The City of Winter Garden owns the Garden Theatre on Plant but has contracted its operation to DNA Event Creative, which was co-founded in 2020 by Dennis Morgan, a former director and performer at Disney, and Alina Williams, a former executive producer for an entertainment and special-events company. | Courtesy Garden Theatre on Plant
An aura of familiarity hangs over Winter Garden’s newly reopened Garden Theatre—now slightly rebranded as The Garden Theatre on Plant—and it isn’t an accident. Let’s start with the choice of Footloose: The Musical to kick off the historic venue’s 2026-27 season.
Few theatrical productions could be more comforting to a Gen-Xer than a stage version of the anthemic 1984 movie megahit about a big-city kid who shakes up a repressive Deep South town by engaging in the forbidden pursuit of … dancing.
The kinetic production—which will mount 15 shows from September 24 to October 11—notched two years on Broadway from 1998 to 2000 and subsequently became one of the most frequently produced musicals in high schools and regional theaters across the United States.
Winter Garden performances of Footloose: The Musical are slated for 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Saturdays, and 2 p.m. on Sundays. You’ll note deeper character development and nine new songs by Tom Snow and Dean Pitchford added to the Kenny Loggins soundtrack—but, at heart, this staging remains the same rock ‘n’ roll romp that you remember from the cineplex.
Scott A. Cook, who’ll direct and produce the production through his nonprofit, TheaterWorks Florida, acknowledges that the show will mark an important comeback for this repurposed circa 1930s movie house—which, because of assorted operational and organizational challenges, hasn’t presented live theater regularly since 2024.
“When we come around the corner, we’d better be raising the roof and bashing heads with the dancing,” says Cook. But he wants audiences to realize that there’s more to Footloose than just high-spirited hoofing.
“People just remember Kevin Bacon and the big dance numbers,” adds Cook, who spent seven years producing and directing shows at the venue under one of its previous management structures. “But there’s a story underneath it that I think is really pertinent. The dancing is a credible metaphor for so many things: healing, freedom, expression. It’s a story of redemption.”
The City of Winter Garden owns the venue but has contracted its operation to a for-profit company, DNA Event Creative (doing business as DNA Productions), which was co-founded in 2020 by Dennis Morgan, a former director and performer at Disney, and Alina Williams, a former executive producer for an entertainment and special-events company.
Apart from family-friendly tribute concerts, animal shows and magic exhibitions, DNA—for whom Alauna Friskics, executive director of The Garden Theatre from 2006 to 2017, now works part-time—has announced a season of full-run musicals and plays that will honor the building’s origins as a movie theater.
“We’re a global company that thrives on diversity and making a place for everyone to participate,” says Morgan. “We’re committed to creating a safe space where our artist family can work, get paid and express their art.”
The Garden Theatre on Plant is located at 160 West Plant Street, Winter Garden. For more information, call or visit the website.
