Ancient teapots, battered shoes and vibrant seashells fill the 11 rooms of Gainesville’s Theatre of Memory. Each of its thousands of artifacts has a story, and curator Bill Hutchinson knows each one.
Hutchinson, an 80-year-old Gainesville resident, founded the Theatre of Memory in 1994 in High Springs, where it remained until 2004. After nearly two decades without a permanent home, the museum moved to Gainesville in 2022.
Now located at 1705 NW Sixth St., it also serves as a music venue for local artists, including Hutchinson’s band, Billifer and the Fearless Pals.
The museum reflects Hutchinson’s lifelong love of storytelling and entertainment — a passion that began when, as a child, he used oatmeal containers as drums and a footstool as a stage.
“I remember one of my earliest memories is my mom saying, ‘Billy, go and stand on that footstool and tell your grandparents that same joke you told us last time,’” he said. “I’m still on that footstool.”
His interest in entertaining followed him to adulthood. During the Vietnam War, Hutchinson worked as an entertainment director for the U.S. military. He later became an entertainment producer for Gainesville’s Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department.
During his time with the city, Hutchinson helped plan events like the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire and Gainesville’s Downtown Festival & Art Show.
His career in entertainment ultimately led to his creation of the Theatre of Memory, Hutchinson’s own collection of artifacts.
Hutchinson said his interest in collecting began as a child when his grandmother moved in with his family after his grandfather died. Living together, Hutchinson found fragments of her life in ordinary objects: jewelry boxes kept in her desk and a snowman made from a powder puff he received as a Christmas gift.
After returning home from the war, Hutchinson turned to collecting to make sense of the world around him, he said. To him, everything has a story.
“Flash forward 50 years, I have three storage units full of stories,” he said.
Each room in the museum celebrates a different part of history and human creativity. The shoe room, filled with clogs, skates and heels, commemorates human bipedalism. Meanwhile, the writing room houses copies of religious texts, stone tablets and quills spanning more than 5,000 years of written history.
The idea for the collection stemmed from the 16th-century European tradition of cabinets of curiosities, or “wonder rooms,” collections of unusual objects meant to inspire conversation, he said.
One artifact stands out among his collection.
In a wooden display case adorned with Beatles memorabilia sits Hutchinson’s favorite item: a pair of glasses he said belonged to John Lennon. He received the glasses as a gift from a friend who worked as an autograph dealer in New York City, he said.
“They’re my favorite band,” he said. “They taught me more about love than the Congregationalist church I grew up in.”
Hutchinson’s love of music and creativity extends beyond the walls of his collection. He met his wife, Jennifer Johnson, when the two performed together in a Gainesville band in 1992. Hutchinson was a drummer, and Johnson sang. Years later, Hutchinson asked her to be in a band of his own, and the pair married in 2000.
“He is my best friend,” Johnson said. “He is inspirational because he’s the most positive, upbeat person I’ve ever known, and he’s like that all the time.”
Johnson has since become involved in the museum, spearheading its transition to a nonprofit and overseeing its finances, she said.
Rather than making a profit off visits, the museum primarily serves as a spot to educate and entertain guests, Hutchinson said.
When the museum became a nonprofit, Russel Etling joined its board as vice president.
Before he retired, the 71-year-old arts and culture consultant worked with Hutchinson for over a decade in Gainesville’s Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department, he said. During that time, Etling served as the department’s cultural affairs manager, overseeing the Thomas Center, a historic art gallery.
Hutchinson’s collection has been featured at the center three times, Etling said. The pair collaborated on one of the exhibitions and became “fast friends.”
“He has an encyclopedic memory, and he is a born storyteller,” Etling said. “He makes even the most simple thing come to life.”
He said Hutchinson has spent years creating experiences for Gainesville residents and visitors through the museum and his work with the city.
“He has an enormous curiosity about life and the world we live in,” he said. “.. he became a wealth of knowledge for me to learn from.”
Stories remain central to Hutchinson’s life. Each time someone visits the museum, he learns more about his own collection, Hutchinson said. Visitors all respond differently to the rooms and pieces in the collection, he said, and some share their own stories with him.
Decades later, Hutchinson still sees himself on that same footstool as he collects artifacts and guides visitors through his museum.
“I just feel like I’m the luckiest person I know,” he said. “I get to be surrounded by beauty, wonderful people who come in and a meaningful community of music and story.”
Contact Olivia Lofaso at olofaso@alligator.org. Follow her on X @OLofaso77652.
Olivia Lofaso is a senior journalism student at UF and the Fall 2026 City and County Commission reporter, a role she previously held during the summer. She enjoys gushing about her cocker spaniels to anyone who will listen and playing the cello in her free time.
