actually getting their message out, something that hasn’t seemed to be happening in recent months.

Dr. Phillips Center gets another $1-million gift

Chuck and Lynn Steinmetz, an Orlando couple who pledged $1 million to the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in 2007, have pledged another $1 million.

Chuck Steinmetz recently joined the Dr. Phillips Center board of directors. He was the longtime owner of Middleton Lawn & Pest Control, which he sold to Massey Services in 2005.

This week the Steinmetzes also pledged $5 million to the University of Florida to create five new permanent endowments in UF’s Department of Entomology and Nematology. The couple live in Winter Park.

Tupperware makes donation to arts-center project

Tupperware Brands has pledged $500,000 to the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts project — the second big gift the arts center has announced in a week. Last week Marc and Sharon Hagle promised the project $1.5 million, on top of a $1 million gift they made in 2007.

Tupperware also already pledged $1 million toward the center’s construction. Chairman and CEO Rick Goings also challenged other local corporations to step up and make major gifts.

Here’s the official word:

DPAC gets another $1.5 million

Orlando’s performing-arts center project has just announced a new $1.5 million gift from Marc and Sharon Hagle, who already gave DPAC $1 million in 2007.

Best thing about the gift? It’s dedicated toward the acoustic theater, meant to be home to the Orlando Philharmonic and the Orlando Ballet. That’s good news to members of the Orlando arts community, who have fretted that their needs were not being met with the planned construction first of an amplified hall for touring Broadway shows and popular music.

City agreement today will help Mad Cow move to new home

Orlando’s city council approved an agreement Monday afternoon that will help make it possible for Mad Cow Theatre to establish a new home on the second floor of 54 W. Church St., the downtown retail space that was once home to Hooters.

GOAT’s Cherry Street home is no more

Greater Orlando Actors’ Theatre has given up on moving back into its onetime home at 669 Cherry St. in Winter Park, board member Paul Castaneda says.

The group did about half a dozen shows at the Cherry Street building in 2009 but had to leave it early this year because of problems with Winter Park city codes. Both the landlord and GOAT itself put in money to bring the building up to code. (Bathrooms and egress were among the problems.) But Castaneda says the cost kept rising and eventually it just became too much.

Orlando to get its own Abbey Theatre

I had a walk-through yesterday with Ron Legler, president of Florida Theatrical Association, to see the spaces near Lake Eola where FTA is moving its offices and box office and building a new small theater.

All I can say is I hope Ron’s plans work out for the community as well as for FTA because what’s going on there at Pine Street and Eola Drive is pretty swell.

Florida Theatrical on way to new home downtown

Florida Theatrical Association, the nonprofit that operates the touring Orlando Broadway Series, is on its way to a new home for its offices and a new theater near Lake Eola. It has hired a general contractor, JHT Construction, to transform empty space in the Sanctuary high-rise condo building into offices, a performance venue and a banquet hall/meeting room.