Landmark Grove Theatre To Rise Again

Three years after it abruptly shut down with more than $4 million in debt, Miami's historic Coconut Grove Playhouse has a new operator -- the award-winning GableStage and its producing artistic director, Joseph Adler -- and plans to build a new theater.

The remaining Playhouse board, which has been focused on maintaining the 82-year-old theater building, digging the company out of debt and determining what a ''new'' Coconut Grove Playhouse should be, chose Adler and GableStage after a yearlong search.

Both theaters' boards have entered into a memorandum of understanding, with a long-term agreement still to be negotiated.

Under the site development plan, GableStage's new home won't look much like the existing historic building. Using $20 million in designated Miami-Dade County capital-improvement funds from a 2004 bond measure, the plan is to replace the 1,100-seat Coconut Grove Playhouse with a 300-seat theater and a ''footprint'' for a larger 600-seat theater.

GableStage's proposal was one of four the board received, according to Playhouse board chairwoman Shelly Spivack.

The building's facade would be preserved but might be incorporated into whatever the Aries Development Group, with which the Playhouse board has an agreement, decides to build on the property.

Condos, a parking garage, shops and restaurants have all been discussed as potential elements for the property at Main Highway and Charles Avenue. It's possible neither theater would be within the facade.

For the Coral Gables-based GableStage, the move will necessarily lead to a name change, but it also will double the company's current 150-seat space at the Biltmore Hotel and link its future to a theater with a national reputation.

''For me, this really is the fulfillment of a lifetime dream,'' said Adler, who won the second of nine directing Carbonell Awards for staging The Shadow Box at the Playhouse 30 years ago. ''This should be a flagship theater and one of the leading regional theaters in the United States. We deserve that, and we'll support the actors, directors and playwrights who want to create work in South Florida.''

Adler, who moved with his family from Brooklyn to South Florida when he was in the fifth grade, was an independent theater director, filmmaker and ad man before becoming GableStage's artistic director in 1998.

Michael Spring, director of Miami-Dade County's Department of Cultural Affairs, has been working with the Playhouse board to try to bring the theater back since it closed in spring 2006. Of the many options for operating the theater, he calls GableStage the ''smartest'' choice.

''What makes the most sense is to invest in a company that is successful and ready to grow,'' says Spring, who estimates that GableStage could move into the new theater between 2012 and 2014. ''GableStage does quality work. It has demonstrated a commitment to arts education and cultivating talent, and it has already become a kind of 'big brother' to many smaller theater companies.''

Given the economic struggles of Coconut Grove merchants and restaurants without the Playhouse to help attract business, Adler and GableStage plan to present events -- plays, family theater, music and comedy -- on an outdoor stage in the existing theater's parking lot later this season. Adler says the Coconut Grove events won't be regular GableStage productions but rather ''things that might appeal to different segments of the audience.''

Vincent Post, the current Playhouse board's treasurer, says the debt still stands at ''about $4 million.''

Spivack says the current board retains responsibility for paying off the debt and is still determining how to do so before the GableStage board assumes responsibility for the theater. Attorney Steven Weinger, GableStage's board chairman, says that although the company has no written assurances that it can remain at the Biltmore until the new Playhouse is ready, the hotel's management remains supportive. With Adler, he'll work to enlarge the theater's board, staffand donor base to meet the challenges of run-ning a larger theater operation.

Adler, whose company has won the regional Carbonell Awards for best play or best musical every year since 2004, is elated at the prospect of a larger theater with separate rehearsal and shop space. Though he notes GableStage was chosen as the Playhouse's theater operator because of the cutting-edge theater it currently does, he envisions producing more musicals and larger cast plays in the bigger space.

That the process will take time is fine with him.

''We'll have time to put everything in place and do it right,'' Adler said. ''The Coconut Grove Playhouse is the most recognizable theater name in the Southeast. This can truly be a phoenix rising from the ashes.''