Historic Asolo Theatre

This small horseshoe-shaped theater is built around a historic structure that was first used as a performance space in the town of Asolo, Italy in 1798. It is now housed in the McKay Visitors Pavilion of the Ringling Estate, which features the Ringling Museum of Art and the Ringling Circus Museum. The museum purchased the theater in 1949 and brought it to Sarasota.

In 1798, Italian impresario Antonio Locatelli commissioned the construction of the theatre in the castle of Caterina Cornaro (1454-1510), a Venetian noblewoman who was the last queen of Cypress. She acquired the castle in 1489. When it was built in Asolo is unclear but it may have been originally erected in 1242. The Asolo remained in the castle and was used throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries before it was dismantled in during the global depression of the 1930s. Thankfully, many of the theater's architectural and structural elements were placed in storage in anticipation of reconstruction.

That reconstruction happened in the United States, however. In 1949, the first director of the Ringling Museum of Art, Everett "Chick" Austin, heard about the Asolo Theatre and bought it for $8,000. It was reconstructed in 1952 in an art gallery in the museum. Following the reception of the exhibit, in the 1960s the museum decided to erect a special building to house the theater. In the early 2000s the museum moved it to visitors pavilion.

In the early 1950s, the Florida State University established an acting company that eventually became known as the Asolo Theatre Company (it is also called the Asolo Repetory Theatre). It performed in the theater until 1989 when it moved to the newly built Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts located across the street. Interestingly, another theater, the Dunfermline Opera House in Scotland, was purchased and shipped to Sarasota and rebuilt in the center.

Queen Carnaro's Castle. The City of Asolo. Accessed December 7, 2023. https://www.asolo.it/en/queen-cornaros-castle.

Currie, Dwight. "The Historic Asolo Theater: The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art." SCALA Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd. Accessed December 7, 2023.

"Historic Asolo Theater." The Ringling Museum. Accessed December 7, 2023. https://www.ringling.org/visit/venues/historic-asolo-theater.

"Our History." Asolo Repetory Theatre. Accessed December 7, 2023. https://www.asolorep.org/about/our-history.