THEATER WEST END
SANFORD, FLORIDA
Small room.
Full attention.
ROB URBAN ON THE WORK
BEFORE THE APPLAUSE
The seats
came from
Indiana.
Before Theater West End welcomed its first audience, somebody had to go and get the seats.
In Jessica Mccarty-Carvajal’s August 2018 interview for Sanford365, Derek Critzer and business partner Quinn Roberts were preparing to open their theater on West First Street. Floor plans were spread out in front of them. The classic movie-theater seats had required a trip to Indiana by Derek and technical director Jonathan.
That detail tells me something I like about this place. There was an artistic ambition, and there was also the practical question of how people would sit down to experience it. Someone took responsibility for both.
It is easy to imagine the applause when you imagine opening a theater. I have a particular affection for the people willing to imagine the journey to collect the seating.
A home
for the hours
beforehand.
The same 2018 account describes a rehearsal and preparation space behind the theater, with mirrors and vanity desks. The first production would be The Color Purple. Youth classes were already part of the plans.
Those choices put several kinds of work beside one another from the beginning: a place to rehearse, a place to perform, a place to learn and a place to watch. The audience sees the evening come together, but the theater has to make room for all the hours that precede it.
I admire that commitment to a permanent home for the work. A theater gives artists somewhere to return with another idea. It also gives a community a place to develop a relationship with them over time.
For a downtown, that can be a wonderfully concrete form of cultural confidence. There is an address you can give someone. A date you can put on the calendar. A doorway through which a familiar street opens into another person’s story.
READ THE PROGRAM
A small room can hold
a long artistic life.
A production program is one of the best ways to appreciate how much talent can gather behind that doorway.
In Theater West End’s digital program for For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Ntozake Shange’s work brings together artists with experience across Central Florida’s theaters and entertainment venues. Director and performer Roberta Emerson’s biography includes teaching, new-play development and work with Disney Live Entertainment. Nyeshia Naomii’s credits include Orlando Shakes, Winter Park Playhouse and Theater West End’s opening production of The Color Purple.
The program also names the people responsible for stage management, costumes, lighting, set construction and the spotlight. It records a collaboration with distinct responsibilities.
I like reading those names. They make the performance more interesting before anyone speaks. A room can contain years of training and a network of artistic relationships that reaches far beyond its walls.
The intimacy of a venue gives that experience somewhere close to land. A pause can reach the back of the room. A small change in someone’s face can carry weight. The audience has the privilege of watching people exercise a craft in real time, with everyone present for the same attempt.
There is another important audience for that craft: the young person beginning to wonder whether they could do it.
The theater’s West End Prep program describes a route through auditions, rehearsals and fully staged productions, with costumes, lighting and scenic design. Its fall 2026 offerings illustrate the range: Seussical JR. for second- through eighth-grade students, and Sweeney Todd: School Edition for high-school and pre-professional participants.
Those are different invitations to different stages of development. What I appreciate is the seriousness of giving young people a production to make together. There is something to prepare for, a responsibility to the ensemble and a moment when the preparation becomes public.
A young performer’s growth need not look the same from one rehearsal to the next. Learning to listen can be as important as learning to project. Remembering a cue means understanding that someone else is depending on your attention. Confidence can grow alongside consideration for other people.
The program also offers a scholarship application and states a goal of keeping financial restrictions from excluding children. That goal belongs beside the artistic ambition. A child’s interest in theater and a family’s ability to pay for it are different things; making a path between them is work worth respecting.
The next
person to
step forward.
Audition.
Rehearsal.
Ensemble.
Opening night.
Between the final curtain
and the next idea.
The theater’s Next Stage Fund describes plans for a flexible blackbox venue, daytime arts training and improved storage for props, costumes and sets. As described in the campaign reviewed for this article, these are projects the theater is seeking to support, rather than a list of completed facilities.
I find the storage proposal particularly endearing. Shelving rarely gets the applause, but creative work has to live somewhere between productions.
A costume has a future after the final curtain. So does a prop that someone took time to find or make. Looking after those things is a form of respect for the effort already invested in them and for the people who may need them next.
The artistic life of a town depends on this sort of continuity. There is the performance people remember, and there is the patient work that gives another performance a chance to happen.
Someone will be
coming through the door.
When I think about what Theater West End contributes to Sanford, I come back to the variety of people who can enter through the same door.
An audience member arrives to be surprised. A performer arrives to do the work. A student arrives to discover what the work asks. Each gives the place a different part of its life.
I admire a theater that takes those possibilities seriously enough to make room for them. It gives artistic ambition an everyday presence in the city. You can walk past the building on an ordinary afternoon and know that someone may be preparing an extraordinary evening inside.
The seats are a useful place to begin the story because they are intended for someone who has not arrived yet. Getting them to Sanford was an act of confidence in that future audience.
Eventually, people came, sat down and paid attention. The work had found its company.
Continue with Seminole County Stories. If you would like to talk about the people and work behind your own place, I would enjoy hearing from you.
Rob Urban
For your own evening.
Where is Theater West End?
Theater West End is at 115 West First Street in historic downtown Sanford, Florida. Use the theater’s current event listing for the performance time and access information.
What is West End Prep?
West End Prep is Theater West End’s youth theater education program. Offerings include training and staged productions. Age groups, auditions, tuition and scholarship arrangements depend on the specific program; consult the current education page.
How should visitors check tickets and late seating?
Read the selected production’s listing and the theater’s current ticket policies before purchasing. Sales are nonrefundable, and exchanges have conditions. Plan to be seated before the performance begins and contact the box office about access needs.