In 1798, Italian impresario Antonio Locatelli commissioned the construction of a theatre in the 15th-century castle of Caterina Cornaro, a Venetian noblewoman who was the last queen of Cypress, in the beautiful town of Asolo tucked in the hills of the northern Italian countryside. The theatre remained in the castle and was used throughout the 19th and early 20th-centuries before it was dismantled during the global depression of the 1930s. Thankfully, many of the theatre's architectural and structural elements were placed in storage in anticipation of reconstruction. In 1949, the beautiful jewell-box theatre caught the eye of Everett Austin, the first Director of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, who acquired the theatre’s interior for the museum’s collection. The Historic Asolo Theatre had its debut Sarasota performance in 1952, becoming the birthplace for performing arts in the region. Over the years, the historic theatre has been lovingly restored and equipped with twenty-first-century technology that allows for high-quality productions within a truly special historic setting.
In the early 1970s, a fledgling acting company founded by faculty of Florida State University, began performing a summer series of plays and operas, first as the Asolo Theatre Festival and later as the Asolo Theatre Company. The acting company and its audiences eventually outgrew the Ringling's Historic Asolo Theatre, and the company moved into its current home to the Mertz Theatre within the FSU Centre for the Performing Arts, which interestingly contains the stage and interior decor from the turn-of-the-century Dunfermline Opera House which was brought over to Sarasota from Scotland in 1989. Performing a few productions throughout the year, including 'Dial M for Murder', which is one of my favourite films. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Grace Kelly, Ray Milland and Robert Cummings, this 1954 American crime thriller was the perfect play to see for our first time at the Asolo.
Caterina Cornaro, the last queen of Cypress
Magnificent interior of the 500-seat Mertz Theatre, inside the Asolo Repertory Theatre,
which contains the stage and interior decor from the turn-of-the-century
Dunfermline Opera House brought over from Scotland
Great theatre seats for Dial M for Murder
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