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Raising the Curtain | The Rep plans new season after closing their doors last year

The Rep is set to raise the curtain on another season, months after prematurely ending a season.

That old saying, “the show must go on,” will carry a new feeling at Arkansas Repertory Theatre.

The venerable downtown theater is ready to return from the financial trouble that forced it to close this spring.

“We’ve been working real hard,” interim general manager Bill Rector said Tuesday, “and it feels real good to be able to put your effort into something and have success at it.”

“The Rep” announced Tuesday that it is prepared to host a 2019 season after financial difficulties forced it to prematurely end the 2017-18 season in April.

“When we announced that we were in trouble and we were gonna have to go dark for a little while, we began to get gifts immediately,” said Ruth Shepherd, the theater’s board chair.

The initial phase of the theater’s Next Act campaign, entitled “Save The Rep,” resulted in pledged donations of $692,000, which will be matched by grants from the John & Robyn Horn Foundation and the Windgate Charitable Foundation.

“We have over 1,300 gifts from over 30 states,” Shepherd said. “So, it wasn’t as hard as fundraising sometimes can be, because people really, really wanted to help us save the Rep.”

The next phase of the campaign has been dubbed, “Rebuild The Rep.” Its highlight will take place November 13 with a party to announce the shows and dates in the 2019 season.

“I think people are going to be thrilled about what we’re going to be able to put on on the stage next year,” Shepherd stated. “I think everybody’s going to be thrilled that we’re open again. And we expect a huge crowd because everyone has been so interested in what’s going on.”

The Rep plans to host five shows; four with its professional cast, and one led by students in its educational programs. Rector said previous seasons featured six productions from the professional cast.

“Before, with the six shows a season, there was just not many openings to actually mount anything else. But spreading it out like we have this next year, there are some slots to put other people in.”

The absence of plays has led other performance groups and organizations to make use of the theater. Ballet Arkansas staged a show there, UAMS held a graduation ceremony for its physicians’ assistants there, and Opera in the Rock is scheduled to hold a performance there in the spring,

“It’s utilizing the space, it’s getting the Rep involved in the community,” Rector said. “It’s good exposure. There have been a lot of people here that have never been in the building before.”

Shepherd said creating more connections with the rest of the Little Rock community was a result of broader thinking about how The Rep could survive.

“It’s very difficult to reimagine what you’re doing,” she mentioned, “but this was an opportunity. So, we began to look at everything we did. We began to question everything we’d done in the past in a way we’d never been able to do before. You know, you kinda get set in your ways, but this was an opportunity for us. And we really have looked hard at the way we do business, the way we operate as a theater.

“For one thing, I think we had become kind of insular, and so, now we know it’s important to be engaged in this community. So that was an opportunity that we hadn’t thought about.”

Rector said the money raised to date, in addition to the sale of the apartment building it owned and used to house its actors, has allowed the theater to pay back nearly all its debt.

“And we anticipate that we will continue to be in good shape through the end of this year,” Shepherd said. “However, we’ve got to hire back staff, because we lost two-thirds of our staff. And so, as we begin to hire back the folks that we need to produce really great theater, then that’s what the next money is gonna pay for. It’s gonna help us to hire people back and to get the 2019 season on the boards.”

The Rep had lost small amounts of money for several years, according to its filed tax documents, but was forced to suspend operations after a substantial decline in donations. While the initial donations are enough to begin planning a new season, Rector said they hope to raise another $1-1.5 million to cover the cost of operations.

Getting annual gifts, Shepherd acknowledged, will be imperative to the sustainability of the theater.

“Only 45 percent of our income comes from ticket sales and concessions and things like that. Fifty-five percent of our income comes from donations, so we still need folks to step up and help us.”

Hiring professional actors and crew has been an integral part of the theater’s history, and Shepherd said that was one of the three central aspects of its rebuilding plan.

“We don’t need another community theater; we’ve got a bunch of great ones,” she said. “And we’ve got a Broadway, touring series that comes through here, but we wanted to be a professional, equity theater.

o, that was number one. We wanted to be affordable, so our ticket prices are going to stay almost, basically the same. And, we wanted to be sustainable, so that’s the big change. And, in fact, that’s what we’ve been working so hard on is building a new budget, building a new season, building a new plan, so that — in fact — we’ll be sustainable as we go forward.”

The excitement of reaching the first financial milestone came just a few days after the death of Cliff Baker, the theater’s founder. A shrine to him has been established outside the theater on Main Street at 6th Avenue, a reminder of what the theater’s leadership is still working toward.

“This is the most important thing we can do to honor his legacy,” Shepherd said, “because he dreamed this theater. And then he built this theater. And so we want to make sure that we can put it on solid ground and go forward with great, great plays here in Little Rock, Arkansas.”

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