Over his decade-long tenure at the helm of The Naples Players, Bryce Alexander has tripled the organization’s annual budget, quadrupled its assets and doubled the number of its volunteers.
Under his leadership, The Naples Players also completed the award-winning $22 million redevelopment of its downtown Naples campus, creating Florida's first LEED-certified theater and one of the nation's most comprehensive sensory-friendly performing arts environments.
And the 70,000 patrons who attend its performances spend an estimated $3 million each year at hotels, restaurants, stores and boutiques that line Fifth Avenue South, making The Naples Players an important economic driver in the local economy.
MORE INFORMATION:
Chief Executive Officer and Executive Artistic Director Bryce Alexander joined The Naples Players in October 2016.
Alexander has helped lead one of the most transformative decades in the organization's nearly 75-year history, guiding significant growth in artistic excellence, financial sustainability, education, accessibility, volunteer engagement, philanthropy, and community impact.
When Alexander arrived, The Naples Players operated with an annual budget of approximately $2.8 million, institutional assets of roughly $10 million, and 467 volunteers contributing 59,533 hours of service each season. Today, the organization operates with an annual budget exceeding $8 million, more than $40 million in assets, and more than 850 volunteers contributing over 87,000 hours annually while serving more than 70,000 audience members and program participants each year.
Under Alexander’s leadership, TNP has also:
- Increased its endowment by more than $12 million, strengthening its long-term financial sustainability;
- Increased volunteer hours from 59,533 hours annually to more than 87,000 hours each year;
- Expanded arts education, outreach, and accessibility initiatives to serve more than 10,000 students and community members annually;
- Established partnerships with more than 45 nonprofit, healthcare, education, and civic organizations throughout Southwest Florida;
- Opened the Baker Day School, Southwest Florida's only performing arts middle and high school; and
- Grown to employ more than 75 team members while continuing to expand artistic programming, educational opportunities, and community services.
Today, The Naples Players is recognized as one of the nation's leading community theatres, demonstrating how the performing arts can serve as a catalyst for education, accessibility, volunteerism, civic engagement, and community well-being.
"Looking back, what makes me most proud isn't a building, a campaign, or even a production," Alexander said. "It's the people. I've watched children discover confidence through theatre, volunteers find lifelong friendships and purpose, artists grow into their careers, and community partners use the arts to improve lives. Those are the moments that matter."
He continued, "Every accomplishment over the past decade belongs to an extraordinary community. Our board members, volunteers, staff, artists, educators, donors, patrons, and partners believed that The Naples Players could become more than a great theatre. Together, we've built an organization that enriches lives every day, and it has been the privilege of my career to help lead that journey. I can't even begin to express what the people in this community have meant to me and my family."
Robin Bache Gray, chair of The Naples Players' Board of Directors, said Alexander's leadership has helped redefine what a theatre can accomplish.
"Bryce challenged all of us to think beyond the stage," Gray said. "His vision has helped transform The Naples Players into an organization that creates exceptional theatre while strengthening education, supporting health and wellness, inspiring volunteerism, and serving as one of Southwest Florida's most important cultural institutions. The impact of that vision will benefit our community for generations."
During Alexander's tenure, both he and The Naples Players have received numerous local, regional, and national honors recognizing leadership, innovation, artistic excellence, accessibility, architecture, volunteer engagement, philanthropy, and community impact.
Alexander credits those recognitions to the collective efforts of the thousands of volunteers, artists, staff members, donors, and community partners who have helped shape the organization over the past decade.
Alexander believes the organization's greatest opportunities still lie ahead.
"The next decade isn't about becoming bigger,” he said. “It's about becoming even more meaningful. We want every child to have access to arts education, every resident to feel welcome in our theatre, every volunteer to know they're making a difference, and every community partner to see the arts as an essential tool for building a stronger Southwest Florida. That's the future we're working toward."
While October marks Alexander's official 10-year anniversary, The Naples Players views the milestone as an opportunity to celebrate the people who have made the organization's success possible and to look ahead to its next chapter. Additional anniversary programming and recognition events for volunteers, donors, and community supporters will be announced later this summer.
"Theatres have always measured success by the productions they stage,” Alexander added. “Today, we measure success by the lives we impact. Great, high-quality theatre remains at the heart of everything we do, but our purpose starts on the stage, and extends far beyond the walls of our building. That's the transformation I'm most proud of, and it's the foundation for everything we'll build over the decade ahead. And like the decade before, it will be the people in our community who drive its success. We can't do it without them!"
TNP's estimated financial impact on Naples economy
The organization’s estimated economic impact to proximately located businesses has been calculated using the results of a survey conducted in 2023-24 by the Americans for the Arts.
That survey determined that approximately 76.7 percent of the people attending events at a Collier County arts organization reside locally and that they spend an average of $35 over and above the price of their ticket and on-site concessions at nearby businesses such as restaurants, souvenir shops and boutiques.
The remaining 23.3 percent of the people attending performances come from out of town and spend approximately $60 in off-site spending (with 10 percent of that total staying overnight and spending $200 apiece on average instead of $60).
When you run the numbers, that amounts to $2,857,750 that local businesses ring up in their cash registers as a direct and proximate result of the performances and educational events produced by The Naples Players each year.
And that does not count the money The Naples Players pays directly in wages, for local supplies and in tax revenues.
About The Naples Players
The Naples Players is one of the nation’s leading community theatres and a nationally recognized nonprofit arts organization based in downtown Naples. Operating a year-round, multi-venue campus, TNP serves more than 70,000 people annually through performances, education, accessibility initiatives, and community partnerships. The organization engages more than 850 volunteers each year and has been recognized nationally for its innovative community-centered model, expanded accessibility infrastructure, and commitment to building community through exceptional access to the power of theatre.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
