Curtain Call | Asolo Rep leaders Linda DiGabriele & Michael Donald Edwards Take Their Final Bows

By Scott Ferguson | Photos Courtesy of Asolo Rep | March 2023

When Asolo Repertory Theatre leaders Michael Donald Edwards and Linda DiGabriele step down from their positions at the end of June, they will leave a legacy that reaches far beyond the stage of the venerable institution. For their contributions to the reputation of Sarasota as a mecca for the arts, and to the strength and resilience of regional theater in a challenging time, they are sure to receive a well-deserved standing ovation.

Edwards, Asolo Rep’s producing artistic director since 2006, and DiGabriele, the theater’s managing director who marks five decades in various roles there, had long ago decided that when the time came, they would exit the stage together. 

“Michael and I are just completing five-year contracts,” explains DiGabriele. “It was set up for us either to sign new contracts, which the board graciously offered us, or to make space for the next generation and the next new voices. And it seemed to really make sense, coming out of these five years that had so many different and challenging elements to them. So we kind of looked at each other and said, ‘I think this feels right.’” 

In April 2022, the team gave Asolo Rep’s board of directors 15 months’ notice that the 2022-23 season would be their final act.  

At first the board was “a little scared,” says Edwards. “But then we explained how this is a real advantage to create a new team, and we’re in the midst of doing it right now. As we look at other theaters, this is the age of transition, a time of generational change. A lot of institutions have not done it our way. And it’s been tumultuous for them.”

Asolo Rep Board President Randell Johnson sings the praises of both retiring leaders. “We knew replacing Michael would be a daunting task because he is such a fixture in the community. He is a great storyteller — whether it be in a personal conversation or one of his directed productions on the stage — and an artist with a big heart. For the last 18 years, Michael has been the face of Asolo Repertory Theatre, but he has also been our voice. When Asolo Rep is mentioned, Michael’s face automatically comes to mind. When I see our productions, I’m hearing the stories that Michael has brought to the Mertz Theatre stage.” 

Johnson is equally effusive about DiGabriele. “Replacing an icon like Linda is a true challenge. She is an institution at Asolo Rep. Her 50-year tenure has made her the local go-to historian for staff and board members. In addition to being brilliant at her job, Linda is one of the nicest people I know. We all look to her as our friend. She has nurtured the theater over the years, guided it through lean years and celebrated the good years.”

The Edwards-DiGabriele team tally a combined 68 years at Asolo Rep. They made their entrances from different places and at different times, but they share a profound love of the theater.   

Edwards credits education and early exposure to the arts for lighting the creative spark in him. “I come from a working-class Catholic family in the Australian Outback. A brilliant education was provided to me, which I have leveraged and actualized. I would never have been able to do any of this without that. Education gave me everything.” 

Edwards’ pre-Asolo career includes staging plays and operas in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. He served as associate artistic director of Syracuse Stage in New York state and artistic director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz in California. He first came to Asolo Rep to direct Michele Lowe’s dark comedy The Smell of the Kill in the 2004-05 season at the request of Howard Millman, then Asolo Rep’s producing artistic director. “That was 18 years ago. And while I was here, Howard said, ‘I’m stepping down. I think you should throw your hat in the ring.’ And I just thought, why not? So that’s where it began.”

DiGabriele started working at Asolo Rep in 1973, after graduating from Florida State University. “Professors from FSU started Asolo Rep — in particular, a man named Richard Fallon, who was my dean when I was studying theater at Florida State. He was known as the father of professional theater in Florida, and he was the one with the vision about what Asolo Rep could be. At that time, students were coming down in the summer and apprenticing. All of us in Tallahassee knew about Asolo Rep.”

She spent a year acting and directing at the Golden Apple Dinner Theatre in downtown Sarasota before landing at Asolo Rep, where she served in various roles, including stage manager and director of touring programs. She was named Asolo Rep’s managing director in 1989. 

DiGabriele has seen many changes in her five decades with the organization, including the development of the Robert and Beverly Koski Center, a production and rehearsal complex two miles northeast of the theater, near the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport.

Thanks to the support of forward-thinking philanthropists and board members; a $21 million capital campaign called Staging Our Future; and years of planning and preparation, Edwards, DiGabriele, longtime production and operations director Vic Meyrich and other members of the Asolo Rep team were able to realize Edwards’ vision of moving from an inadequate, rented scene shop and rehearsal facility to purchasing buildings on Tallevast Road as they became available over the years, then expanding by adding a new building. The result is a sprawling four-building campus with 45,000 square feet of scenery, workshops and production offices, the theater’s vast collection of costumes and props, and large rehearsal halls that simulate the conditions of the Asolo Rep stage — right down to space for an orchestra pit.

In addition to creating sets for the theater, the production team builds scenery for Sarasota Opera, The Sarasota Ballet, Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, Tampa’s Straz Center, Universal Studios and Broadway, as well as television, film and corporate clients. Building elaborate custom sets, as well as renting out costumes and props it has amassed since Asolo Rep’s founding in 1959 — help the nonprofit company diversify its revenue streams and add to its national reputation for production excellence. 

Edwards says that as the production facilities were gradually developed and expanded, Asolo Rep’s supporters and others in the arts world saw tangible results. 

“With the new rehearsal hall and other aspects of the Koski Center, we have exponentially added to the profile we have as a place that can create new work as well as creating work for other organizations. That is a vision that has evolved, starting with needing the capacity to create excellence. We can’t be dependent on a rented facility that does not remotely meet our needs and which we could lose the lease on at any moment. So there was a handful of people who responded to the idea that this was the way to stability.”

DiGabriele echoes the importance of “having people in the community with a vision, with the experience, the background, and the understanding of what was involved financially. Our supporters stepped forward and said, ‘This is an opportunity, and we know how to take advantage of this and we’re going to help you do that.’”

Along with its successes, Asolo Rep has had its share of plot twists and offstage drama. “The Asolo has gone through some crises over time,” DiGabriele says. “We certainly had the economic challenge that everybody went through in 2008 — that was a significant one. Leadership changes have sometimes provided challenges for the institution and for the community. Covid ranks way up there — trying to make sure we were maintaining our commitments to our staff, our artists, and the community, ensuring that we were a thriving enterprise and that we were still going to make a difference all the way through the pandemic.”

Like other organizations whose primary mission is live theater, Asolo Rep had to cancel or postpone productions and shift to producing online videos and audio podcasts, including educational content and highlights of past productions. But the demand for live performances persisted despite the restrictions of Covid, and Edwards and DiGabriele knew they had to find a way to bring live theater back to audiences.

Edwards argues that watching a recorded performance on a smartphone, computer, or TV by oneself is no substitute for the connection between live actors and audiences. “Studies show that our heartbeats tend to sync up when we have a shared experience in the theater,” he says.

Starting in December 2020, Asolo Rep moved outdoors to present shows on the Terrace Stage, a specially constructed, socially distanced venue built in front of Asolo Rep’s home at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts on U.S. 41 in Sarasota. Shows presented over the next few months included the uplifting musical revue We Need a Little Christmas; a concert version of Lerner and Loewe’sCamelot; andCheryl L. West’s story of an American civil rights icon, Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Audiences cheered through their masks, thrilled to be watching, listening, and reacting in real time to living, breathing professional performers.

“Michael and I are extremely proud of the Terrace Stage,” DiGabriele says. “And we’re also proud that we were able to support people during that time period.” 

Whether it’s working around challenges like Covid or providing opportunities for young people to experience live performances as Edwards did growing up, Asolo Rep is committed to finding ways for everyone to enjoy the arts. 

After a three-year hiatus due to Covid, Asolo Rep is once again bringing students to the theater for matinees. While a swashbuckling production like this season’s The Three Musketeers may not click with every young person, Edwards says, “There’s going to be a cohort that says, ‘I want to do that,’ or ‘I want to see something like that again. This is different from the internet or looking at TV. Oh my God, we’re all laughing at the same thing together.’”

When asked about the legacy he leaves in partnership with DiGabriele, Edwards says, “I think it’s the work itself, as well as building the level of support in the community for it, so that the theater has been able to thrive, which has led to building every aspect of the infrastructure of the theater — by which I mean lighting, sound, all the staging infrastructure, building the exterior infrastructure of the theater, the scene shop, the rehearsal studios, the housing for the artists, and a $25 million endowment. The theater is not the same theater it was 18 years ago. 

“We did this together. Asolo Rep went from being what it was to being one of the best-known theaters in the country now and one of the most desirable places for artists who do all kinds of work. They know when they come here, they’ll get to do great plays or musicals and they’ll get to do them as if they were new. They’ll get to reinvent them and rethink about them. We announce a title for an upcoming show and people can’t wait to see what we will do. Rather than thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that before,’ they know they’re going to see it and go, ‘I had no idea.’ We’ve shifted it from revival to reinvention.”

In January 2023, Asolo Rep named Edwards’ successor as producing artistic director. Peter Rothstein is the founding artistic director of Theater Latté Da in Minneapolis. An accomplished director of theater, musical theater, and opera, he directed Asolo Rep’s productions of Ragtime in 2018 and Sweeney Todd in 2019. Rothstein has directed 82 mainstage productions, including 13 world premieres, for Theater Latté Da since its inception in 1998. He also has directed productions at several other venues in Minneapolis, including the Guthrie Theater, the Children’s Theatre Company, the 5th Avenue Theatre and the Minnesota Opera; as well as the Florida Grand Opera in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale. Before assuming his new role on July 1, he will return to Asolo Rep to direct Man of La Mancha, which runs May 13 through June 11. Rothstein will work with the board and staff to select DiGabriele’s successor, Asolo Rep’s next managing director.

Board President Randell Johnson says, “Peter is a brilliant director and a great storyteller. He is a different personality and a different face for the Sarasota scene; but the stories he tells from the Mertz stage will become his voice in the community. All I can say is…just wait.”

DiGabriele says, “What we would really like for the new people is for them to have the opportunity Michael and I had — to be a genuine team, to be partners and teammates. That partnership made it possible to get through the highs and the lows. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it without Michael.” 

“And I feel the same way,” Edwards adds. 

For more information about Asolo Repertory Theatre, visit AsoloRep.org.