The Exchange Awards FST Grant

October 6, 2023 – Sarasota

Florida Studio Theatre (FST) is proud to announce that The Exchange has awarded the regional theatre a grant for $30,000, underwriting FST’s current three-show Winter Cabaret Series as well as its 2024 Summer Cabaret Series. This grant award marks a 20% increase from what the theatre received last year, demonstrating The Exchange’s committed support of FST’s popular Cabaret program. Over the past 60+ years, The Exchange has awarded more than $9 million in grants and scholarships.

“The Exchange has been a staunch supporter of Florida Studio Theatre for more than 25 years. We are thrilled to be awarded this grant,” said Richard Hopkins, FST’s Producing Artistic Director. “We serve more than 70,000 attendees annually through our Winter and Summer Cabaret Series, and this funding bolsters our efforts to introduce new audiences to Cabaret as an art form and to FST as a staple of Sarasota’s booming arts community.”

FST kicked off its Winter Cabaret Series—which this grant from The Exchange helps underwrite—on September 27 with Up on the Roof, an all-new music revue celebrating the legendary songwriters who created what became known as the “Brill Sound” in the ‘50s and ‘60s.  Funds from The Exchange will also support FST’s two other Winter Cabaret productions—Take It to the Limit and The Flip Side—as well as the theatre’s three-show Summer Cabaret Series, running June through October 2024.