The Augusta Mini Theatre is inching toward a goal, and its executive director is asking for help to reach it.
Founded Oct. 8, 1975, the arts and drama school, 2648 Deans Bridge Rd., is close to completing phase 2 — a theater — of its campus but needs funding to complete it.
“We’ve downsized the building from a 250-seat theater priced at $4-5 million … to a 150-seat theater at $2.5 million,” said Tyrone Butler, the theater’s founder.
The theater already has $1.7 million including some special purpose local-option sales tax money set aside for the project. Funds must be raised in 11 months to receive the SPLOST money, he said.
From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, the mini theater will be the site of a drive-thru fundraiser. If people want to come into the facility, there’s an exhibition on the 1970 Augusta riots available for them to see, he said.
The mini theater started as a variety show at the Wallace Branch Library in 1975.
“I had already been volunteering there,” said Butler. “I went to the director and said, ‘Let’s do a show here, like the ‘Johnny Carson Show.’”
MORE: Tribute to Aretha Franklin planned for Miller Theater
When the director pressed for more information, Butler decided he’d have guests and entertainment, and he believed he could get it together with only two to three weeks of planning.
The director was skeptical, he said, but he pulled it off. And the Augusta Mini Theatre was born.
In 2008, a dream was fulfilled as the Mini Theatre’s 9,333 square-foot building was opened on 11 acres on Deans Bridge Road. It has a black box theater, dance studio, the James Brown Music Wing and a media center/homework lab.
The pandemic took a bite out of the mini theater’s programming. Classes ceased for 2020 and much of 2021. Last school year, arts classes were a mix of virtual and in-person. Theatrical productions were postponed, and in-person fundraisers cancelled.
Butler said things are slowly returning to normal. Fall classes began earlier this week, and he’s got plans to put on a play dedicated to James Brown in winter 2023.
In 47 years, Butler has seen a lot of growth in his school. He’s won awards such as the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1984 and the Greater Augusta Arts Council’s Artist Award in 1993.
He’s written dozens of plays. His “The Johnny Williams Story” received an honorable mention at the Sandhills Writers Conference and was performed as a one-woman show by his wife, Judith Simon Butler. For 10 years, she traveled to youth detention centers to perform the story about a boy who was called “stupid” and tries to get attention from other people by misbehaving.
MORE: Shot in Augusta, ‘Applewood’ is a supernatural thriller
During that decade the show was performed, it touched many lives, Butler said.
“One kid came up to me after a performance and asked, ‘Did you look at my file?’” he said. “He told me that was his story.”
Over the summer, the Augusta Mini Theatre took its performances on the road again to Bettis Academy in Edgefield, S.C.
Butler said the production of his play “All God’s Children Got Guns” was well-received, and he hopes to take the James Brown play there too.
To learn more about the Augusta Mini Theatre, visit https://augustaminitheatre.org
Charmain Z. Brackett is the managing editor of The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com
