The drive to Tybee has a way of loosening your shoulders.
Somewhere after the marsh opens up and, the city noise fades. You start thinking differently. Shoes feel optional. Time slows down. By the time you turn onto Van Horne Avenue, you are already in a different headspace.
That is part of the point.
For Evan Goetz, that feeling is not a weekend novelty. It is the daily commute.
“I don’t mind driving the twenty five minutes to work,” he says. “It’s the most beautiful drive, in my opinion. That’s why I love going to work every day.”
Goetz is the executive director of the Tybee Post Theater, a building that once sat dark and forgotten for more than half a century, and now hums with music, film, and community again. His path to that seat was not direct. It rarely is.
“I moved here originally for SCAD in 2011,” he says. “I thought I wanted to be an actor. I did some professional work, but I realized pretty quickly that it’s hard to affect real change just as an actor on stage.”
Instead, he drifted toward arts administration, the behind the scenes work that keeps creative spaces alive.
“You can really affect change that way,” he says. “That’s what pulled me in.”
After graduate school, Goetz worked across Savannah’s arts ecosystem. Children’s theater. Teaching at Armstrong. Managing auditoriums. Marketing for music and theater departments.
Eventually, he left town, moving with his husband to Rock Hill, South Carolina, where he worked for a massive performing arts center tied to Broadway touring shows.
“I hated it,” he says, without hesitation. “The corporate world didn’t feel like I was affecting change.”
He left that job for city government, running arts programming and downtown events in Rock Hill.
“I loved it,” he says. “Outdoor festivals. Food truck events. Arts projects. It felt real.”
Then COVID hit. Government structures shifted. Roles changed. “They moved me to another department,” he says. “I didn’t sign up for that.” So they moved back to Savannah. Justin, his husband, took a job downtown with a church.
Evan landed at the Tybee Post Theater in 2021, at a moment when the future of live performance still felt uncertain.
“When I started, we were still only showing movies at thirty five percent capacity,” he says. “I remember my first board meeting. They said, ‘We want to open back up to full capacity.’ And I said, ‘Wait a second. Let’s make sure people are ready.’”
They listened. They polled audiences. They reopened carefully.
“It worked,” he says. “We opened in May with a Tom Petty tribute, and it was very successful.”
That moment marked a turning point. “When I started, our budget was fairly low,” Goetz says. “But in five years, we’ve doubled it. We’re nearing a million dollars a year now. I don’t mind saying that on the record. That’s a testament to the success.”
They added staff. Expanded programming. Grew the reach.
At its core, the Tybee Post Theater is a presenting organization. It brings artists in. Hosts films. Curates experiences. But Goetz is clear about the philosophy behind it.
“It doesn’t matter what you believe politically, religiously, any of that,” he says. “When you walk through our doors, you’re there for the same reason. A shared experience. To watch something great on our stage or screen.” That word comes up again and again. Shared.
“That’s what we strive for,” he says. “It’s not just a show. It’s an experience.”
The building itself knows something about patience. Built around 1930 as a movie theater for soldiers stationed nearby, it operated for only a few decades before closing in the early 1960s. Then it sat. Roof collapsed. Fires. Decay. Forgotten.
“It was completely dark,” Goetz says. “From about 1962 until 2015. Nothing happening.”
When developers eyed the property for demolition and condos, a small group pushed back.
“They said, ‘We have to save this place,’” he says. “They had a dream of it being a community space.”
That dream took time. Fifteen years of organizing, fundraising, and persistence. “It took effort,” Goetz says. “A lot of drive.”
In 2015, the lights came back on. Today, the theater feels easy. That is deceptive. What you are experiencing is the result of careful stewardship.
Goetz still steps on stage occasionally. A role in The Music Man. A turn in The Odd Couple. This year, he is directing. “It’s nice to be on stage,” he says. “But I realized pretty quickly I’d rather focus on the administrative side.”
When asked what he would tell someone in Savannah who has never made the trip, his answer is immediate.
“Trust me,” he says. “Come out.” Not for a single show. For the whole experience.
“You’re forty five seconds from the beach,” he says. “Watch the sunset. Have dinner. Come to the theater. Maybe you’re in flip flops. Maybe you rent a golf cart.”
Tybee helps by staying itself. “They don’t allow franchises,” Goetz says. “Everything is locally owned. The restaurants, the businesses, the people live there. It feels different.”
“It’s all right there,” he says. “Walking distance. It becomes a full night.” And that, more than anything, is the point.
The Tybee Post Theater is not trying to compete with Savannah. It complements it. A small room. A preserved space. A place where strangers sit next to each other and leave having shared something.
“Support it,” Goetz says. “It’s right here for us to enjoy.”
On Tybee, the lights are back on. The room is warm. The show is about to start. All you have to do is make the drive.
