100 Years on Pineapple Avenue

A hundred years is a long time for any building. It's an especially long time in Florida, where things tend to get torn down, blown over, or turned into a Walgreens. But the Sarasota Opera House has survived all of it — and the story of how it got here is one of the best in town.

It started with A.B. Edwards, Sarasota's first mayor and a real estate man born here in 1874 (back when "here" was barely a dot on the map). Edwards had a vision for a proper theater, and in 1926 he made it real: a Mediterranean Revival showpiece designed by architect Roy A. Benjamin, with a three-story entrance and enough seats to make Sarasota feel like a real city.

The Edwards Theatre opened on April 10, 1926, and for decades it was the cultural center of town — hosting vaudeville, movies, and live performances. Like a lot of grand old buildings, it went through some rough years. By the late 1970s, it could have easily become a parking lot.

Instead, in 1979, the Sarasota Opera purchased the building. Renovations began in 1982, and the theater reopened in 1984 as the Sarasota Opera House. A major renovation in 2007-2008 gutted the interior to build a proper orchestra pit and improve sightlines. Today, the William E. Schmidt Opera Theatre seats 1,119 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

This season's Winter Festival runs through March 29, with performances of Puccini and the NEA-supported production of "Susannah." If you've driven past a thousand times and never gone in — or if you haven't been in years — this is a good excuse. The building has earned it.

Sarasota Opera — Winter Festival