Regular Theatre Guild Valdosta audiences are accustomed to seeing the stage of The Dosta Playhouse transform from show to show. The stage has been the dazzle of Oz and the downhome of Oklahoma, it has been made into the madcap slam-bam doors of farce as well as the solemn entrances and exits of drama.

This season, however, audiences should be greeted by a new look in the lobby; welcomed by new plumbing and fixtures in the second-floor restrooms; and find a new, more spacious seating area at The Dosta Playhouse.

“It was time to do stuff for the audience,” says Clay Lee, the Guild’s play-reading chairman who has had starring roles in the Guild comedies “Rumors” and “The Nerd,” of the renovations underway throughout the summer at The Dosta Playhouse.

To accommodate the renovations, Theatre Guild Valdosta opted to not have its traditional, season-opening musical this summer and has pushed back the date of its opening production from the regular mid-August start to early October (see related story in this issue).

Lee led The Scene on a tour of The Dosta, describing what audiences should find come October.

On The Dosta Playhouse’s 122 N. Ashley St. facade, cracked mirrored tiles are being replaced.

The lobby is receiving new carpet and paint. The concession area’s cabinets and refrigerators are being removed. New light fixtures are being installed. These changes should give The Dosta’s lobby a more professional appearance, Lee says.

The auditorium where the audience sits is undergoing the most changes. The ceiling will be painted beige, replacing the current black, which will complement the planned paint scheme of the auditorium’s walls. Additional lighting should enhance this new coloration, making the auditorium seem more spacious. This combination should also give audience members more light during pre-show, intermission and after-show to get to and from their seats.

Not only should the auditorium have an illusion of more space, but the reality of more space for seating. Depth is being added to the risers so more seats can be used while seating each audience member more comfortably. The auditorium will continue using its cushioned folding theatre seats to accommodate their easy removal for the Guild’s regular Thursday night dinner-theatre performances.

New sheet rock has also been placed along the walls, and the auditorium’s floor-coverings are being replaced.

These changes should make for a more comfortable, safer, and more pleasant experience for the Guild’s audiences.

Making these changes are the Guild’s members and volunteers. The same carpentry skills that transform the stage into so many different locations are being utilized to renovate the facade, the lobby and auditorium. Work on the second-floor restrooms represents the only planned contracted work for the project.

This project represents the latest changes in The Dosta Playhouse. Last year, the Guild held fund-raisers to repair its roof and interior damage to its upper-floor rooms caused by heavy rains. Yet, these changes represent the continued work and dedication that Theatre Guild Valdosta has invested into its Downtown Valdosta for 19 seasons. And they are a far cry from the original audience experience of watching a Guild production.

From 1989 through the early 1990s, Theatre Guild Valdosta was a vagabond theatrical troupe. It had no home and performed plays at Moody Air Force Base for a brief period before moving to an empty downtown building. That empty building was an old downtown movie theatre, and it became the Guild’s home, The Dosta Playhouse.

By the early 1990s, Downtown Valdosta was emptying out, like many downtowns of that era, as businesses moved to malls, shopping centers, and other, more suburban locations. In those early days, Guild shows would be the only reason anyone would have to come downtown a few evenings out of a given year. Once there, early Guild audiences sat on wooden benches, in a building with no central heat or air-conditioning, with a fire official present to ensure the audience was safe.

Yet, the Guild continued improving its Dosta Playhouse, even though most of Downtown Valdosta remained empty through the late 1990s into the early part of the 21st century.

Now, Theatre Guild is part of a living Downtown Valdosta with numerous businesses and popular restaurants and shops, each day and evening of the year. The Dosta’s changes should reflect the professionalism of the theatrical organization as well as its place in the renaissance of Downtown Valdosta.