- December 4, 2025
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The term “diversity, equity and inclusion” is taking a beating these days. It’s being dropped from corporate and university recruitment policies and banished from government websites. But DEI is living large at Luke Manual’s Dingbat Theatre Project in Sarasota.
Located in its new permanent home at 7288 S. Tamiami Trail, Dingbat is everything its name implies. It’s zany, it’s off the wall and it’s fun. Think party in a box — a black box theater with 70 seats. This is Luke’s party and everyone’s invited, and we mean everyone.
“We have a super-diverse cast of people,” Manual says. “We’re committed to nontraditional casting, oftentimes gender diverse. We’re creating opportunities for plus-size people, people of color and others who might not be included in traditional theater.”
There’s no danger of someone walking into Dingbat Theatre Project and seeing something they don’t want to see. Manual’s inclusive mission is clearly conveyed by incorporating the rainbow colors associated with LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer or questioning) into the theater’s logo.
Many Sarasota arts patrons know Manual from the socially distanced shows that Dingbat put on outdoors at The Bazaar at Apricot and Lime during COVID-19. Others know them (Yep, that’s their preferred pronoun!) from their days at the Venice Theatre or the Loveland Center Performing Arts Theatre in Venice.
Dictionary.com defines “dingbat” as an “eccentric, silly or empty-headed person,” but the word also has an alternate meaning, primarily in the printing world, where dingbats are ornamental type used to divide sections of text.
Manual’s not sure where they first learned about the word “dingbat,” but Manual had the name long before they had the wherewithal to create an inclusive, accessible theater company.
“I like funny names,” explains Manual. “I’ve had this name in my back pocket since high school. When I was an undergrad, we started a troupe called the Basket Cases, and Dingbat was an alternate option. Now that I’m a fully grown-up person, I decided to use it. Dingbat is the message.”
Manual may have been thinking about having their own theater one day, but they credit longtime Venice Theatre Artistic Director Murray Chase for encouraging them to “get creative” when the pandemic shut down arts venues in 2020.
A native of Mississippi, where Manual attended college, Chase gave Manual their first job as a digital development associate at Venice Theatre, after Manual moved to Florida in 2018. Chase served as Venice Theatre's artistic director from 1995 until 2023, when he turned his attention to helping the community theater recover from damage wrought by Hurricane Ian.
Armed with Chase's moral support, Manual staged Dingbat's first show in December 2020 with his friend Brian Finnerty, now production manager for the Sarasota Players.
Nearly five years later, Manual can’t remember the full name of that Christmas show Dingbat staged outdoors at the Bazaar at Apricot and Lime, along with pianist and singer Michelle Kasanofsky. For the record, it was called “Brian and Luke’s Amazing Terrific Jaw-Dropping Fantastical Spectacular Tremendous Excessive Live Holiday Jamboree.”
The now-legendary Christmas extravaganza was the first in a string of shows that Dingbat produced at the Bazaar, Kim Livengood’s shopping and eating emporium at 821 Apricot Ave. Among those that followed were “Shrek,” “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “The SpongeBob Musical.”
Originally, the shows took place outside in The Bazaar’s courtyard with the audience masked and socially distanced, but as the pandemic threat receded, Dingbat's productions moved inside one of The Bazaar’s spaces, Manual says.
Whether the shows at the Bazaar were held inside or out, “I always got a great turnout,” says Livengood. “If you go to one of the (Dingbat) shows, you’re guaranteed that the talent is going to be incredible.”
The disruption of the 2020-21 season gave normally harried performers and marketing folks more freedom than they normally had. That helped get Dingbat’s productions off the ground, say Manual’s collaborators. “Everyone wasn’t so bogged down in season,” says Amanda Heisey, now marketing and PR director at the Sarasota Players. “People could be more collaborative.”
Nevertheless, resources were scarce for Dingbat’s pop-ups, which relied heavily on “lots of found objects,” Heisey says, in addition to unconventional casting that saw actors playing several roles each in shows such as “Shrek.”
After Manual got a job at the Loveland Center, a facility for people with intellectual disabilities, Dingbat was able to produce cabarets and musicals in Loveland’s Performing Arts Theatre from July 2023 to April 2024. Among them were “Chicago,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “It’s a Bird ... It’s a Plane ... It’s Superman.”
Landing the rights to perform “Chicago” was a coup of sorts, Manual says, because “every theater across the country applies to produce it. Venice Theatre had the rights but wasn’t able to do the show because of COVID.”
Jeffery Kin, longtime artistic director of The Players (now the Sarasota Players) and founder of the Sarasota Living Arts Festival, says Manual reminds him of his early days in Sarasota back in the 1990s.
“I was just an actor with Equity card that landed in Sarasota,” Kin recalls. “My day job was managing a paper store on Main Street. At night, I started doing one-off shows like ‘The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me,’ which we did at Burns Court Cinema, and ‘The Kathy and Mo Show.’ That’s how I started, by doing one-off pieces and pop-ups in strange places.”
Working together on Dingbat productions brought Finnerty, a talented director, choreographer and actor, closer to fellow performer Heisey. After the opening night performance of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” Finnerty proposed to Heisey on stage. The two were married in January 2024.
In “Hedwig,” directed and choreographed by Finnerty, Heisey was transformed into Yitzhak, a Jewish drag queen who is the husband and backup singer to the titular aspiring East German rock singer, played by none other than Manual.
These days, Manual is collaborating with their own romantic partner, Gretchen Beaumier, on such Dingbat productions such as “I’m Going to Marry You, Tobey Maguire.”
Billed as a “Y2K farce,” it follows a starstruck teenager, played by Jamie Saunders, who kidnaps her heartthrob, the star of “Spider-Man,” played by Tom Horton. In the play, Mark-Alan does double duty as a poster of Tobey Maguire who comes to life and Brenda, a nosy real estate agent.
Manual directs “Tobey Maguire,” which runs through Sept. 21 at Dingbat. They also handle scenic, sound and projections design, while fiancée Beaumier is co-director and gets credit for scenic and lighting design.
If you’re starting your own theater, it helps to have a few connections, and Manual’s got plenty of them. Beaumier’s father is involved in construction, and some of his friends pitched in to help Dingbat on the $100,000 buildout of its new space.
Among the firms that donated labor or materials are Hoyt Architects, Bright Electric, Service Contracting Solutions, AIS Framing and Drywall and Ackerman Plumbing.
Permitting and construction for Dingbat’s new space was completed just days before it was due to open its first show of the 2024-25 season, a reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” “It was really down to the wire. We had a few days over the Thanksgiving holiday to get ready,” Manual says.
In addition to serving as a home for its interpretation of classic musicals and its off-the-wall originals, Dingbat’s lobby and backyard will be available to other groups to rent for concerts, workshops and parties.
As with any startup nonprofit, donors are key to Dingbat’s survival. Among those making contributing $2,500 or more in the 2024-25 season are Dr. Jeffrey Hamblin and Mark-Alan, Osprey Consulting, Jeff Cima, Gulf Coast Community Foundation and Terry and Debbi Austin.
Dingbat’s twisted take on classics runs the danger of turning off purists, but most people who buy a ticket know what they’ve signed up for. Those ready to veer off the beaten path will welcome upcoming shows such as “Dingbat’s Winnie-the-Pooh” (Dec. 5-17), a PG-13 version of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma” in March 2026 and “Dingbat’s Romeo & Juliet” in June 2026.
According to Manual, part of Dingbat’s mission of accessibility is affordability. Toward that end, Dingbat schedules a pay-what-you-wish night for each of its shows .
Walking into the pay-what-you-wish night for “Tobey Maguire” was a bit like attending a college alumni gathering where everyone’s either newly graduated or retired. The greyhairs are the bedrock of Sarasota’s arts scene, but those wondering where to find young patrons need look no further than Dingbat. Why are they there? For the fun and the forbidden, of course.
