Orlando’s getting a new theater — outdoors, in the heart of downtown. And it will host a new festival, planned to light up the city with six months of live entertainment.
The scaffolding rising in front of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts will create a unique venue in which more than 1,500 people will be able to sit in 380 elevated platforms, or “pods,” to watch a show on an outdoor stage. Food and drinks will be delivered to individual pods to limit contact with others.
“It’s really designed to continue our mission,” said arts-center spokeswoman Lorri Shaban, “and get people back to seeing live performance again.”
Attracting more people downtown will aid local businesses who have suffered as the COVID-19 pandemic caused event cancellations and the closure of bars and restaurants. The last performance at the Dr. Phillips Center was a sold-out Josh Groban concert on March 11.
On Monday, Orlando City Council kicked plans for the outdoor venue into high gear by unanimously approving $250,000 in Community Redevelopment Agency money for the project. The agency works to revitalize downtown Orlando, with an emphasis on cultural arts.
“I think it’s a great use of our CRA dollars to bring people back to downtown Orlando,” said Orlando City Commissioner Robert F. Stuart, noting a return of live entertainment would help get downtown “almost back to normal.”
The arts center plans to partner with local restaurants and food trucks to provide food and beverage service to its patrons during a six-month lineup of events dubbed the Front Yard Festival.
Planned to start in December, the festival would feature a diverse mix of music, comedy, dance, films and more in up to 180 events, Shaban said. Both touring acts and community organizations would be invited to perform. A health and wellness component means activities such as yoga also would be offered, with participants stretching in their individual pods.
“We think this is a unique event, especially for these times during COVID, something that will re-energize downtown, give families and all from 1 to 100 a reason to come back downtown and to a safe environment,” said Community Redevelopment Agency director Thomas Chatmon in his presentation to City Council.
The $250,000 will help pay for infrastructure, such as staging, sound, lighting and fencing, Shaban said.
Although major events would require paid admission, many of the festival’s programs would be free to the community, with special opportunities for those from underserved neighborhoods, Chatmon said.
The outdoor space has been designed like a theater, Shaban said, with pods in the rear higher than those in the front to provide better stage views. Theatre Projects Group, which is working with the center on the construction of Steinmetz Hall and the Green Room, assisted with developing the best sightlines for each pod, which will hold up to five people, she said.
The 5-by-7-foot pods will fill the center’s Seneff Arts Plaza, facing Orange Avenue and City Hall, and spill over into adjacent land on both sides, Shaban said, with 6 feet of space between each pod. The entire area will be fenced off, with an entrance on Orange Avenue for temperature checks and security screening. Masks will be required, except when eating and drinking in a pod.
The Seneff Arts Plaza has been used for outdoor festivals, such as Orange County’s FusionFest and Creative City Project’s Immerse. It also became the site of a large memorial after the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016.
The area was set to be developed after a second phase of construction on the main building, but the pandemic changed things, the center said in a news release after the city council vote.
“Once we began to understand the full implications of COVID, however, and how it will continue to impact the entire entertainment industry for months to come, we decided to move up our timeline and focus more resources on the plaza while at the same time finish Phase 2,” arts-center president Kathy Ramsberger said in the release.
Phase 2 of the $606 million center involves the completion of Steinmetz Hall, an acoustic venue, and the Green Room, an informal space for live music performance.
Many arts groups have been turning to outdoor events during the pandemic, with orchestras, theater troupes and dance companies staging open-air performances throughout Central Florida.
The arts center’s outdoor venue is based on a similar undertaking in the United Kingdom, where the Virgin Money Unity Arena in the northern English city of Newcastle had a six-week run this summer with similar platform-based pods.
That experiment, however, came to an end when the British government restricted public gatherings in the wake of a spike in coronavirus cases.
Officials stressed and praised the arts center’s strict safety plan.
“This has been well-thought-out,” said Commissioner Regina Hill during the council meeting. Shaban said the center had been working on the idea since April, and its health protocols were reviewed by AdventHealth.
In a statement, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said the venue and festival would have multiple benefits.
“Arts and events not only help provide needed jobs and employment for our residents but also food for our souls,” he said. “The space will help bring our arts back and bring our community safely together to gather, celebrate, relax and be inspired.”
Find me on Twitter @matt_on_arts or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Want more news and reviews of theater and other arts? Go to orlandosentinel.com/arts.
