With a New Boss on the Books, Off Central Bets on a $5 Pollock
by Avery Anderson
What do you do when the founder of your theater company leaves? If you’re Off Central—a 43-seat black box wedged into St. Pete’s Warehouse Arts District—you don’t panic. You double down on risk.
This spring, founder Ward Smith stepped aside to pursue other projects. Into the vacuum stepped Alan Mohney Jr., who’d already acted, directed, and built sets at the theater. Suddenly, he was managing director, inheriting a company with the same bills as everyone else—insurance, payroll, rent—but with fewer seats than your average Starbucks.
“The theater decided they were going to go in a slightly different direction with how they produced theater and the type of things they wanted to do,” Mohney said. “I was approached to see if I was interested in helping to carry on the tradition and sort of pave the way for where the Off Central goes from here. And I absolutely said yes.”
Lucky for him, he’s not steering alone. Roxanne Fay—actor, director, playwright, and one of Tampa Bay’s most formidable artistic voices—is the lead artistic associate. Together, they’re guiding programming in a space where intimacy isn’t a marketing buzzword, it’s physics: in a 43-seat black box, the actors can practically borrow a sip from your drink.
“It takes a special kind of person to work in a 43-seat black box all year,” Mohney said. “Your audience becomes part of the story—kind of without asking for it.”
Bakersfield Mist: A $5 Gamble
That’s why their season opener, Bakersfield Mist (Sept. 4–14), feels like more than just a play. It’s a thesis statement. The comedy, based on a true story, follows a woman who buys a painting at a thrift store for $5 and insists it’s a lost Jackson Pollock. An appraiser from New York swoops in to settle the question: masterpiece or junk?
It’s laugh-out-loud funny, but also a mirror for Off Central itself: small, scrappy, and forcing big questions about what’s real, what’s valuable, and who gets to decide.
Swimming Against the Comfort Food Current
Most theaters post-COVID have leaned into escapism. Call it mac-and-cheese theater: familiar, warm, easy to swallow. Mohney gets it—but he’s not interested.
“There’s got to be a middle ground,” he said. “Protest plays aren’t for everybody. Comfort food’s not for everybody either. We think there’s an opportunity to keep challenging an audience in a respectful and intellectual way.”
Translation: you won’t find jukebox musicals or feel-good nostalgia here. You’ll find plays like White, James Ijames’ satire about a white artist hiring a Black actress to front his work, and Yasmina Reza’s Art, reimagined with an all-female cast. This isn’t comfort food. It’s more like ordering the weirdest thing on the menu and realizing it’s exactly what you needed.
Small Theater, Big Swing
Running a 43-seat theater is basically like opening a restaurant where you can only serve three tables a night. The overhead doesn’t shrink just because the chairs do.
“Yeah, we don’t have 200 seats,” Mohney said. “But we still got overhead, insurance, payroll. It’s the same challenges. We just have to fill fewer seats.”
That pressure forces Off Central to do something radical in 2025: keep tickets affordable. Regular seats are $35, student and industry tickets go as low as $15. In an era when prices keep climbing, Off Central is betting access will matter more than comfort food.
Beyond the Pollock
The spring season pivots to stories of friendship—Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries, Michael Healey’s The Drawer Boy, and David Lindsay-Abaire’s Ripcord. There’s also a Pride project and a brand-new incubator series called Think Inside the Box, designed to give local artists space to workshop new plays. First up is Janice Creneti’s autobiographical piece about leaving the public school system and reclaiming her identity.
“We’re trying to produce things and tell stories that deserve to be told, not just things we think our audience would like,” Mohney said.
Why It Matters Now
In a cultural moment where many stages are serving reheated leftovers, Off Central is gambling on risk—on stories that poke, prod, and occasionally sting.
If Bakersfield Mist asks whether a thrift-store Pollock is priceless or worthless, Off Central is asking the same of itself. Can a 43-seat theater be essential in a city of giant stages?
The only way to know is to sit down, lean in, and see if the paint splatters.
Season at a Glance
Fall 2025 – Visual Arts on Stage
- Bakersfield Mist by Stephen Sachs | Sept. 4–14
- White by James Ijames | Oct. 9- 19
- Art by Yasmina Reza | Nov. 13-23
Spring 2026 – Friendship & Connection
- Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph | Jan. 8–18, 2026
- The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey | March 5-15, 2026
- Ripcord by David Lindsay-Abaire | April 9-19, 2026
Special Projects
- Matthew Lombardo's Who's Holiday | Dec. 11-25, 2025
- Pride Production | Summer 2026 (title TBA)
- Think Inside the Box Incubator: Janice Creneti’s new work | April 2026