Inside Rollins College’s Tiedke Theatre and Dance Centre, there’s a relatively new (opened in fall 2023) space—the Sally K. Albrecht Studio Theater. A small black-box space with a big story behind it; the “Sally K.,” as students casually call it, is home to student-directed shows, the spring dance concert, improv shows, and—this fall—to a theater program for younger audiences, with a feature written by the very alumna the theater is named after.
Sally K. Albrecht ’76, a Rollins College alumna, trustee of the school, and longtime choral composer, wrote “Cinderella… If The Shoe Fits!,” a 30-minute musical adaptation of the classic fairytale aimed at kids ages three and up. It will run alongside Marshall Pailet’s “Everyone Gets Eaten By Sharks (A Cautionary Tale),” a 40-minute comedy for audiences ages six and up. Both shows are part of the Youth Theatre Double Feature program, a free to attend program with first-come, first-served seating.
Performance Schedule:
- Friday, Oct. 2 at 7:00 p.m.
- Saturday, Oct. 3 at 10:00 a.m.
- Saturday, Oct. 3 at 2:00 p.m.
- Sunday, Oct. 4 at 2:00 p.m.
“Cinderella… If The Shoe Fits!” will run first, followed by a 25-minute break, then “Everyone Gets Eaten By Sharks” runs. Audiences are welcome to watch just one title if they’d prefer; contact Rollins College box office at boxoffice@rollins.edu or (407) 646-2145 to help plan around that, to receive more information, or to make reservations.
The Birth of a Theater
Albrecht’s connection to Rollins theater goes back decades. As a student, she performed in the Fred Stone Theater building, which was originally constructed as the Winter Park Baptist Church in 1926, then became a Rollins student theater space in 1973 and eventually was demolished in 2018.
Only having the Annie Russell Theatre, a mainstage proscenium, and not a space for more intimate, flexible staging, is something that stuck with Albrecht. “In 2016, I pledged to start a fund, to build a new theater. I made a financial pledge and just started talking about it a lot.” She credits a dinner conversation with then-president Grant Cornwell and former theater department chair Thomas Ouellette as a turning point, recalling that Ouellette had been thinking about a new theater “for decades,” but had never materialized the thought. Albrecht mentioned how, from that point on, Cornwell called her “the catalyst and the nudge” behind getting the project off the ground. The result is a thrust-style black box space that creates a more immersive experience for both performers and audience members.
A New Generation Takes The Stage
The “Cinderella… If The Show Fits!” production is directed by Brilee Gold ’27, and “Everyone Gets Eaten By Sharks (A Cautionary Tale)” is directed by Sam Newkirk ’27. The Sally K. has staged plenty of plays since its opening, but this program marks something new. “We’ve done plays, but not musicals. There was definitely a challenge in directing this show,” said Gold, “Trying to reconstruct a musical to be seen from three different sides of the stage in a small theater.”
Having the show’s original composer in the rehearsal room added a layer of pressure that Gold didn’t take lightly, but she mentioned how the collaboration with Albrecht became a “highlight of the process.” The cast has taken to affectionately calling Albrecht “Mee-Maw Sally,” a nickname Gold said, “captures the warmth of their working relationship.”
When talking about being a student director, and directing her peers, Gold states, “As a director, and as a senior here in the department, I wanted to make sure that I was giving the younger students, or even my peers, the opportunity to learn something new and get an experience out of it. I think that’s true of the Sally K series as a whole.”
Advice for Future Directors
When asked what she’d tell other students considering directing at Rollins, Gold didn’t hesitate to say, “Do it. Jump in—being a student director is hard work, but, if you want it, go for it. Create art.”
Theater for Younger Audiences Program
For Sally K. Albrecht, the student directors, the casts, and the overall crew that is bringing “Cinderella… If The Shoe Fits!” and “Everyone Gets Eaten By Sharks (A Cautionary Tale)” to life, this program represents a full-circle moment; in a theatre that seemed to take decades to materialize and became a place created with the goal of giving students a space to create art and take risks. Whether you are bringing a younger sibling, nephew or niece, or if you simply want to see the results of a Rollins legacy meeting a new generation of theater-makers, the Sally K. Albrecht Studio Theatre welcomes you October 2-4. Admission is free (seating is first come, first served) and—as Gold put it —this is a chance to watch a room full of students create art.
For more information or to plan your visit, contact the box office at boxoffice@rollins.edu or (407) 646-2145.
Comments are closed.