Theatre Workshop started as an off-season lease at Straight Wharf Theatre, where Margaret Fawcett Wilson Barnes and her Fawcett Players had been performing. Dixon put on four shows that first fall and spring: Heaven Can Wait, Dial M for Murder, The White Steed and An Italian Straw Hat. The theater was rented out in the summer, so Theatre Workshop found its spot as an offseason community operation.

“The original Theatre Workshop was a place where everyone gathered,” said Elizabeth Gilbert, who was recruited to the theater in 1957 along with her husband, John, after performing in shows in London. Elizabeth was 22 at the time. “It was very personal. Mac [Dixon] trained people to perform like professionals. Like any theater, some plays were much better than others, but his choices were amazing. He wasn’t always able to cast to his standards, but he got blood out of stones.”

Some of the actors that Dixon cast had performed on the stage, like Gilbert. Others were recruited despite never having acted before or having very limited theatrical experience. Actor John Shea only joined the company after a chance encounter with Dixon when he was off from college in 1968. “He said, ‘Shea? Can you do an Irish accent?’” Shea remembered Dixon asking. “I said, ‘I could fake one.’ He said, ‘That’s the right attitude,’ and he handed me a script. He said, ‘Go backstage, you’re about to make your entrance.’” It was a play called Juno and the Paycock. They happened to be one guy short that night, so Shea filled in.

While Dixon put on at least three to four shows a year over the first two decades, the theater struggled with a heavy debt. “Theater had never died on Nantucket, but it had become challenging to pay the rent, because it’s a business,” said Shea, who recalled being offered a meager $3,000 annual salary to work for the theater.

The biggest setback came on the night of April 19, 1975, just days after the Theatre Workshop wrapped up its 1974–1975 season. Late that night, a fire ripped through the building, burning it to the ground and threatening to destroy the neighboring Cap’n Tobey’s Restaurant. The Inquirer and Mirror called it the “worst fire in years” on the island.

It also helps that performing arts have a rich history on Nantucket, with half a dozen companies operating from downtown, with the newly opened Nantucket Performing Arts Center, to ’Sconset and its theater, On the Isle. According to Theatre Workshop Executive Director Bethany Oliver, Theatre Workshop stands out in the crowd as the only theater dedicated entirely to producing professional theater on the island.

“We try to provide a variety throughout the season and reach different pockets of Nantucket’s audiences,” Oliver said. “We always want the theater to be full and we want people to come, and of course we can’t always know what is going to resonate and what’s not. But we do our best.

As the crew started to take apart the tropical set for Escape to Margaritaville backstage at Bennett Hall, Cerne reflected on the season. “One of the things I love about a show like Escape to Margaritaville is that suddenly we’ve got Parrot Heads sitting in the front row. They may never have walked through our doors before. They might not have come for Mamma Mia! or Putting It Together, but hopefully now they’ll come back and discover something else. That’s one of the joys of programming a season—you get to welcome new audiences while continuing to challenge the ones who have been with you for years.”