‘I am still here’: Stephanie Gularte on her health, and the future of American Stage

Performing arts stages all across America, the Tampa Bay area included, first went dark on Friday, March 13. That was when the coronavirus curtain fell.

It was that same day – Friday the 13^th – that American Stage producing artistic director Stephanie Gularte was diagnosed with a rare, degenerative disease that will eventually, inevitably erode her eyesight into next to nothing.

“I got my genetic test results back the day we closed the theater,” Gularte says. “The universe has a sense of humor, for sure.”

The disease – retinitis pigmentosa – was first detected when Gularte went to visit her optometrist for a new pair of reading glasses in February. She was sent to a retinal specialist the next day.

She’s unsure about the days, weeks and months ahead.

“To be honest, I’m still processing it,” Gularte says. “The biggest thing that I have come to learn is that there’s a very significant range of impact before we think of blindness as being fully, one hundred percent blind.”

Because retinitis pigmentosa is progressive, she expects a period of “low vision” to come first – how long, doctors can only speculate. “I realized that I need to make preparations to be able to be productive, with some limitations.”

It’s not uncommon, she has learned, for people to dismiss “minor” vision issues when something more serious lies just under the surface.

“What I thought was clumsiness, and what I thought was kind of being distracted, bumping into things and knocking things over for the last few years, was actually the fact that my peripheral vision is compromised.

“Night blindness, I’ve struggled with since my 20s. And it’s kind of been a joke – everybody who’s worked with me in the theater knows that ‘Stephanie needs help getting off the stage,’ if I’m ever performing, or when the lights go down. I didn’t realize that it was connected to something much more serious.”

She has agreed to stay on with American Stage through early 2021.

“It’s not that I can’t do my job,” she explains. “I intend to continue to be productive, and find a new way, creating a career that will allow me to continue to stay active as my vision declines. But what my position right now makes it difficult to do is prepare, and plan, and really assess how to be ready for change.

“So it wasn’t a matter of ‘I can’t do it any more,’ it came down to ‘The best thing that I can do, the best gift I can give to myself right now, is stepping back and giving myself the time and opportunity to be very intentional about how I take care of myself, and how I plan for my future.”

Her intention is to work with the company through its leadership transition, and – ultimately – to divide her time between St. Petersburg and her California hometown.

“I want people to know that American Stage is going to be not just fine, but strong,” Gularte says. “I’m not jumping on a jet plane to go take a job in another city. I’m here. And so that transition is going to be managed very carefully, with great consideration for all of the other things the organization is dealing with.

“I am still here and I still want to contribute to the community. And I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like yet. It’s not like this is it for me. I’ve got a lot of energy still, and I’ve got a lot I want to do.

“I need to re-structure, and re-strategize, and my health will be the number one thing I make time and space for.”

Gularte will address the situation on her “Creative Conversations” podcast Monday, Aug. 24 at 6 p.m.