The VenuWorks era officially began last week at Sunrise Theatre, and with it the promise of a year-round schedule of performances and new offerings at the historic downtown Fort Pierce venue.
VenuWorks – based in Ames, Iowa, and selected in May by the Fort Pierce City Commission as the new management company for the performing arts center – has a three-decade history of managing theaters, arenas, convention centers, amphitheaters, sports complexes and other venues.
VenuWorks’ full contract term began on Oct. 1 and will run through Sept. 30, 2031.
“It’s a very smart move on the city’s behalf because it’s a very niche field,” said new Sunrise Theatre Executive Director Numa Saisselin, who began in late July. He was previously president of the 1,865-seat historic Florida Theater Performing Arts Center Inc. in Jacksonville.
His leadership there included growing the “public-private partnership” from a $3.1 million to a $14 million annual business; the Jacksonville venue attracted approximately 205,000 attendees each year.
Saisselin plans to implement a new business model at the 1,200-seat Sunrise Theatre by moving toward a full-year schedule, and by trying some new types of events; the first of those is coming up later this month, when the theater’s Black Box will be transformed into a haunted house.
“This is going to be the first time. If it works it becomes an annual thing,” he said.
“We have to have a well-balanced calendar that reaches everybody,” said Saisselin, citing upcoming shows ranging from “Sesame Street Live” to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
“The building has been active, but I think it could be more active. We’re going to start to build out summer.”
For years the theater has followed a traditional October-through-May season, and is dark most of the summer. But, according to Saisselin, that type of schedule is “not financially viable.”
“We’re going to book shows as they come available all year long,” he said. “We want to be in a position to say yes” to booking acts the theater might not have been able to in the past.
“Part of my job is to generate the calls, to reach out to the agents and managers who have the artists for a 1,200-seat theater.
“Sometimes it’s us calling them and saying, ‘I would love to have so and so here. When is he available?’ And sometimes it’s them calling us. You have to be ready and then you have to go out and sell it to the community,” Saisselin explained.
“Part of our mission is to construct a well-rounded calendar. We are here to serve the community. The building is owned by the people of Fort Pierce.”
With the changeover from being city-run to outside management, all previous Sunrise Theatre employees moved over to VenuWorks to form a staff of six full-time workers and about a dozen part-time employees. Stagehands, bartenders and others are hired as needed for a show.
Saisselin also boasted about the “incredible” group of volunteers who play an important role at the theater.
Saisselin, who had been staying in a local hotel, officially moved to the area from Jacksonville last week. “It’s a little more recreational here,” he said of Fort Pierce as compared to Jacksonville. “Downtown Fort Pierce is incredible. This is a great place to come out for a night. You can park the car once, go and eat see a show, go and have coffee afterwards, and never have to move the car.”
The new executive director has a long history of working in theater. “I helped pay for college by working as a stagehand,” said Saisselin, who was a music major in college.
His first executive director job was at the Paramount Theater in Peekskill, New York, where he worked from 1992-1997. He continued in the field at the College of Staten Island. He served as president of the Florida Theater in Jacksonville for 13 years.
The Sunrise Theatre originally opened in 1923 and is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. It underwent a restoration before reopening in 2006.
For more information, visit sunrisetheatre.com.