The Catalyst Sessions w/ Bill DeYoung: Lisa Marone, St. Petersburg City Theatre 8-3-20

St. Petersburg City Theatre will turn 100 in five years, and that’s a pretty impressive milestone.

It’s even more impressive when you crunch some recent numbers – in 2016, the longest continuously-operating community theater in the entire country was all but out of money, its all-volunteer board totally out of gas. There was, for a time, little hope it would ever achieve centenarian status.

And yet, here we are.

This month, SPCT – known for decades as the St. Petersburg Little Theatre – will put on its first virtual show, Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias.

Lisa Marone, newly-elected board president, appeared on The Catalyst Sessions Monday to talk about the events leading up to today’s silver-lined reality – the post-2017 board has had the roof and the air conditioning replaced at the 14,000-square foot building on 31st Street South. There are new lights and a new sign, too, and best of all there’s a renewed enthusiasm for what an organized and involved community theater can do for … well, for the community.