By Dale King
South Palm Beach County’s cultural arts scene is getting a new theatrical and general use venue.
Gary Waldman and Jamison Troutman of Florida Theater Productions Inc. will open the Delray Square Performing Arts Center tonight with a reprise of their Sounds of Simon show, a compilation of Paul Simon songs that enjoyed a couple of runs last year at the Cultural Arts Center in Boca Raton’s Mizner Park.
Carved out of a shut-down multiplex cinema, Delray Square will offer four locations for shows, lectures and other performances, said Waldman, who will reprise his role as the homeless man in the Simon production. Because they sealed the lease deal around Thanksgiving, they have concentrated on getting that section up and running.
“We’ve been looking for a space for 12 years,” he said. “We have been driving around, looking for a location, when we saw this former theater” located next to Tony Wu’s Restaurant in a massive, aging retail complex at the corner of West Atlantic Avenue and Military Trail.
“We are now leasing the building, and slowly, but surely, we are renovating it,”
he said. “We are only using one auditorium for the ‘Sounds of Simon’ show, but there are three others, smaller units that can be used for other arts and meeting sites, poetry readings and lectures, among other things.”
Waldman lamented last year that his performance group, which traces its roots back more than a decade to the former Atlantis Playhouse at Lantana Road and Congress Avenue, didn’t have a permanent location. Now, it does, he said, and he’s anxious to unveil it.
“We have been working on it since Thanksgiving,” he said. “We converted our 219-seat main stage into a top-notch theatrical facility, fully equipped with professional sound and lighting.” It can seat exactly the same number of people as the “black box theater” in Boca Raton where their Sounds of Simon show had a nine-week run last summer.
“Venue 4 can be utilized for entertainment purposes such as cabaret, concerts, recitals and comedy acts,” he said. “Venue 2 will host a live daily radio show with a studio audience and Venue 3 will be used mostly for meetings, religious services, etc.”
Though the new performing arts center at 4809 W. Atlantic Ave. is tucked in a corner of the plaza, Waldman said the venue’s presence is already known to many. “The phone has been ringing off the hook. We have 90,000 people in our database – and 85,000 live with 10 minutes of this location.” Many come from West Boca Raton, West Delray Beach and West Boynton Beach.
“We love this, it’s beautiful – it’s money!”
Waldman said the center sports a new lobby, but he is waiting to “get past the grand opening” before turning to new amenities like a coffee and dessert bar.
Sounds of Simon opens tonight and runs through March 9 at the Delray Square Performing Arts Center, 4809 West Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach. Shows are scheduled Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 8 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $35 and are available by calling 561-800-0319.