Old Field New Life | Entertainment

Sue Whitney, a founding board member of Valerie Players, said Earhart “seems to have unlimited creativity.” “His work is why we are where we are,” she said.

Erhardt will continue to do some marketing and other tasks for the players, but said he expects the Valerie Players board to appoint a new artistic director on October 19.

Erhardt leads Valerie Players through its first full season in 2021-22, including a serious drama about 9/11, comedy, drama and musical. Not to mention his recent 10-Minute Theatre Festival, which features eight plays from regional writers. He even ran a scriptwriting class to help develop some productions.

But now, he’s taking a scriptwriting class on his own, visiting family and friends and tasks he’s been putting off such as “removing some doors and painting the kitchen,” he said.

He also wants to develop a drama based on “some wonderful handwritten letters from my father,” he said. “There’s a lot of humor and tragedy.”

However, Earhart’s semi-hiatus in theaters is unlikely to last long.

Erhardt estimates that he has appeared on stage as an actor about 500 times since he started producing music at high school in Lakewood, Ohio.

He attended a play at the College of the Holy Cross at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and then spent part of his career at a company that oversaw newsstand distribution of consumer magazines. Erhardt was eventually named assistant director of marketing and trade shows and lives in New Jersey.

After the divorce, Erhardt became a licensed insurance agent in Delaware and then did a card show for Hallmark Cards for a while. He is the chairman of the local Delaware Chamber of Commerce and an insurance group. But in most places where he lives, Erhardt is looking for local theater groups.

While he has no formal training as an actor or director, he said he learned it on the job.

He was part of a 2nd Street player in Milford, Delaware, and a possum corner player in Georgetown, Delaware.

Eventually, Earhart headed south. His daughter Gillian Bentz lives in Inverness. Er-hardt ended up in Fort Myers, where he joined the Florida Lab Theater. When he decided to move to Inverness, he heard of an audition at the Citrus County Arts Centre. Before he fully settled in Inverness, he had already taken on the role of a nosy landlord in the Arts Centre production of Love, Sex and the IRS.

It was after he read a letter from Inverness manager Eric Williams to the Citrus County Chronicle in the summer of 2020 that the Valerie Players team was born.

In his letter, Williams recounted how the Valerie Theater was underutilized. Earhart emailed Williams some ideas, including a troupe that might help fill the seat. Williams asked Earhart if he would meet him. Erhardt did, bringing a PowerPoint presentation.

Before Erhardt had finished a third of the slide show, Williams asked him, “When can you start?” Erhardt said.

Erhardt formed the non-profit Valerie Players Board of Directors with Inverness City Councillors Linda Bega and Whitney, who has been active in local theaters after serving as a choral music teacher, principal and school superintendent in New York State.

Valerie Players took off, only to be grounded because of the pandemic.

By the fall of 2020, Earhart had assembled a cast who performed a live radio show followed by “A Christmas Carol.”

The board will expand in 2021.

By the fall of 2021, the Valerie players are ready for their first full season.

With that season, what did Erhardt learn?

He said he now knows more details about making the show — how to market it online and how to work with licensing companies, contracts and royalties.

He found that most people working in local theaters were not “heroines” and believed “there are no minor roles,” he said.

He also learned that local audiences prefer comedy over heavy drama.

He praised the camaraderie among the local actors, directors and technicians who perform and help each other in each other’s productions.

“This is community theater,” he said. “It’s about people acting and then grabbing a drill and putting up a wall.”

They are also admired by local actors, directors, technicians and related parties.

Inverness councillor Bega, the third founding member of the Valerie Players board, praised Erhardt for “everything went well” and for setting the stage for other groups to perform in theatres.

“He jumped on both feet and was very good at getting the game going and organizing the schedule,” she said.

She said the theater might even bring an orchestra to the theater in the coming year. Erhardt makes it possible to find live performances in theaters most weekends, she said.

“He did a great job,” she said. Although Erhardt may take a step back, “we still need him,” she said.

Harry Lewis, who has been active at the Arts Center and the Valerie Theatre, said Earhart “deserves a lot of credit. Valerie needs someone, and he’s the one who does it.”

“He has to get over the stigma that the Valerie Theatre is not big enough. (The theatre seats 150 people.) He has to start where people say it can’t be done,” Lewis said.

Lewis and Rex Young, who had performed and directed at the Arts Center and Valerie, formed the Lewis and Young Company and planned to produce some theatrical radio shows, among others. Young said their first gig was a Christmas horror ghost story production, which could take place at the Old Courthouse in Inverness in December.

Young says of Erhardt, “He built Valerie Players from the ground up. …Everybody loves Pat. He’s a happy little goblin.” (Erhardt’s ethnic heritage is mostly Irish, with a little bit of German.)

Yang continued. “He (Erhardt) picks up the phone and calls someone and asks, ‘Would you do this? I need your help.’ The person will think, ‘Sure, it’s fine for Pat,'” Young said. “Pat is charming.”

Charles Niski of Under Siege Productions, one of the five groups in charge of performing at the Valerie Theatre, said he met Erhardt at the Arts Center and he was someone “I learned something from.” Every time I work with him, I learn something. He has so much experience. “

Niski said Valerie Players set high standards for performance quality, and he considers Erhardt “my theater dad. We had a formal adoption ceremony. I’m his theater son.”

Erhardt was full of praise for his fellow actors, but also admitted that people in theatre are “a little bit crazy. Everything we do is for the love of theatre,” he said.

For Erhardt, going to the theatre was “a gift,” he said. “I have gifts. . . . It’s the joy of being able to use your gifts.