By STEVEN WASCHKA

SANFORD, FL —

After nearly 15 years of volunteering, raising a theater family and working behind the scenes, Patricia Johnson is bringing a longtime love of the Ritz into the theater’s front office. For many people, starting a new job means walking through the doors of an unfamiliar workplace for the first time. For Patty, stepping into her new role at the Ritz Theater feels a little more like coming home. She has been part of the Ritz community for nearly 15 years, volunteering in productions, helping backstage, working with props and lighting, supporting young performers and occasionally finding herself pulled into a production herself.

Now, after years of seeing the theater from just about every angle, she is taking on something new: becoming one of the people welcoming patrons from the other side of the front desk. “I had volunteered long enough, and it was time for me to become professional,” she jokes. But behind the humor is a connection to the Ritz—and to Sanford—that runs deep.

Her oldest daughter, now 20, first became involved with the Ritz at about five years old. Like many theater parents, Patty initially found herself volunteering because that was where her child was. Then she stayed. “I really enjoy working with the Rep department,” she says, pointing especially to the Junior Repertory program as the place she found herself most at home. Over the years, she continued volunteering with youth productions before another theater parent eventually encouraged her to get more directly involved with the adult productions as well.

That opened another side of the Ritz. Lighting. Props. Backstage work. Productions including The Addams Family. Before long, Patty had experienced much more than simply watching a performance from the audience. “I’ve just kind of pushed in a little bit here and there in everything because it’s interesting,” she says. And, after a decade and a half around theater people, she has also learned one of the great secrets of the performing arts. It is especially enjoyable, she laughs, “when you can avoid the drama.” No pun intended.

There is another reason the timing of her new role feels right. As her children have grown older, the years of arranging life around their activities have begun giving way to a new question: What does she want to do for herself? My kids reached a certain age where I felt like it was time for me to find my own thing to do,” she says. The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, was already waiting a few minutes from home. She loves crafting. She loves music. She enjoys the creativity and variety that surround theater. A position in the front office gives her an opportunity to remain connected to all of those things while becoming more involved in what makes the organization work every day. The transition is less a departure from volunteering than the next evolution of a relationship that has grown alongside her family.

Sanford Is Home and that relationship extends beyond the theater itself. Patty has lived in Sanford since she was about nine years old. She moved away for a period, but when it came time to raise her own children, her family returned. “I’m really embedded in Sanford,” she says. Today, she lives only about five minutes from the Ritz. Patty isn't simply joining an organization in Sanford. She is taking a larger role in an institution within the community where she grew up, raised her family and has already invested years of her time. “I can commit to this,” she says. And she wants that commitment to make a difference.

After years behind the scenes, Patty is particularly interested in discovering another side of theater—the business and organizational work that audiences rarely see. A volunteer backstage may know how the props appeared at exactly the right moment or why a particular lighting cue worked. But there is an entirely different collection of decisions happening before an audience ever takes its seat. Why does an advertisement appear where it does? How was something promoted? Why does a pre-show video look a particular way? How do the many pieces of a production, program or organization come together? “When you’re working backstage, or something like that, you don’t understand all of it,” she says. Being in the office changes that. It gives her an opportunity not simply to see what the Ritz does, but to better understand why things happen and to contribute ideas of her own. “I’d like to help it be more successful,” she says. And, after nearly 15 years, that may be the most natural progression imaginable.

The parent who first arrived because her daughter was performing became a volunteer. The volunteer became part of the productions. The person backstage became curious about everything happening beyond it. And now she is taking a seat at the front desk. For Ritz patrons, that means the person greeting them isn't really new to the theater at all. She has already spent years helping make the magic happen.