The new year is bringing more than just a new line up for the Melon Patch Players Theatre.
It started off the new year with a move into a new venue and is hosting opening night of a new comedic play, which is happening this week.
Dustin Lavine, executive director of the Melon Patch Players Theatre, said the move took nearly six months of packing and transporting items to The Tropic Theater, 122 W Main St., Leesburg. It is a historic building in Leesburg that was built as a movie theater in 1932.
The Leesburg City Commission approved the purchase for the historic building on March 11, 2024, with the plan to move the Melon Patch Players Theatre in along with the Leesburg Center for the Arts to create a place for all the arts under one roof.
“We had a month of physically moving things over,” Lavine said. “We had to rush and get everything over here. It was down to the wire, but we are all done.”
The move came just before the showing of “Ben Hur,” a full-length comedy play written by Patrick Barlow, which will open at the theater at 7 p.m. Friday. The play will run through Feb. 9. Tickets range from $10 for students with student ID to
$24 per adult.
The comedic play features four actors who are performing as amateur members of a theater troop telling of a fictional Jewish prince and merchant. Following character Judah Ben-Hur through his life as a galley slave to conquering charioteer, Lavine said the performance is “intended to be chaotic and comedic.”
The play is similar to the style of taking large stories and shrinking them down, which developed in Barlow’s parody play “The 39 Steps.”
“It is outright hilarity,” Lavine said. “There’s comedic moments that are scripted, but just as often there are unscripted moments. With only four actors, sometimes in 30 seconds they have to go and change an entire character’s persona including outfit, voice — everything. Some things don’t go as rehearsed.”
With the theater season for the Melon Patch Players Theatre being finalized well before the recent move was arranged, Lavine said the coincidence of the theater performing a play “about a small theater troop just barely getting by” at the same time of finishing a move was “serendipity.”
“During one of the first rehearsals, I told the actors ‘we are going to just roll with it and see what happens,’” Lavine said.
The director said he thinks the audience will enjoy unique aspects of the show including a chariot race, stage combat, pillars and a sea battle with the audience.
“I think people enjoy not knowing what was scripted and what wasn’t,” he said. “They come up and ask me at the end of the show ‘was that supposed to happen’ and I’ll never tell them. Theater is supposed to be an experience and whatever can be done to enhance that should be.”
Lavine said the theater’s move also brings an opportunity to enhance the art experience for patrons and artists of all kind. He said the conditions of the new theater both backstage and in front provide better and safer conditions for the actors and patrons.
“It’s no secret that we had issues backstage and in front of the stage at the previous building,” he said. “The building we are now in is an older, historic building, but behind the curtain the conditions are better. Actors and patrons will both be more enticed to enjoy the experience.”
With The Tropic Theatre housing both the Melon Patch Theatre and the Leesburg Center for the Arts soon, Lavine said the venue will become a powerhouse
for the arts. “We are two historic institutions going into a historic building,” he said. “Having an anchor for the arts based in the downtown area, that would be beneficial to everyone.”
Richard Colvin, executive director for the Leesburg Center for the Arts, agreed the move will enliven the downtown Leesburg area. The art center is scheduled to move into the Tropic Theatre in August.
“We are hoping to hit the ground running, with programming beginning in the Fall,” Colvin said. “By being side-by-side with another cultural entity, we’re looking forward to cross-pollination of our audience(s), as well as combining fun and fundraising events.”
Though there are a lot of new changes for the Melon Patch Players Theatre, the executive director said there will still be the same feel fans have grown to love over the years.
“The Players existed before the theater,” Colvin said. “It might be getting a new home, but it’s the same family. It’s still the crazy group that’s been here for many years.”
For more information about the play or theater visit melonpatchplayers.org.
Staff writer Brea Jones can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5414, or brea.jones@thevillagesmedia.com.
