The Sarasota Players adds new board, cuts CEO position and promotes two

Anyone who has followed the fortunes of the 97-year-old community theater now known as The Sarasota Players knows there have been a few personnel and venue changes over the past decade.

But perhaps highs and lows are expected from a cultural group founded the same year as the Great Crash of 1929. Right now, after some setbacks, The Sarasota Players seems to be on the upswing, with its artistic committee recently serving up sell-out productions such as “Into the Woods,” “Cabaret” and “The Wedding Singer.”

Late last year, when most people were out holiday shopping, The Sarasota Players announced that it was changing its organizational structure. It has a new board of trustees, led by Katie Weiss. She will be assisted by Vice Chair Diane Weiss, Secretary Scott Keys and trustees Michelle Bilsky, Rob McLain, Dr. Es Swihart and Bill Rusling. 

The new board decided to promote Thayer Greenberg to managing artistic director, a new position, in addition to her existing role of education director of The Players Studio, the community theater’s youth arm.

Jason Ellis was promoted to director of operations after serving as assistant director of operations. Ellis reports directly to Greenberg.

In a surprise move, the board decided to eliminate the CEO position and thanked William Skaggs for his five years of service.

“With this new shift, people are going to be able to focus on their jobs,” Greenberg says. “Nothing gets done in a silo.”

During Skaggs’ tenure, the community theater had three artistic directors, Jeffery Kin, Lee Gundersheimer and Steven Butler. Kin, who served as artistic director for 15 years, left in 2021 to start Living Arts Festival producer Sarasota Rising just as Skaggs was arriving.

Kin was succeeded by Gundersheimer, who was fired in August 2022 after seven months in the job, and Butler, who resigned in March 2024 after 14 months in the position.

When Butler left, he was not replaced. Rather than an artistic director, The Sarasota Players created a creative committee consisting of Skaggs, Greenberg, Production Manager Brian Finnerty, Marketing Director Amanda Heisey, Director of Development Amy Gorman, Technical Director Scott Schuster and Keys, who is an actor/director and is the retired director of the theater program at Booker High School’s acclaimed Visual and Performing Arts Program.

This collective body has helped produce some blockbuster seasons at The Sarasota Players. 

Greenberg joined The Sarasota Players (then known as The Players) in 2023 as director of education and dramatically expanded the number of students served and the number of student productions.

In an interview, Greenberg said her goal was to continue The Sarasota Players’ commitment to bringing people from all backgrounds together on stage. 

With a larger stage at Payne Park, there will be an opportunity to stage larger productions with more cast members, she says.

“We’re a community theater. We want to be able to get more people on the stage as we head into our 97th season in the fall,” Greenberg said in an interview.

She said the board decided there was no longer a need for the CEO position now that the theater’s facilities situation has been sorted out. In 2018, The Players sold its home of more than 80 years for more than its $9.5 million asking price. The idea was to move to Waterside Place in Lakewood Ranch, a plan that had been announced in 2016. For a variety of reasons, the relocation to East County didn’t materialize.

After leaving its former home at 838 N. Tamiami Trail, The Players moved to a former Banana Republic store in The Crossings at Siesta Key mall in 2021 on a temporary basis. It will move into Payne Park Auditorium, which it has leased from the city of Sarasota, by the end of the year, Greenberg said.