After 30 years of practicing law in New Jersey, Jerry Finn has returned to his first love: theater. Finn, 74, and his wife, Terri, founded the Banyan Theater Company in 2002 to bring to Sarasota "more sophisticated, literary, even challenging" works during off-season summer months. Now the Banyan does 50 performances of three plays in July and August; this is the first year Finn won't appear as an actor, focusing instead on his duties as executive director. "It's become a full-time obsession," he says.

Finn started acting in radio plays at 14. He majored in theater at Emerson College and worked as an actor before going to law school-"just to have training in a second profession," he says. "Of course, it soon became my first profession. I was performing for courtroom audiences, but I always wanted to try to get back into acting."

He's glad he returned. "Well-done theater transports one from everyday life to another place," he says. "And maybe it can even change the way we live."