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Stageworks Needs Donors

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 7, 2008

Updated: 01/06/2008 11:13 pm

TAMPA - For $300,000, someone's name could go up in lights.

It's part of Stageworks' push to open a community theater in the Channel District.

The nonprofit theater group, incorporated since 1983, has a shell of a future theater and office in the new condominium complex Grand Central at Kennedy, 1208 E. Kennedy Blvd. For the next few months, the focus will be on matching sponsors with nuts-and-bolts needs of theater life, such as $10,000 for naming a dressing room to help turn the 5,565-square-foot space into an engaging place for prize-winning plays.

The big-ticket item: naming rights to the theater for a $300,000 donation.

The theater soon will have a bright sign and canopy to stand out among the row of condos.

Stageworks has raised half of the $1 million needed to begin construction, with completion by June 2009.

Founder Anna Brennen said Stageworks' future would be uncertain if Grand Central developer Ken Stoltenberg hadn't donated the space. It will be the first permanent home for Stageworks, which stages many of its productions at the Shimberg Playhouse at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center downtown or at Gorilla Theatre, 4419 N. Hubert Ave.

The theater will have 99 stadium seats, eventually increasing to 125.

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