Black theater looks to build on success

? 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,” said Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

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.

Rudy Nickens, a longtime board member of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company, sits inside the Grandel Theatre, the company's home in St. Louis. Nickens created a new job of executive director to handle the day-to-day operations of the company, including filling the seats with 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.