Kansas City Repertory Theatre is a professional resident theater company serving the
Kansas City metropolitan area, and is the professional theater in residence at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC).
The theatre has had four artistic directors: founder Dr.
Patricia McIlrath guided the theater from 1964 until she retired in 1985; George Keathley was artistic director from 1985–2000; producing artistic director Peter Altman, who retired in July 2007; and the current artistic director Eric Rosen.
The Rep under Dr. Patricia McIlrath (1964-1985)
Appointed chairman of the
University of Kansas City (now
UMKC) Theatre Department and director of the University Playhouse in 1954, Patricia McIlrath created a program to provide undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to work in a professional theatre, alongside professional actors. Coinciding with the rise of
Regional theater in the United States A regional theater or resident theater in the United States is a professional or semi-professional theater company that produces its own seasons. The term ''regional theater'' most often refers to a professional theater outside New York City. A reg ...
, she formed the UMKC Summer Repertory Theatre in 1964.
That same founding year, 1964, James Costin was appointed the Summer Rep‘s administrative director, creating a partnership that would continue for twenty years.
Professional actors, community players, and members of the UMKC Theatre Department, operating on a shoestring budget, worked together that first season to present the Summer Rep's two-week fledgling season. Fifteen hundred patrons attended performances of ''
The Corn is Green
''The Corn Is Green'' is a 1938 semi-autobiographical play by Welsh dramatist and actor Emlyn Williams. The play premiered in London at the Duchess Theatre in September 1938; with Sybil Thorndike as Miss Moffat and Williams himself portraying Mo ...
'' by
Emlyn Williams
George Emlyn Williams, CBE (26 November 1905 – 25 September 1987) was a Welsh writer, dramatist and actor.
Early life
Williams was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family at 1 Jones Terrace, Pen-y-ffordd, Ffynnongroyw, Flints ...
and ''
Private Lives
''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetu ...
'' by
Noël Coward, both performing out of a
quonset hut
A Quonset hut is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel having a semi cylindrical cross-section. The design was developed in the United States, based on the Nissen hut introduced by the British during World War ...
on the UMKC campus.
In 1967, the Rep became affiliated with
Actors’ Equity Association, the national union of professional actors. In 1968, Dr. McIlrath launched a touring program called "Missouri Repertory Theatre," and began recruiting nationally acclaimed artists to work in this program.
In 1979, the company moved into the Helen F. Spencer Theatre in the newly constructed UMKC James Olson Center for the Performing Arts. It was named for Helen Elizabeth Foresman Spencer (1902–1982) who along with her husband Kenneth Aldred Spencer (died 1960) built the Spencer Chemical Company which was ultimately sold to the
Gulf Oil Company
Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger ...
in 1963. The assets of both Spencers would go into the
Kenneth A. and Helen F. Spencer Foundation which provided philanthropies throughout the Kansas City area.
That same year marked the not-for-profit incorporation of Missouri Repertory Theatre, under the name MRT, Inc. (later changed to Missouri Repertory Theatre, Inc.), formalizing the long-standing partnership between the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Kansas City's civic leaders through the creation of a volunteer board of directors.
UMKC provided critical sustaining support in the early years of this new not-for-profit corporation, and it continues to support the Rep in a number of ways:
* through direct cash support on an annual basis,
* by allowing the Rep in-kind use of UMKC's spaces for its administrative offices, the technical facilities needed to create scenery, costumes, lighting, and sound,
* the use of Helen F. Spencer Theatre
The Rep, directed by its board, has now operated independently of
UMKC Theatre
UMKC Theatre is a graduate and undergraduate academic department of the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) that provides both educational and professional training in multiple areas of theatrical production, including acting, scenic design, ...
, continues to benefit of maintaining its close relationship with the university and its theatre training programs.
Dr. McIlrath retired in 1985.
The Rep under George Keathley (1985-2000)
An extensive search for Dr. McIlrath's successor led to the appointment of George Keathley as the new artistic director. With thirty-five years of experience in acting, directing, and producing, Keathley built on the traditions of the company while introducing new dimensions and programming to the theatre. He introduced Rep audiences to such contemporary writers as
Athol Fugard,
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and '' Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first gained cri ...
and
Peter Shaffer
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer (; 15 May 1926 – 6 June 2016) was an English playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He wrote numerous award-winning plays, of which several were adapted into films.
Early life
Shaffer was born to a Jewish family in L ...
, and continued the classic tradition with
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
,
Sophocles
Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or c ...
and
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and worl ...
. At his retirement in 2000, Keathley had personally directed 49 productions. Costin, who died in 2005, also retired in 2000, after completing thirty-six years at the administrative helm of the organization.
It was under the leadership of Costin and Keathley that the theater experienced explosive growth in both its artistic and administrative operations. Keathley created productions that achieved critical acclaim and attracted artists and audiences.
Costin, at the same time, built on the partnership he had created between UMKC and the Rep decades before. His ability to attract and retain creative managers supported Keathley's work on the stage.
Upon their retirements, at the celebration welcoming their successor Peter Altman, Keathley and Costin each offered a gift symbolizing the passing of their legacies to him. For Keathley the gift was a glass elephant from the original production of ''The Glass Menagerie'' given to him by Tennessee Williams many years before. Keathley's gift symbolized the artistic history on which Altman could build.
Costin's gift to Altman was an audience base of 100,000 and cash reserves and endowment funds of more than $10 million, making the Rep one of the nation's most financially stable institutions. Costin's gift provided Altman with resources to build on the artistic legacies of his predecessors.
The Rep under Peter Altman (2000-2007)
A new era for the company began with Peter Altman assuming leadership in 2000 as producing artistic director. Altman came to the Rep after eighteen years as founding producing director of the
Huntington Theatre Company
The Huntington Theatre Company is a professional theatre located in Boston, Massachusetts and the recipient of the 2013 Regional Theatre Tony Award, under the direction of Managing Director Michael Maso. It is notable for its longstanding artist ...
in Boston. Under his direction and that of the theater's board of directors, led by William C. Nelson, Kansas City Rep was committed to building on its four-decade tradition, expanding its audience, upgrading and diversifying its range of artists, and extending its repertoire to include new work and large-scale classics.
[ The board of directors voted in 2004 to rename the company Kansas City Repertory Theatre to reflect better its identity, location, and audience.][https://playbill.com/article/missouri-rep-changes-name-to-kansas-city-rep-announces-world-premiere-jazz-play-for-2004-05-com-119922] That same year a major refurbishment of Spencer Theatre was completed.[Kansas City Repertory Theatre: About Us: History]
(re-printed with permission)
The Rep under Eric Rosen (2007-2012)
Kansas City Repertory Theatre appointed Eric Rosen as its new Artistic Director in 2007.
November 6, 2007Clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
'', August Wilson's final play in his ten-play cycle ''Radio Golf'', Mary Zimmerman's epic ''Arabian Nights'', a new musical based on Sherwood Anderson's novel ''Winesburg, Ohio'', a new thriller ''The Borderland'', Tennessee Williams classic ''The Glass Menagerie'' and the French farce ''A Flea in Her Ear''.
Two stages, one Rep.
In February 2007, the Rep opened a second venue, Copaken Stage, a 317-seat downtown theater located in the heart of the new Power and Light entertainment district.
References
Kansas City Repertory Theatre (re-printed with permission)
External links
Kansas City Repertory Theatre official site
{{authority control
Theatre companies in Missouri
Theatres in Kansas City, Missouri