ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — This weekend, a partnership of the arts will be on center stage in St. Pete. A small local theater company and an independent family book store are teaming up for the good of the community.
Everywhere you look on the Studio 620 stage, from the floor to the piano to the ceiling, the play Nocturne contains dozens of books.
“In the show, the guy is a struggling novelist, he moved to New York, he gets a job at a used book store,” said Drew Eberhard, artistic director for Vivid Theatre Productions and star of the show. “He doesn’t have any money to his name, so he can’t buy furniture, so out of the books he takes from the book store that he works at, he makes literary furniture."
So Eberhard decided, in order to help tell the story, why not team up with a real bookstore, Tombolo Books.
“This was a really easy yes for us because it’s another arts organization, and they needed books, and we’ve got books,” said Katherine Betzer with Tombolo Books.
Betzer remembers when the store first opened and how much their neighbors in the community supported them.
“What’s so amazing about St. Petersburg is that we are a place people love coming to because there are lots going on, but in large part, that’s arts organizations,” said Betzer.
The play ended up receiving close to 100 donated books.
“And these books are new, some are signed, some are award-winning books, some have been nominated for books of the year,” said Eberhard.
When the show comes to a close, Eberhard will pay it forward once again, raffling off the books to audience members and then donating the proceeds to the Literacy Council of St. Petersburg.
“And what they do and their mission and their initiative is they take adults and connect them with tutors, and these adults are people who have struggled to learn how to read,” said Eberhard.
The bookstore and theater company say if their collaboration were made into its own book, it would definitely have a happy ending.
“Anytime I produce a show, I always try to find that community involvement, that community engagement,” said Eberhard.
“They are going to be part of the set, so you are going to get a piece of history, get a piece of the performance. It’s going to be fabulous,” said Betzer.
Nocturne runs January 18-20 at The Studio At 620. For information on times and tickets, go here.
