A local stage veteran and ardent supporter of community theater will be honored Saturday at Players by the Sea in Jacksonville Beach.
Redgie Gutshall died Sept. 15 at 79. He is survived by his wife, Holly Gutshall, his leading lady in life and on stage.
A celebration of life will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at Players by the Sea, 106 Sixth St. N. in Jacksonville Beach. The event will also be livestreamed for those unable to attend in person.
“To imagine a community where Redgie isn't sitting on the front row, with that wide smile and infectious laugh, is hard,” Players by the Sea said in a statement. “Redgie and his wife, Holly, were ardent participants and supporters throughout the community. Appearing alongside each other and separately in hundreds of productions including decades here at Players by the Sea, their love for this theatre community knew no bounds.”
Redgie and Holly Gutshall are revered as royalty in the local theater community and were tireless supporters both on and off stage. When declining health kept him from performing, Gutshall could always be found seated in the front row.
“When he wasn't able to be onstage himself, he showed up for everyone else,” said Lee Hamby, former executive director of Atlantic Beach Experimental Theatre and founder of the Arts Community Collective. “He supported theatres throughout Jacksonville with extraordinary generosity and enthusiasm. He attended productions, encouraged artists, celebrated their successes, and understood how important it is to support the people and organizations working to keep live theatre thriving in our city.
“Theatre needs actors, directors, designers, musicians, technicians and audiences. But it also needs champions. People who believe that the work matters enough to keep showing up, even when the spotlight isn't on them. Redgie was one of those champions.”
Redgie first met Holly at a Players by the Sea production featuring his friend Rick DeSpain, with whom he had performed “Da” for Open Theatre. At the time, both were romantically involved with other people.
The pair were later cast together in the two-person production “Educating Rita.” It was Gutshall’s first show at Players, and he was smitten with his leading lady.
“She was marvelous. I hope I didn’t embarrass myself too much. But, in my case, I was still married, and in hers, she was also otherwise occupied. Time goes on. As always, things change,” Gutshall once recalled of Holly, whom he married in 1989 on the Theatre Jacksonville stage. “Cutting to the important part, we were married... And we’ve happily done many, many other shows together.”
To celebrate the nuptials, the now-famous actor Michael Emerson read a piece with Valerie Anthony, and actor Karl Rogers officiated under a white arch. Local actors joined the couple, and a group of sailors from the USS Forrestal, in dress whites, served as ushers. After the ceremony, the scrim rose and everyone filed onstage for food and celebration.
“And here we are,” Gutshall once said.
Gutshall was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the only child of Garvin and Mary Gutshall, who were unfailingly supportive when he turned to dramatics at North Kansas City High School. After graduating in 1965, he majored in theater at Southwest Missouri State University before joining the U.S. Navy.
He loved the competition and the camaraderie, the discipline and the rowdiness, the sense of mission and the global adventure that Navy life offered. His career spanned 27 years and six continents, including Antarctica. He advanced quickly as an air traffic controller, making chief petty officer by 30 and then becoming an officer. Gutshall retired as a lieutenant commander in 1995.
An early tour of duty took him to Guam in support of the Vietnam War. Toward the end of his career, in Rota, Spain, he helped coordinate allied aircraft bound for the Middle East during the 1991 Gulf War. He completed six-month carrier deployments in the Pacific and the Mediterranean, and he sailed through the Suez Canal, into the fjords of Norway and up the Mississippi River to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
His love of acting continued throughout his Navy career. Nearly every overseas base had a devoted little theater group, and stateside postings offered opportunities in surrounding communities. When the Navy brought him to Jacksonville in 1982, he found a home at Theatre Jacksonville, River City Playhouse, Players by the Sea and the city’s thriving theater community. Over the years, he performed in more than 40 productions in the area.
Community theater was a shared love throughout the couple’s nearly four decades of marriage. They frequently performed together and were front-row fixtures on opening nights. Their married life began in Rota, Spain, and world travel became a cherished part of their life together.
Deteriorating health may have curtailed his acting, but Gutshall never wavered in his support of community theater. The couple were generous patrons of the arts in Jacksonville, regularly sponsoring productions at Players by the Sea and The 5 & Dime, as well as Florida Chamber Music Project concerts.
“Redgie has been a veritable Rock of Gibraltar for Jacksonville’s theatre community for so long that it seemed we would always have him, looming there above the strait to guide us, protect us, inspire us, and occasionally raise a questioning eyebrow when we needed it,” said Jeff Grove, an actor, educator and director and Gutshall’s longtime friend.
Local actor and director Caryl Butterly remembered her friend and former castmate. She first met Gutshall after she moved back to Jacksonville and Ian Mairs asked her to be in a production he had written. It was a dream cast with Gutshall at the center. Although they shared no scenes, he still found ways to make her laugh throughout the production.
“A number of years later, I felt especially lucky to get to direct him in the Tom Stoppard play, ‘Heroes.’ And again, each rehearsal and performance was a chance to hear that wonderful laugh of his. I can’t imagine a world where Redgie Gutshall won’t be delivering another brilliant performance or sitting in the front row at another show,” she said.
Butterly closed with a line delivered by his character in “Heroes”: “There’s no one like him. But most of all, he’s our friend.”
