Black theater looks to build on success

ST. LOUIS -- Ron Himes was studying business administration at Washington University when he auditioned for a play on a dare.

After being cast in a college production of Charles Gordone's 1970 Pulitzer Prize winning "No Place to Be Somebody," Himes and about a dozen other students were inspired to create more opportunities for black performers. They began a theater company with $36, the money they collectively had in their pockets in 1976.

Now in its 28th season, the St. Louis Black Repertory Company has a new executive director, is moving into new offices in June and is trying to double its roughly 2,400 ticket subscribers.

"It's one of the largest and most important black theater companies in America today, and unfortunately a lot of people don't know about it," Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., said.

Kaiser, who started a program to help culturally specific arts organizations thrive, wants to see the Black Rep bring in more individual donors, and acknowledged, "I think it has had some very good artistic leadership and very realistic leadership."

The Black Rep reaches about 150,000 audience members annually with a staff of just 16 and a budget of roughly $1.8 million. Kaiser, for one, thinks the theater's budget should be more than twice that.

"Support has always been steady. It's been steady enough to allow us to exist without prospering," Himes said.

The Black Rep wants to see that change.

Longtime board member Rudy Nickens recently started the new position of executive director to handle day-to-day operations, freeing up Himes to focus on the artistic side. Nickens said that the Black Rep will work to double the number of theater ticket subscribers.

"I'd like to say aggressively we can do it in a year," he said.

The company will keep its main stage, space it rents at the Grandel Theatre, but will move into new offices later this year. For the first time, it will have its scene, costume and prop shops in one place, Nickens said.

Even as the company goes through changes, it remains committed to highlighting black life and culture.

Himes said of the early days, "It was not, 'Hey, there's a barn, let's put on a play,"' he said. The company was interested in material that had a "revolutionary slant." He said they wanted to tell stories, bring about change and empower themselves and their community through the arts. The company focused on giving work to black actors, writers, directors and behind-the-scenes professionals, though it is open to all races.

From its beginning, the company drew from contemporary works, including those done by the famed Negro Ensemble Company in New York City, like Lonnie Elder's "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men" as well as musicals with strong title recognition like "The Wiz."

"Because of the caliber of the work we produced, I think our audience became comfortable with us producing new work," Himes said.

This season, for example, the Black Rep began its main stage season with "Cryin' Shame." The play centers on a store in South Carolina that allows gambling, where characters explore the bonds between them. The work was written by Javon Johnson, who also starred in the St. Louis show. Johnson's mentor is the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson, Himes said.

While the theater has had more than a dozen world premieres of shows, at the moment it's reimagining William Shakespeare's classic "Macbeth," but setting the tale of power and murder in war-ravaged Sudan.

In an upstairs room at a St. Louis church, actors rehearse for the upcoming production. They block scenes with the director, making notes in scripts about where they will be as they speak each line, with the boundaries of the stage taped off on the tiled floor. First they run through a scene where actor David Alan Anderson as Macbeth receives a prophecy from three witches. After a break, a group of actors works with a fight choreographer to practice how to kill off Banquo, played by Himes.

Himes said the hope is that the fresh interpretation will cover new ground. "It will have our touch, our flavor," he said.

Himes continues to be excited by writers whose works move him, the stories that remain to be told.

"The light," he said, "in the faces in the audience."

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On the Net:

St. Louis Black Repertory Company: www.stlouisblackrep.com