How ECTC Came To Be
The Sound of Music, a fan favorite and our most popular and well attended show to date at ECTC, was the cherry on top of our glorious tenth season. Anna Joy Powell did such a great job of bringing Maria to life on stage and part of that was her genuine and honest interactions with the children. We had two casts of children, and Anna Joy had a child of her own in each cast. Even as a child myself, one of the first songs I learned in choir was “Do, Re, Mi.” Does your mind read those words in tune with the music? Mine does! Well, as you know, the song begins with, “Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start.” So for this story, that is where I am going to begin... I’ll start at the beginning, the very beginning for me anyway, and hopefully it will be a very good place to start.
It was October of 2002 and I was living in Orlando. My job at the time was playing Spiderman at Universal’s Islands of Adventure. Side note: I was the second Spiderman ever hired and my most favorite moments were when I was given the opportunity to meet a “Make a Wish” kid. Wearing spandex everyday is a little humbling, but not as humbling as the realization that the “Make A Wish” child in front of me wishes their last wish to meet Spiderman and I was the guy honored to help make that wish come true. During that period of my life, I took a little vacation from the work of superheroes and flew to Virginia Beach, Virginia to visit some close friends of mine. Mark VonWellshiem was in graduate school at Regent University studying lm, and his wife Tracy was in the graduate program for theatre. Tracy picked me up from the airport and took me to their apartment where her good friend and fellow theatre student was babysitting their young daughter. I entered the apartment, and there stood Anna Ogle. If you hear Anna’s version of this story she will tell you that when the door opened she knew she was looking at her future husband. It took me a little longer to realize what was happening, but clearly I got there. The weekend ended up being a bit of a double date with dinners, sightseeing, attending a One Act Festival that Anna was in, and just fun. The night before I was supposed to leave, Anna and I were saying our goodbyes and exchanging contact information. She jokingly invited me to join her at the library where she would be desperately trying to complete a paper that was due at midnight (one that she had ignored all weekend to be able to spend time with me). To her surprise I showed up! She finished the paper in record time and we headed off to the International House of Pancakes where we talked until the early hours of the morning, savoring the few last moments together before I had to return to “saving the world” at Universal. That night I asked Anna what her dream was. She shared her vision of theatre impacting people's lives in a life changing way. I’ve always believed that dreams are important, that they are a gift from God to lead us, a rudder to guide us. In undergraduate school at Palm Beach Atlantic University my only dream was to work professionally as an actor. I felt like I had been blessed with the fruition of that dream, and when I met Anna I was in the process of defining what my next dream was. I knew theatre was at the heart of it, but there are so many directions to go in the profession of theatre that I was searching for inspiration. I was seriously considering starting a theatre company or finding a way to teach and impact children through theatre. When Anna told me her dream, I felt like I heard my own. I think that is when I knew I had met my future wife. The dream of theatre impacting people's lives is what literally brought us together.
Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music sings “Climb every mountain, Ford every stream, Follow every rainbow, 'Till you find your dream!” I won’t share here every mountain Anna and I had to climb... or every stream... let me just share a few of the rainbows we followed.
In August of 2006 our beautiful twins Mia and Bella were born in Orlando, Florida. Talk about a double blessing- we love our girls! Anna grew up in Destin, and in the 1990s her family moved to Santa Rosa Beach. My first time visiting the area was December of 2002 there was no hospital at the corner of Mack Bayou and 98, their street was not paved, and the new and exciting place to go at the time was Baytowne at the Sandestin Resort. Fast forward to December of 2008 when we brought our toddlers to visit with Papa Jerry and Grandma Claire (Jerry and Claire Ogle). They took us to this brand new really cool lifestyle center that had just been built nearby. We came to Grand Boulevard, ate lunch at Tommy Bahama, and let our girls play around the fountain and the huge Christmas tree in the Grand Park. Keep in mind that Anna and I had no intention of moving back home at this time, but that day we did dream a little and discuss how nice Grand Boulevard was and how with all the restaurants and shops it would make a great place for a theatre!
We’ll fast forward to the next rainbow in our story... March of 2012. Our mountains and streams had taken Anna and I on a wild path, but we ended up back in Virginia Beach where Anna finished her Masters in Theatre Studies and I was graduating with my Masters of Fine Arts in Acting at Regent University. I had been sending my CV to Universities around the southeast because I thought the best way for me to provide for my family was to launch a career in higher education. I was fortunate enough to have a job offer with another strong prospect in the wings. The challenge was that both of these jobs would require us to move further away from family. The twins were five at the time and Anna was pregnant with our third child so we were not thrilled about moving further away. I had a call with my father in law who congratulated me for getting a job and doing the right thing for my family. He then said that he believed there had to be something better for Anna and I. So, he offered for us to come live with them for a year. We would have minimal expenses and I could continue putting my resume out there in search of a better opportunity. Anna and I made the decision to take him up on that offer.
The moment I knew we were moving to the area I began researching any theatre, art, performing arts - anything could find in the Okaloosa, Walton, and Bay County area. This search took me to the Gulf Coast State College website where I found Jason Hedden who was a theatre professor there at the time. Because theatre circles can be very small sometimes, I looked him up on Facebook. I didn’t see any mutual friends but I did see he had over 1,000 friends so I figured he wouldn’t mind if I reached out via messenger. Here’s what I wrote: Hey Jason, I hope you don’t mind me being a bit forward. I found your information because of your position at the college. My wife is from Santa Rosa Beach and we are moving there this summer. I am finishing up my MFA in Acting, so I was wondering, would you be open to having a conversation about what acting opportunities there are in the area? He responded, and within a few days he and I were on a call that lasted a little over 90 minutes. Clearly I had met someone very like minded. On that call Jason advised me that if in moving here I was looking to participate in the arts there were only a very few opportunities, but if I was interested in providing the arts, that the ground was fertile.
In June of 2012, Anna and I packed up our things and moved to Santa Rosa Beach. Prior to moving I was able to connect with Marcia Hull, the executive director of the Mattie Kelly Arts Foundation at the time. Anna’s brother, Chris Ogle, knew someone that knew someone else in the arts scene here and Anna's boss from the performing arts center at Regent University had graduated from the Northwest Florida State College’s theatre program and connected us with someone at the college as well. My thought was that if we were going to be here for at least a year we would do what we could to be involved in whatever arts programming was available. Our research informed us that there was no opportunity for elementary school children to get involved in theatre in Okaloosa or Walton County, and only Liza Jackson Preparatory School in Okaloosa had a theatre program for middle school students. Most of the children in the two counties had to wait until high school to be involved in theatre. Anna and I pondered this, talked about opportunities and programming with Marcia, and kept asking questions that led us to the stream that pointed to the next dream for us.
While we were investigating the arts scene, I had been hired as an adjunct theatre professor at University of West Florida and Jason had connected me with the department head at Gulf Coast State College who hired me as an adjunct instructor there too. I was in Pensacola two days a week and Panama City two days a week for teaching as well as working part time at Tommy Hilfiger at the Silver Sands Outlets. I also took some part time work at an event company when I could fit it in. Anna and I continued to ask for meetings and reach out to anyone who would listen. The need for theatre education was clear but what wasn’t clear was if someone was willing to allow us to come under an existing organization or if we should start something new. We pondered the next steps for several months. It was a day in September of 2012, Anna was now 6 months pregnant with Zoe, and she was in the kitchen helping her mom make dinner. I looked at her pensively, hoping to communicate my seriousness and said “Honey, what if we just start a theatre company?” If you know Anna you can probably imagine her response. Anna is always up for an adventure! One of our first pictures together while we were dating was at Islands of Adventure at Universal, where we’re standing under a stone bridge that says, “The Adventure Begins.” It was a perfect foreshadowing of our future together. She immediately responded to my question about starting a theatre company with an excited ”Let’s do it!” We collaborated on possible names, citing the fact that we want everyone in the area to have access to theatre. “What if we call it Emerald Coast Theatre Company?” With the dream in her eyes and all the faith that naturally comes to Anna she said, “I love it!”
The next time I was in Panama City I went to Jason’s office and asked him, “What if we start a theatre company? Will you be a board member, do you want to help us?” He was in, and he promised to do anything and everything he could to help us. Anna and I then went to her brother Chris, a wealth advisor with Benjamin Edwards, told him of the dream of Emerald Coast Theatre Company, and he agreed to become our first Treasurer. Finally, we had recently worked with an incredibly creative person at a local church, Mike Harris, who became our fifth board member. We spent the money ourselves to make sure the 501C3 non profit paperwork was correct, had our first board meeting, and in October of 2012 Emerald Coast Theatre Company was born with the mission to enrich and entertain the Emerald Coast community through educational and professional theatre.
Our first programming was launched in January of 2013. It was an after school theatre class in partnership with the Mattie Kelly Arts Foundation at Destin Elementary school with ten students enrolled. We were “climbing every mountain” to find our place here, and I was literally “following every highway” like I-10 and HWY98 from Pensacola to Panama City, our Zoe was making her grand entrance into the world on January 10th, and my six year old twins were settling into a new life in Santa Rosa Beach. If you had told me that ECTC would eventually serve over a thousand children each year through its educational and field trip programs and that thousands of people would come on a regular basis to find community and connection, my response would have been ”Wouldn't that be a dream come true!”
“Follow every rainbow, ‘Till you find your dream!” If we are ever in a conversation, don’t be surprised if I ask you what your dream is, because if you ask me... dreams do come true.
