When Stuart Meltzer was in his senior year in college at New World School of the Arts, he saw the signage for the performing arts center that was being built in downtown Miami, the theater that would later bear the moniker the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County.
“I remember thinking, oh my gosh, one day, I hope to be able to work at that theater,” said Meltzer. “And in the past 15 years, I've had the most work in that facility.”
Meltzer and his husband, Michael McKeever, founded Zoetic Stage, one of the resident companies at the Arsht Center, along with another married couple, Christopher Demos-Brown and Stephanie Demos, who are both attorneys in Miami. All four play specific roles in the company: Demos serves as the board president, Demos-Brown is the literary manager, McKeever is the producing director, and Meltzer is the artistic director.
(Chris Headshots)
Stuart Meltzer and Michael McKeever, two of the founders of Zoetic Stage.
Now celebrating their 15th season, Zoetic Stage has produced 47 shows, and 15 of those have been world premieres, mostly by Miami-rooted playwrights, including Hannah Benitez, Elena Maria Garcia, Vanessa Garcia, David Rosenberg, Demos-Brown, McKeever, and Meltzer. The Carbonell Awards, which honors excellence in theater throughout South Florida, have recognized Zoetic Stage shows with 155 nominations, including 13 for best production of a play or musical. Out of those 155 nominations, Zoetic shows have won 46 Carbonell Awards.
A HAVEN FOR PLAYWRIGHTS
McKeever, Meltzer and Demos-Brown are all playwrights. All three have written plays that have had their world premieres at Zoetic Stage, as well as other South Florida theatres. McKeever, who is also an actor and scenic designer, has written more than 35 plays; six have premiered at Zoetic Stage, and one of those plays, “After,” enjoyed an off-Broadway run. Demos-Brown has had four of his plays premiere at Zoetic Stage, though his most well-known play, “American Son,” was on Broadway before being produced by Zoetic. Meltzer has co-written two plays with Elena Maria Garcia that premiered at Zoetic, and their latest, “Cuban Chicken Soup When There’s No More Café,” is a Carbonell finalist for outstanding new work.
(Morgan Sophia )
Elena Maria Garcia in “Cuban Chicken Soup When There is No More Café,” a play which she co-wrote with Stuart Meltzer
“Three out of Zoetic’s four founders are playwrights, so the writing process is in the theatre’s DNA,” said Demos-Brown. “Because he has directed and written so many new plays, Stuart understands the process well and knows how to push a new play in the direction it wants to go.”
“Working with Zoetic as a playwright is like walking into a funhouse and not knowing what’s about to happen,” said Elena Maria Garcia. “Stuart and I have our formula. This formula has no safety net or sidebars, so we are very honest with each other with the understanding that we come from a positive place trying to head towards something good.”
PREPARE TO BE SCARED
Zoetic Stage’s first show in 2010 was “South Beach Babylon” and this month, they open their 48th show, “The Pillowman,” a 2003 play written by Martin McDonough.
(Courtesy Zoetic Stage)
The poster for “South Beach Babylon,” was the first production by Zoetic Stage.
“The Pillowman” is about a writer, who, along with his brother, is imprisoned by a totalitarian state because a series of child murders seem to follow the plots in the writer’s stories. It’s a provocative, often harrowing play, with plenty of twists and turns.
McKeever is no stranger to scary stories. His play, “Dracula,” was the biggest hit in Zoetic’s history, followed closely by an updated “Frankenstein” by Nick Dear.
“There are always Halloween shows, and those were monsters,” said McKeever. “So, even though “The Pillowman” doesn't have that same name recognition, we knew that there is certainly an audience with a desire to be scared.”
“The play is marvelous,” said Meltzer, who calls “The Pillowman” a language play. “The challenge is, that you really have to listen. You're listening and you're watching and you're going through stories. I think also that it's going to be a cool experience because we’re doing it in the round and creating a world completely unrecognizable inside the Arsht Center.”
“The Pillowman” features a local cast: Ryan Didato as the writer, Seth Trucks as his brother, and McKeever and Gabriel Salgado as the detectives who interrogate them. The show opens Oct. 24 and runs through Nov. 10.
MONEY IS THE MOTHER OF REINVENTION
(Courtesy Zoetic Stage)
Laura Turnbull, Ryan Didato, Vanessa Elise, and Autumn Kioti in “Wrongful Death and Other Death-Defying Acts” by Chritopher Demos-Brown, which portrayed a trial as a circus.
In addition to producing thought-provoking plays and world premieres, Zoetic has produced eight musicals, including five by Stephen Sondheim. Last season they produced a stripped-down, “Cabaret” with a fraction of the usually large cast. Their next musical is “Fiddler on the Roof,” which is slated for March, 2025.
Musicals cost a lot of money to produce, and even though Zoetic Stage has a prestigious home at the Arsht Center, they’re on a tight budget, just like most theaters and other arts organizations. That translates into being extra creative on stage.
“Every penny is counted. It's really funny how that hasn't changed in 15 years,” said McKeever. “We have more funding from different sources, but with every show, you've got to literally look at the budget and go, this is all we have. We can't make it work that way, so let's get creative. Under Stuart's leadership, we have become famous for reinventing things, but a lot of that comes from necessity. When you can't do “Cabaret” with the normal 28 people, you get very creative and, create really exciting theater that people haven't seen before.”
(Chris Headshots)
Gabriel Salgado, Ryan Didato Seth Trucks, and Michael McKeever make up the cast of “The Pillowman,” which opens Oct. 24 at Zoetic Stage.
THE SECRET OF ZOETIC’S SUCCESS
Meltzer is mindful of what it takes for an audience member to see a show at Zoetic Stage, and that feeds into his drive to put on a great show and has become part of the secret to their success.
“Our theater is about the event,” said Meltzer. “Miami is an event town. I’ve approached each production from that point. In Miami, there are so many diversions and cultural arts for everybody. It's a luxury. It's an expense. How do people want to spend their money? Come down to downtown Miami, in traffic, to a challenging place to park? That's why I pay so much attention to what we do. We have an obligation to people. And because it's such an expense, you want it to be something that they remember. You want to make it special.”
Demos-Brown said several things have contributed to Zoetic Stage’s success, including the fact that their board has never allowed them to financially over-extend, but also because the company has stuck to their original mission statement: Zoetic Stage was founded to create fresh, bold, interpretations of contemporary plays and musicals, and is dedicated to enhancing South Florida’s national artistic profile by producing regional premieres and developing new works to become part of the American stage repertoire.
“A decade and a half into this adventure, I’ve learned that everyone in the world wants to tell you what your mission should be,” said Demos-Brown. “You have to tune all that out, know what your mission is, and hew to it or die like a Leo clinging to the floating flotsam in ‘Titanic.’”
“We wanted to create work,” said Meltzer. “We wanted to create a generator to create work for us as theater artists, but also to experiment with different types of theater. We've done all that over these past 15 years.”
For more information on Zoetic Stage and their new season, visit ZoeticStage.org.