Family feuds, Florida style: Theater's new play tackles history
- Summer Callahan
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
by Summer Callahan - Council on Culture & Arts
May 9, 2026, 5:04 a.m. ET
Is this what we’re fighting for? This May, Theater with a Mission does more than fight at its new festival, “Time Travel into Florida 1776,” being presented May 29- May 31 at Goodwood Museum.
COCA sat down with Artistic Director Ben Gunter and Assistant Director and Choreographer Idy Codington to get to the heart of the feud.
The fun kind of feud
Some audience members may be surprised to learn that Florida served as a key center of British operations during the American Revolution. Ben Gunter and the rest of Theater with a Mission (TWAM) came to see the entire Revolution as a kind of family feud, supported by several real-life examples of brothers landing on opposite sides of the conflict.
That interpretation pulled them in two different directions. First, toward other famous feuds, such as “Romeo and Juliet,” and the 17th-century Spanish reinterpretation “Castalvines y Monteses.” Second, toward the modern-day game show, “Family Feud.”
"Time Travel into Florida 1776" offers all three elements to explore how family feuds begin and what they cost. Their expansive cast of characters includes a Loyalist who defects to the Miccosukee, Black soldiers acting as double agents, and Irish billionaires who funded the Revolution.
Attendees of the three-day festival, which includes a new play, can participate in TWAM’s first-ever game show or catch lectures led by Cherokee storyteller Wayne Winding Eagle and Pulitzer Prize winner Kathleen DuVal.
Kids and adults can learn hands-on crafts, like making mob caps, tricorn hats, and cockades, or watch the parade, try historically accurate foods (or a food truck favorite), visit the petting zoo, or learn military drills. Historical dance expert Susan de Guardiola will offer dance lessons, such as the Virginia reel and minuets.
“Dancing was an essential element of life during the American Revolution,” said Gunter. “People were adrift. [John] Adams wrote to [his wife] Abigail, is this what we’re fighting for, for society to dissolve? Dance was a way to say, no, we’re building something.”
Drama king
In first grade, at Tallahassee’s Sealey Elementary School, Ben Gunter played his first role: a magician, “Silent E,” who turned “at” into “ate.”
“I loved the cape,” said Gunter. “I loved the hat, I loved the wand. But I really, really loved the magic of the words, what the words could make happen, how communicating with people through words and gestures can make new things happen inside their heads.”
That instinct to interpret and communicate followed Gunter through his career as an actor, working on the dinner theater circuit and in theme parks, gigs that paid well but weren’t always creatively satisfying. The search for meaning brought him
back to Florida State University, where he earned a PhD in Dramaturgy, the scholarly interpretation and staging of plays, with particular emphasis on plays from the Golden Age of Spain (1580 – 1680).
A short history of Theater With a Mission
TWAM began in 2008, when the financial crisis left many Tallahassee actors suddenly out of work. A new opportunity emerged at Mission San Luis, which had no funds to hire performers but offered historically accurate reconstructed spaces (a council house, fort, and church) depicting life in Florida from 1656 to 1703.
But reconstructions, as accurate and accessible as they are, only tell half the story. For example, why did the Spanish inhabitants burn their own fort in 1704 rather than give it over to the invading English forces?
To tell the other half, Gunter and his team staged “The Siege of Numancia” (“El cerco de Numancia”), a Spanish tragedy written around 1582.
In the play, Roman forces attack a city, leaving only a child, Bariatus. When the Roman general demands the child’s surrender, Bariatus leaps from a tower, denying the invaders their triumph. The spirit of Fame (here crowned with an Apalachee Spanish headdress) praises Spanish courage.
“We had a phenomenal 7-year-old actor,” said Gunter. “When he threw himself towards the staircase, we had a bunch of rocks fall down the stairs, so you heard the body hit. It gripped people’s attention. It made people understand history in a moment. It was experiential knowledge, visceral knowledge, something you grasped emotionally and intellectually. It was able to tell people a lot about Florida all at one time.”
Dancing with a Mission
Idy Codington, who would become TWAM’s assistant director and choreographer, was born in New York City and raised in Massachusetts. A trained dancer, Codington performed with the Joffrey Ballet and the Ohio Ballet until an injury closed that chapter.
Afterward, historic dance caught her eye. With an ex-husband, Codington created a show called “The Roots of American Dance,” which examined African and European influences on American dance traditions. Codington moved to Tallahassee to continue her education, including earning a master’s degree in American dance studies from Florida State University.
But she didn’t encounter TWAM until the 2010s, at a production called “Wet Christmas,” based on a Spanish play from 1492, updated for modern audiences.
“It had so much potential,” said Codington. “But it wasn’t historic enough. The jokes were too modern. So I went up and said, you know, this would be really good if … and then I was stuck!”
Armed with Codington’s historically accurate choreography, TWAM quickly became known for their immersive performances that mixed historical scholarship with embodied, audience-friendly spectacle. They performed full-scale productions and one-act farces at Mission San Luis and elsewhere, frequently tied to Florida milestones.
TWAM is drawn to moments of transition, with particular attention paid to the multiple perspectives of Black (both free and enslaved), Hispanic (including Cuban, Venezuelan, Argentinian, and more), and indigenous groups (including Muscogee, Yamasee, and Miccosukee).
But the company relishes the opportunity to put its own spin on things, too. Its 2016 Loco for Love festival, for example, featured William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes (author of Don Quixote, widely regarded as the greatest Spanish writer) as rival wrestlers vying for the title of World Champion Storyteller.
“Everyone understands a smackdown,” said Gunter. “But they’re also wrestling with the way they tell different parts of the story. We’re looking at differences between attitudes toward love, marriage, and family, so we can understand creative tensions in our own culture.”
If you go
What: Time Travel into Florida 1776, presented by Theater with a Mission
When: Friday, May 29 – Sunday, May 31, all day
Where: Goodwood Museum & Gardens; 1600 Miccosukee Road
Cost: Free; attendees are encouraged to register on Eventbrite
Information: theaterwithamission.com
Summer Callahan is the Grants Manager for the Council on Culture & Arts. COCA is the capital area's umbrella agency for arts and culture (tallahasseearts.org).
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