FOLEY — A new theater group has arrived in Baldwin County.

The Gulf Coast Rep and Arts & Education Alliance finished out their inaugural production of "Steel Magnolias" at OWA on Feb. 16, and the 501 (c3) nonprofit professional theater organization is now calling what was formerly The Bohemian Event Center, located in OWA's downtown district next to the Starbucks, home. The new name of the building, coined by the theater group, is The Playhouse.

Darren Butler, artistic director for Gulf Coast Rep and the director of "Steel Magnolias," has worked in theater for 35 years with 21 years of experience as the artistic director in Tuscumbia for the official outdoor drama for the State of Alabama, "The Miracle Worker," which focuses on the life of Helen Keller.

After moving to the area to work with Orange Beach High School's theater department six years ago, Butler said he always hoped to open his own regional theater.

"I always thought this was a good place for a professional theater to reside with the high volume of tourists that come through the Gulf Coast throughout the year," Butler said. "Plus, you've got this amazing, very engaged arts community here."

Butler said Gulf Coast Rep will have about two shows each season, which starts in October of each year, that he calls "anchor shows, shows that everyone knows and loves." He said the theater group will be putting on different plays than other performing arts venues in the region to avoid being a "rival."

The Gulf Coast Rep website has a "Community" section where other performing art venues in the region are listed.

"Our goal is, as I tell everyone who works with me, I have the utmost respect for every organization," Butler said, "from Mobile to Pensacola and beyond. We want to enhance what they're doing. We want to support them by being there, by hopefully bringing, you know, technicians and artists in that can be great resources."

Butler said the "extremely talented people" who work on the shows are paid to help so local talent can "stay here, work a little" rather than moving off to California or New York or other places where people go to get their name in lights.

He said "we're not running eight shows a week like Broadway," so the compensation is not necessarily "a perfect living wage," but it allows those involved to earn money for honing their craft.

Local and non-local playwrights are also encouraged to submit their work, starting April 1, for next year's season. About 80% of shows, events and performances at Gulf Coast Rep will be "new work" created by local or nation-wide playwrights.

"It's going to be things that you can't see anywhere else," Butler said, "because either we're doing a reading of it to give it its first breath of life, or we're doing a regional premiere of the show that allows us to give it its first stage production."

One upcoming "new work" is "Runaway Home," which Butler is a co-writer for alongside Gulf Coast Rep's guest musical director, Judy Rodman. The show will first be featured at The Playhouse as an attended stage reading, which Butler described as "a concert" as the cast will not be wearing costumes and "there's no scenery."

"You focus just on the story," Butler said in a description of what the audience will get from a reading. "For a playwright, a composer, a lyricist … you find out where they laugh, where they cry, where they don't laugh and cry and where they should."

Butler said the goal in workshopping plays is to "emotionally impact people," allowing them to experience "the human journey." His goal, each time he works on a new play, is to "create something that people are truly moved by."

After one of these stage readings, the audience gives feedback to the writing team and the actors in a report-card style fashion, saying what they liked and didn't like. Butler said, in "Runaway Home's" case, there is then exactly four weeks for the team to change the show according to audience reviews before putting on the actual performance. This time with costumes and a set.

"I want our community to experience what a reading is so they understand the stages of what we're doing," Butler said. "Not just for my work, but for playwrights all around the country that are going to be a part of things that we do."

"Runaway Home's" stage reading will be held on Feb. 27 and 28 and March 1 and 2 with "preview nights" of the full production on March 19 and 20. Attendees to these concert-like performances will receive "a heavy discount" on the full production performances, which will be March 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30 and April 3, 4, 5, 6. Shows on Sundays are matinees with a 2 p.m. performance, with the exception of April 6 at 1 p.m., while the rest of the shows are set for 7:30 p.m.

Butler said this is an opportunity for those in the region to see "how a show is put together" and provide helpful feedback on what the show does or doesn't need to change.

After the show's run at The Playhouse, Butler said the team is working towards a reading/concert of "Runaway Home" in London at the end of this year with "hopefully a fully staged production in London" in 2026.

According to Butler, "London is so open to American musicals and plays" as there are "great incentives to get you there" and put your show on the stage.

Another show upcoming this season at Gulf Coast Rep is "Matilda," which will be featured in the summer. After that, the next season will kick off with the New Works Festival, a play festival "like a film festival" where eight new plays or musicals "from playwrights from all over the country" will have readings and one fully staged production.

Before Gulf Coast Rep was a theatre group, Butler would put on dinner theaters, written by Butler, in Magnolia Hall, between Luna's and Buzzcats in Orange Beach. He has done these dinner theaters for the past five years.

This year "Murder at Mama's" was added to Gulf Coast Rep's season performances list to "kind of start us at the beginning of the year."

Starting in March, Butler said there will be acting and musical theater dance classes taught by himself and other Gulf Coast Rep team members, including Cailey Mize, the company stage manager who worked as the assistant stage manager for "Steel Magnolias," and Cadence Baker, who starred as Shelby in the inaugural performance.

He was not sure about the specific age groups the other two will be working with but he plans to work with high school-aged students and adults.

He also hopes a tour group will be able to take their performances to schools across the county, like a professional acting troupe he had in Decatur in the '90s.

Butler said the purpose of this traveling troupe was to go to places "where there was no theater, there was no arts." He plans to launch the new travel troupe as soon as possible.

Another event in the works is an unnamed "cool variety night, like a 2025 version of The Carol Burnett Show." He said this is on "the front burner" of ideas for Gulf Coast Rep's future performances.

Butler said the group also has a goal to host an Independent Film Night so "filmmakers have a venue for their work."

"It's all about the stories, you know, whether it's stage or film," Butler said. "It's all about stories."

PERFORMING 'STEEL MAGNOLIAS'

RUTH MAYO / GULF COAST MEDIA

"Steel Magnolias," a play by Robert Harling based on his own experiences with his sister's death, is set in the fictional town of Chinquapin, Louisiana, and follows the intricate lives of six women as they come and go through Truvy's Beauty Salon. The comedic drama focuses on the bonds among southern women and how they are as tough as steel but as delicate as magnolias.

The stage for Gulf Coast Rep's inaugural production was intimately close to the audience with some seats on the same level as the set itself. Butler said one audience member told him they felt like they were "really in Truvy's Beauty Shop, like a fly on the wall."

"And that's the way it should be right? You know, I love big theaters, don't get me wrong," Butler said, "but there's something about this intimate experience that's just, I don't know, there's nothing else like it."

Riley McGarrah, production manager for Gulf Coast Rep, played Annelle. She said the show has taught her about "camaraderie with all kinds of women."

Baker said she has loved being a part of "Steel Magnolias" as she does not think she has "really bonded with a cast" like she has with this one. She said this cast has taught her a lot about her daily life.

She also related to the play on a deeper level, like any kind of girl "from a small southern town," as her character's relationship with M'Lynn, Shelby's mother, reminded Baker of her own relationship with her mother.

As the official opening show at The Playhouse, Butler said the goal of "Steel Magnolias" was to "bring our community in" from all over to enjoy performing arts just up the road from "the most amazing beaches in the country."