Built in 1915 as the Sarasota Women's Club, this theater so disrupted artistic director Richard Hopkins with wall-rappings and random stage lights that he hired two priestesses to perform an exorcism.
1241 N Palm Ave, Sarasota, FL 34236
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Performance ticket prices vary by production; children's theater programs available; see website for current season
Access
Wheelchair OK
Renovated historic building with accessible seating
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1915 · Sarasota Woman's Club (1913) — city's earliest civic organization · National Register of Historic Places (1985) · Florida Studio Theatre founding — 1973
The Sarasota Woman's Club organized in April 1913, one of the first civic organizations in a town that would not incorporate as a city until that same year. The club laid the cornerstone for its clubhouse on January 1, 1915, at the corner of Cocoanut Avenue and Palm Avenue — a site that placed it at the center of Sarasota's emerging civic district.
The Mediterranean-influenced clubhouse served as the women's club's home through much of the 20th century, providing meeting space, event programming, and social infrastructure for the growing city. When the club eventually relocated, the building faced an uncertain future. It was donated to Florida Studio Theatre, which had been operating since 1973.
FST was founded by Jon Spelman in 1973 as an alternative professional theater company that performed initially in migrant labor camps and prisons across Florida. The organization moved into the former women's club building in 1977, gaining a 72-seat performing space. When Richard Hopkins became producing artistic director in 1980, he expanded the programming and seating. Under his leadership, FST grew from approximately 100 subscribers to what is now over 38,000, making it the largest subscription theater in Florida.
The Keating Theatre now seats 173 and presents the Main Stage Series, including productions for Children's Theatre. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. FST has since expanded to five stages, including the Gompertz Theatre and the Goldstein Cabaret Theatre, all within the same downtown Sarasota neighborhood.
Sources
The Keating Theatre's paranormal history is documented in a specific, named incident rather than anonymous accounts. Richard Hopkins, who became producing artistic director in 1980 and ran FST for decades, was the person who decided the situation required intervention.
During the 1980s, Hopkins and theater staff were experiencing what he described as disruptive supernatural activity: walls rapping without apparent cause, shafts of stage lighting activating at random during rehearsals, and set pieces found moved from where they had been placed. The disruptions were consistent enough, and annoying enough to production work, that Hopkins arranged for two priestesses to perform an exorcism of the theater.
The exorcism was conducted and the theater was declared spirit-free. The rapping and the light anomalies stopped, or at least stopped being documented. What has continued, in staff accounts collected by Visit Sarasota and Sarasota Magazine, are lower-level events: props found in places they were not left, and cold spots in specific areas of the theater. These accounts are secondhand and consistent with any active theatrical space where dozens of people move through the building daily.
The building's age — over 110 years — and its history as a women's civic club before becoming a theater may account for some of the reported atmosphere. No identity has been attached to any of the reported presences.
The 173-seat Keating Theatre presents Main Stage Series productions and Children's Theatre programs in the 1915 Sarasota Women's Club building, one of the oldest surviving structures in Sarasota. The Keating is one of five stages operated by Florida Studio Theatre, Florida's largest subscription theater. See website for current season.
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Sarasota, FL
Arthur Britton Edwards, Sarasota's first mayor, commissioned architect Roy A. Benjamin to design the A.B. Edwards Theater, which opened April 10, 1926, as a Mediterranean Revival multipurpose entertainment building with shops, offices, and apartments surrounding the main auditorium. The venue hosted Will Rogers, the Ziegfeld Follies, and a February 21, 1956 Elvis Presley concert before declining to a movie house and closing in 1973. The Asolo Opera Guild purchased it in 1979 for $150,000, reopened it as an opera house in 1984, and completed a $20 million renovation in 2008 that restored the original atrium and raised capacity to 1,119 seats.
Arcadia, FL
In August 1905, a fire destroyed much of downtown Arcadia, burning across the block where the opera house now stands. J.J. Heard built the Arcadia Opera House on the cleared site in 1906, and it functioned as a Vaudeville venue before transitioning to film in 1923. The building sat idle for more than 60 years before being restored to active use in 2021 as a community venue, antique shop, and events space. It is recognized as one of the most paranormally active locations in Southwest Florida.
Orlando, FL
Braxton Beacham Sr. demolished the former Orange County Jail in 1919 and built a $200,000 theater at 46 N Orange Ave in 1921. The jail had occupied the site since approximately 1873 and served as Orange County's primary place of execution, where condemned prisoners were hanged publicly. The Beacham received Orlando's historic landmark designation in 1987 and has operated as a concert venue since 2011.