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Marc Ashmore, Chairman 1984 - 1990

The genesis of the Florida Project took place in then Chloe Dart's (now Carol Healey) Grammercy Park (New York City) apartment as Carol, David Munnell, Alan Pratt,
and I sat around on the floor trying to think of something to do -- theatre wise, that is. Producing something was foremost, but what and where? I remember that one
project mentioned was a tribute to Dean Fallon. (We had all been at FSU while he
was still acting Dean, and loving him -- as everyone who ever meets him did --
we wanted to do something spectacular for him. By the time we finished brainstorming
that one, we had it on Broadway, with follow-spots out front and everyone Dick knew
in attendance.

Needless to say, that one never came about; however, one of the ideas we talked
about eventually did. It was to produce a show using only FSU, Asolo Conservatory,
and Burt Reynolds Institute of Theatre Training grads to do a showcase that also
consisted of only Florida writers. So we went to Gil
(Lazier, Dean of FSU School of Theatre) for help, and he mentioned that he
had planned a trip to New York later that month, and so we met with him.

I can't recall everyone at the meeting -- some were older grads I hadn't known -- others included Joe Jefcoat, Mark Glick, Gil, myself, Carol, Alan, David, Jimmy Bohr, and
perhaps an assistant to Gil. We proposed this showcase performance and Gil suggested
that perhaps in return for some help from FSU, we would start an alumni group here
in NY. (At that time no such alumni association for theatre graduates of a university
existed in the U.S.) It sounded like a good idea. But when it came time for someone to volunteer to head the whole thing up, no one raised their hand, so I did. Had I known
that I would be chairman for the first five years of the FP, I might have thought about it
a little longer.

The job of finding everyone first was quite a task. FSU Alumni office (in Tallahassee, FL) sent up a printout of everyone supposedly from the School of Theatre, living in the NY
area, since 1947. I was shocked. There were thousands! But with this list -- largely
out of date -- and word of mouth, and by hook and crook, we finally got out our first comprehensive mailing list together and invited everyone to the first annual
Party/Network meeting. Attendance was slim the first year, as you might imagine,
but things took off, and by that Fall we were producing our first showcase.

Jimmy Bohr (Casting Director for the daytime TV series Another World) directed,
witha cast of about forty. Each two-person scene was by a Florida playwrights
-- some scenes from the same play, and as the couple in one scene was just finishing,
the couple in the next scene would come on in the action and keep going as the same
two characters. It was very fluid, there were no "lights up - lights down - furniture
switching - clumsy scene changes." It was all one continuous flow from start to finish.
Jimmy said he got a lot of compliments from casting agents and industry people who
had seen it and were very impressed with how fast the evening seemed to
go -- especially considering there were forty people in the cast!

As a sideline, I don't think we ever did get any financial help from FSU; we paid
for the rental of the Sanford Meisner Theatre, etc., ourselves. But the Florida Project
was on the way.

After that we continued to have the annual meeting, the annual showcase, and started
to add things, like playreadings (Four Mondays in May) for the playwrights. I've always considered the FP to be a group for the people who NEED it. So it's a natural chain
of events that after a few years, I stepped down, and made room for the younger
grads coming up from Tallahassee, who need to keep practicing, and need a support
group to help them adjust to NY life, just as it had helped us. I'm quite proud of the
work now being done, and proud that the Florida Project has continued all these years.