In the Spotlight

As an experienced theater director and playwright, Kristen Coury knows a lot about timing. So when she and her husband sold their New York City apartment and moved to Naples in 2004, Coury noted this region's growth and quickly recognized the timing was right for more professional theater options in Southwest Florida.

The founder and producing artistic director of the Gulfshore Playhouse, Coury is now in the midst of establishing a regional theater that promises to bring a wider variety of productions to this area.

Central to her plan is a 600-seat facility to be built on donated land at Estero on the River, a proposed 85-acre mixed-use development on the northeast corner of U.S. 41 and Corkscrew Road.

"We first came here because it's paradise, really, and when we moved I thought I'd give up theater," explains Coury, whose husband is a restaurateur. "But we discovered that this is an arts-loving, educated community. The demographics are changing and many of the people relocating here come from cosmopolitan areas. I want to bring the kind of quality theater you find in those larger cities here."

Coury is well versed in both the business and artistic sides of professional theater. After earning a degree in theater acting and directing from the State University of New York at Albany, she moved to London to work with the English Shakespeare Company. There she helped market an award-winning organization known for its large-scale international tours and extensive educational programs.

"It was the management end and I learned a lot, but working with numbers was just not that fulfilling for me in the long run," says Coury, 36. "I'm most happy directing theater, and after a time I decided I wanted to go back to where my passion and personality was."

Coury moved to New York City, where she spent the past 10 years writing scripts and directing plays and musicals. In 2001, she directed Friends and Family, an independent film that earned good reviews for its lively pacing and unexpected plot line: a pair of gay hit men who are struggling to hide their professional lives from one of the men's

visiting parents.

Creative, contemporary plots are something Gulfshore Playhouse patrons will come to expect, but Coury also believes there is a need for more traditional productions in this region. Though the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall and the Philharmonic Center for the Arts bring popular Broadway shows to Fort Myers and Naples and other theaters offer additional community and professional productions, Southwest Florida does not have the variety of live performances found in cities such as Sarasota, she says, and with the region's phenomenal growth, more cultural offerings, the better.

"The Gulfshore Playhouse will offer different fare than Mann or the Phil, which are touring houses that bring in top-line musicals," says Coury. "We need a professional playhouse with Equity union actors, to stage important classics like Ibsen and Shakespeare along with new works that might be world and regional premieres."

This past summer, the D'Jamoos Group of Naples, which is developing the proposed Estero on the River, announced it will donate land for the new theater. Coury abandoned an earlier plan to build the theater on Airport-Pulling Road in Naples and now hopes the Gulfshore Playhouse can help establish a cultural identity for the booming community of Estero and add to its budding commercial prospects.

Along with luxury condominiums and upscale retail shops and restaurants, plans for Estero on the River include two arts facilities expected to draw customers to the pedestrian-friendly environment, much like the von Liebig Art Center and Sugden Community Theatre draw diners and shoppers to Fifth Avenue South in Naples.

"We want to make this downtown Estero," says Joe D'Jamoos, president of the D'Jamoos Group. "It will be an urban town center where people can eat, work and live without getting into a car, so what Kristen envisions fits well with what the area needs. We want as much culture as we can possibly get and we're very, very excited to have someone like her running the show."

"The arts is what makes an area like that come alive, because people buy tickets in advance and then they spend time there," says Coury. "When a theater opened in Mizner Park in Boca Raton, retail sales went up 25 percent, so it's a win-win for everyone."

The Gulfshore Playhouse has already produced plays at venues including the Sugden Community Theatre, but much of Coury's time is currently spent making connections in Southwest Florida, reaching out to residents and businesses and raising funds for the new building.

Fund raisers, including a golf tournament, benefit shows, cocktail parties and this month's event, "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" with Carol Channing, are part of a $20 million capital campaign that should cover construction of the theater, a small endowment and initial operating costs. Coury hopes to open the new facility in 2008.

"Support from the community has been enormous and the location in Estero is ideal," says Coury. "When I started here, I assumed we would rent space but we quickly went from plan A to plan Z, which is to build our own theater. One thing leads to the next, and when things keep falling into place like that, you know you're in the right place at the right time."