- December 4, 2025
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With the new theaters and festivals popping up in Sarasota, it's sometimes hard to keep up. The last two years have seen the advent of Katherine Michelle Tanner's Tree Fort Productions theater company, the Squeaky Wheel Fringe festival and Sarasota Rising's Living Arts Festival, to name just a few.
After a hiatus of two years, Theatre Odyssey's One-Act Play Festival is returning to the Jane B. Cook Theatre inside the FSU Center for the Performing Arts on Oct. 18-19. Now in its 21st year, the theater company is best known for its Ten-Minute Play Festival, which celebrated its 20th run in January, as well as its radio productions.
Theatre Odyssey's niche is new short works, explains Tom Aposporos, a real estate agent and former politician who helped found Theatre Odyssey in 2006 to promote playwriting in Sarasota and to pay its performers, unlike some community theaters where actors perform for the love of their craft and the appreciation of their audiences.
Asked to describe Theatre Odyssey's mandate, Aposporos immediately responds, "We are a not-for-profit play production company specializing in short plays with the idea that everyone would be compensated for their time and talent." Talk about a refined elevator pitch!
Unlike the Ten-Minute Play Festival, which is restricted to Florida residents, the One-Act Play Festival is open to playwrights across the U.S. It only accepts 100 submissions, however. This year, that limit was reached 72 hours after the application process opened, compared with 45 days for the first One-Act Play Festival.
"It just shows the nationwide demand for a place where playwrights can get new short works produced," Aposporos says.
To avoid any chance or appearance of favoritism, submissions for Theatre Odyssey's play festivals are given to readers for screening without the author's name on them, he adds.
This is only the fifth year the festival has been presented due to interruptions from COVID-19 and difficulties in booking the Cook Theatre, Theatre Odyssey's preferred venue, in 2023 and 2024.
"We really feel like the Cook is our home and we're glad to be back there," Aposporos says. The theater currently seats about 160, he notes.
Most of the plays in the 2025 One-Act Play Festival run about 20 minutes. The entire lineup is staged in three performances that each run 2 hours and 15 minutes with an intermission. At the end of the festival, the winning play, determined by a panel of judges, receives the $1,000 Verna Safran Prize.
While the playwrights are from out of town, the directors and actors who participate in the One-Act Play Festival include familiar faces who perform in Sarasota, Bradenton and Venice. Also on stage are young newcomers, some of whom are studying at Booker High School's prestigious Visual and Performing Arts program.
Among Theatre Odyssey veterans who have risen to great heights is actress Annie Morrison, currently appearing as the lead in the Broadway touring production of "Kimberly Akimbo," which is coming to Tampa from Nov. 18-23.
Another distinguished alumni is the late Howard Millman, who brought the Asolo Repertory Theatre back from the brink during his second tenure as producing artistic director from 1995-2006, and served as a godfather to the Sarasota Jewish Theatre and Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe.
This year's lineup of five plays is the strongest he's seen in the One-Act Play Festival's history, which dates back to 2018, says Don Walker, 2025 festival production manager.
Walker has been involved in Theatre Odyssey since 2011. That's when he says his wife, Jenny Aldrich Walker, "dragged him to an audition" for the Ten-Minute Play Festival.
The two, who met and fell in love at Venice Theatre, performed together in "A Bottle of Vodka" at the Ten-Minute Play Festival in 2014.
Like other Theatre Odyssey hands, Walker performs with other theater companies. He will appear in Tree Fort's "Notes From the Dashboard" in January and has been cast in the Sarasota Jewish Theatre's 2026 production of "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife."
A former technical writer and editor who moved to Sarasota in 1991, Walker was recently nominated for Outstanding Actor by Theater Tampa Bay for his performance in the "The People Downstairs" at Stageworks in Tampa.
Although his title for the One-Act Play Festival is production manager, Walker functions as a jack of all trades at Theatre Odyssey, both on and off stage. His editorial expertise is brought to bear in the group's website and promotional materials. He'll be shooting production stills at the latest festival.
"We’re a small company and we all wear a lot of hats," Walker says.
He, too, is glad to be back at the Cook Theatre. "When you don’t have a brick-and-mortar theater, it’s sometimes difficult for people to find you," he says. That's where Walker's marketing skills come in handy — helping to spread the word about Theatre Odyssey's productions.
Another Tree Fort Productions collaborator who's part of the 2025 One-Act Play Festival is Lee Gundersheimer, who is directing "The Disappearing Woman." Gundersheimer says he was recruited by Aposporos to lend a hand at Theatre Odyssey after leaving The Sarasota Players, where he was artistic director of the group then called The Players from January to August 2022.
"Tom and I got to be good friends when I was working in the box office of Asolo Rep, where he is front-of-the-house manager," Gundersheimer says.
A teacher at Teen Success, a Bradenton charter high school, and an acting coach, Gundersheimer, like Walker, wears many hats. He will direct Tree Fort's "Notes From a Dashboard," about two recovering alcoholics who share a love of classic cars, and "Terms of Endearment" at Manatee Players in Bradenton this season.
While readings of short and full-length plays with real actors are common at Sarasota, what makes the One-Act Play Festival stand out is that it uses sets for its productions.
What Walker describes as "cubes" can be quickly moved between plays. "Think of them as modular set pieces," Gundersheimer says. "Because there are five different plays, it’s not about the scenery, it’s about the performances and text."
As a veteran actor and director who has worked in New York and Minnesota, what Gundersheimer finds most exciting about the One-Act Play Festival is "the sudden shifts in tone during the evening."
He notes the first play in the festival lineup is about a high school lockdown. Next up is the one-act production Gundersheimer is directing, "The Disappearing Woman," which he calls "an allegorical play about Alzheimer's that's really a farce." "You have to be ready to change lanes emotionally," he says.
Those ready for the roller-coaster ride should buy their tickets online in advance, Aposporos says, because ticketing is not handled by the Asolo Rep box office at FSU Center for the Performing Arts. "We will have a table outside the Cook with a limited number of tickets for sale at the door," he says.
In any event, he advises festival attendees to arrive early because seating is general admission only.
