Act Two

If the citizens of Sarasota have a defining characteristic, it’s reinvention. After a successful career in business or the arts or education, they decide it’s time for another challenge. All that expertise they acquired over the years is still there, itching to be used, and the timidity and insecurity of youth have long been forgotten. Now it’s time to flex their muscles and do something really worth doing. It’s time for a great second act.

The astonishing turnaround at the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe is the latest example. After bouncing around for 10 rocky years, with critical and popular respect but shaky financial support and management, WBTT has suddenly become the model of how to run an arts organization in Sarasota. And the turnaround has given three longtime Sarasotans the role of a lifetime. For Howard Millman, the former producing artistic director who led the Asolo Rep back to success after it faltered in the mid-1990s, it’s turned quiet retirement into a chance to work his legendary magic once again, establishing him as the Grand Old Man of Sarasota theater. For former banker-turned-politician Christine Jennings, rescuing the troupe has helped redeem two failed congressional campaigns. And for WBTT’s founder, Nate Jacobs, it’s been the rush of seeing his ragtag theater troupe, after a decade of performing on risers in arts centers and church basements, become the hottest act in town.

The Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe began backstage at the Asolo one night in 1999, in the mind of Nate Jacobs. He was performing in a play at Asolo Rep. Over the previous several years he had done several plays there. As an actor he had a wide range, and when you needed an African-American in a part, Nate was usually the first person you thought of.

While Nate considered himself fortunate for his success, other aspects of the situation bothered him. There was a lack of diversity in the Sarasota arts scene. The African-American population of the county was only 4 percent, and opportunities for a black actor were limited. As he waited to go onstage that night, the only dark face in an all-white cast, playing to an audience that was almost 100 percent white, he made his decision. “I won’t be back at the Asolo,” he told himself. “I’m going to develop a platform for people who look like me.”

Nate was an unlikely candidate for social and artistic change. A shy, introverted kid, he grew up in Tampa and Daytona Beach. His parents were musical—his father ran a touring gospel group—but the theater wasn’t a part of his upbringing. He remembers the first play he attended, Hansel and Gretel, when he was in third grade. “I thought it was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen,” he says, his eyes still lighting up at the memory.

But his shyness kept him away from performing until he entered Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. He’d always made up stories to entertain his siblings—nine brothers and a sister—and now the talent came in handy for making friends. The stories were mostly about a naïve 16-year-old girl named Emmeline and how she looked at life. Nate would act out all the parts and, encouraged by the laughter, the stories soon became little plays. A teacher saw them, and when an actor in a college play dropped out, talked Nate into playing the part. “You’re a natural,” the teacher told him.

After college he moved to Sarasota to teach art at the Westcoast Center for Human Development, a church and school run by a prominent minister in the African-American community, Dr. Henry Porter, and his wife, Cynthia. There Nate discovered another gift—for teaching and mentoring. Acting in local productions soon followed, capped by the establishment of the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe in 1999. Dr. Porter’s ministry was largely a musical one, and the congregation provided a steady stream of talent for WBTT shows.