rep archive


Partial archive: a decade of Charlotte Rep as resident professional theatre company (LORT) at Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
The Rep performed in multiple spaces "as available" in early years. When the company was founded (as Actors Contemporary Ensemble in 1976) Charlotte was a city of 300,000, with no resident professional Actors' Equity theatre and no independent performing spaces. ACE became resident company when the renovated Spirit Square Arts Center opened in 1980. In 1992 the opening of the two-theatre $62 million Blumenthal Performing Arts, in the new Bank of America headquarters, helped mark Charlotte's place as a growing New South city. Since no professional arts group had its own space, some companies including the Rep became tenants in the PAC as the city grew to become the country's 17th largest, and second largest banking center behind New York. Here are a few of the mile markers during the first decade of the Rep's residency as the resident professional theatre at the Blumenthal (1992-2002).


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SECOND STAGE
As the audience grew larger (and more disparate), a mainstage series was created, and a Second Stage series was developed for the less traditional fare for which the company was first formed. Founded by a group of actors as a home for artists and audiences, The Rep cultivated an open collective of recurring actors* from anual casting in Charlotte, New York and Atlanta, with a goal of maintaining an ensemble foundation in new, nationally recognized plays and original work chosen for content encouraging broader perspective on contemporary life.

 


CLASSICS AND COLLABORATIONS
Growth and new facilities eventually allowed the Rep and its actors to explore the classics. For example, with the Charlotte Symphony the Rep co-produced a three year collaboration on Shakespeare's plays A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, combining the work of 100 performers from three companies on stage in the center's 2,000 seat Belk Theatre. Fully staged productions using complete texts and scores, the project helped develop the Rep's third production series. Dream, the first collaboration, broke the Belk's box office record. The project was directed by Rep Founder & Artistic Director Steve Umberger and produced by Keith Martin. It was an example of Umberger's broad range of work in his 25 years at the Rep and of Martin's many collaborative efforts in his 12 years as Rep Managing Director. (This team's work also included completely retiring a $200,000 deficit from an earlier era.)

"The sumptuous production is a fantastic amalgam of light, dance, and live symphony music. From atop a cunning yet minimal set, a majestic Prospero commands an uncanny 12 person Ariel, whose delightful choreography makes the spirit seem literally everywhere at once."   Backstage




ANGELS IN AMERICA
Regarded as among the most significant plays of the decade, these two works were the Rep's best selling productions ever, and playwright Tony Kushner joined the Rep for the opening weekend in 1996, three years after their original Broadway premiere. An internationally watched local debate about the plays' themes created a watershed event for the arts, and the CRT production became its own widely reported landmark for the city and the company's growth. One of Angels' first post-Broadway productions, the plays were produced separately, then together in rep, then were extended by demand. The Rep's long-term sales increased 20% due largely to Angels, which became a catalyst for cultural change over the next decade.

"The successful opening of the Rep's 'Angels' is, on one hand, about the intersection of morality and art, but it is also about the cultural tensions created when a Bible Belt town tries to move quickly into the first rank of American cities."  New York Times

 "Whether I compare acting, design, or direction, or technical effects, there isn't a single aspect of the N.Y. production that outclasses what I've seen here."   Creative Loafing 
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NEW PLAYS
 New plays became central to the Rep's program through an annual weeklong festival of staged readings of four plays culled from national submissions. 34 of the 60+ new plays were later published or premiered at the Rep and other U.S. theatres. The festival was originally conceived by Mark Woods (Rep pre-Blumenthal Producing Director for seven years) and developed by Literary Manager Claudia Carter Covington, Associate Carol Bellamy, and AD Steve Umberger. The festival helped the Rep grow its own work, and a vital audience for it. For example, Judy Cook's popular Benedictions, inspired by the Angels events, was in the festival and had a workshop production before receiving its premiere in the mainstage series. (Above: 2001 festival playwrights Mark DeCastrique (Charlotte), Angus MacLachlan (Winston-Salem), Mark Eisman (N.Y.), Wendy Hammond (Ann Arbor), Brook Hailey Egan (Los Angeles)

"A special energy pervades the theatre at these staged readings, often lifting the spirit of the performance as high - or higher - than a fully staged production."  Creative Loafing

"The festival is the coolest performing arts event in the city."  Observer
ACTORS AND GUEST ARTISTS
Guest artist Olympia Dukakis (pictured above at a Rep gala) directed for the company, and hosted the gala event during which she spoke about life, career, the Academy Award© she won for the classic film Moonstruck, and the importance of regional theatres (one of which, N.J.'s Whole Theatre Company, she co-founded). A relatively unknown stage actor until her mid-50's, Dukakis knew the challenges facing regional theatres and often advocated for them as she did for the Rep, frequently speaking about the talent and craft that exists outside major centers.
  
Occasional guest artists joined the Rep as special events. In a typical season, there was a roughly 60 resident-to-40 visiting actor balance of roles each season, continuing the company's commitment to both maintaining and expanding an ensemble - a proficient, versatile team with a shared history. Resident and recurring actors remained at the core of the company's work, but also acted often at other leading theatres including Peoples Light in Philadelphia, Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, and in movies and television as the state's film production, based in Wilmington, grew to rank second in the U.S. (Films including Bull Durham, The Color Purple, A Time to Kill, and series including Banshee, Dawson's Creek, Matlock, Ozark and Homeland, all featured work by Rep resident actors.) Credits of the Rep's visiting actors typically included Broadway, off-Broadway, regional theatre, film and television.

"The Rep is one of the largest theatres in the Southeast, with only the Alabama Shakespeare Festival boasting a longer season. With a commitment to non-traditional casting, 26% - five times the industry standard - of this season's roles are filled with artists of color."  
Focus, N.C. Arts Council




TRANSITION
In the 25th anniversary season, with the city's population at 550,000, the 2002 production (and area premiere) of David Auburn's Tony Award© and Pulitzer Prize winning play Proof was the last play for Umberger and the existing administration before staff transitions. Proof is an example of one of the Rep's niches, as professional regional producer of new, prominent plays from the national scene not available locally through national tours. CRT was founded to produce this kind of intelligent, challenging work, offering 48 such plays in their area premieres in the Blumenthal decade alone after years of cultivating its audience with many others that helped CRT grow over 25 years from a small fringe company operating out of pocket into a full-fledged year-round professional theatre with a $2 million budget, three performance series, and membership in the national alliance The League of Resident Theatres. 

"An almost full house witnessed the first preview of 'Proof,' the final production of the season and the last play for Steve Umberger with the company he founded. ....This is a solidly expressed play about love, achievement and possibility." WFAE/NPR

 "'Proof' positive: The Rep nails it."  Observer 


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 Rep facts and figures

THE REP BY THE NUMBERS (for the season before administration changes 2001-2002)
 INCOME/EXPENSES:
- 53% earned  (95% of goal) (National average 55%, via Theatre Communications Group)
- 27% Arts & Science Council grant (87% of ask)
- 15% contributed  (57% of goal)  (Drop from previous seasons due to 9/11; see below)
- 5% government  (102% of goal)

- 40% of income from ticket sales; just over 100% of goal (National average 48%)
- % of capacity paid attendance: 72% (National average 74%, via TCG)
- % of capacity total attendance: 85% (includes corporate sponsorship tickets)
- Season end cash reserve: $37,096
- Budget - $1,680,145 (Almost $2m including in-kind office, rehearsal, and storage expenses)
- Budget projected for following season: $2,066,377

- 3,500 subscribers, balanced budget, year end cash reserve, endowment, no accumulated deficit
- N.C. Governor's Business Award in the Arts
- One of 35 (of 200+) professional theatres in the 10 Southeastern states  with a $1 million+ budget
- *Figures from Rep annual reports and Arts & Science Council Basic Operating Grant Request



REP PLAYLIST IN THE BLUMENTHAL DECADE  (Three play series / bold indicates region premiere / * indicates co-production)
MAINSTAGE: Wit, Dinner With Friends, The Foreigner, Blackbirds of Broadway*, The Old Settler, Proof, Breaking Legs*, A Few Good Men*, Sherlock's Last Case, The Last Night of Ballyhoo (2), Lost in Yonkers*, The Sisters Rosensweig, Five Guys Named Moe*, Forever Plaid*, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Always Patsy Cline*, A Tuna Christmas* (3), Beau Jest, Sylvia*, Moon Over Buffalo*, Taking Steps, Camping With Henry and Tom, Communicating Doors, Tru, The Exact Center of the Universe, The 1940s Radio Hour*, True Home, Swingtime Canteen, Prelude to a Kiss, Proposals*, Having Our Say, King Mackerel and the Blues Are Runnin', Picasso at the Lapin Agile

SECOND STAGE: The Speed of Darkness, Falsettos, Sight Unseen, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Three Hotels, Oleanna, Angels in America (Millenium Approaches and Perestroika), Three Tall Women*, Six Degrees of Separation*, Valley Song, A Delicate Balance, How I Learned to Drive, Gross Indecency, Psychopathia Sexualis, As Bees in Honey Drown, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Substance of Fire  

GOLDEN CIRCLE: The Importance of Being Earnest*, A Midsummer Night's Dream*, Romeo and Juliet*, The Tempest*, The Royal Family, Inherit the Wind, Light Up the Sky, Mrs. Warren's Profession, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Misanthrope, A Man For All Seasons  

(* Co-productions including Flat Rock Playhouse, Barter Theatre, Mill Mountain Theatre, Cape & Ogunquit Playhouses, American Stage Festival)

NEW PLAYS & PREMIERES IN THE DECADE  + From new play festival /All playwrights in residence:
- Miracle at Memphis by Dorothy Velasco+
- Catfish Moon by Laddy Sartin+ (later published by Dramatists Play Service)
- Boca by Christopher Kyle+
- The Guy Upstairs by Mark Eisman+
- Signature by Beth Henley (later published by Dramatists Play Service)
- The Floatplane Notebooks by Jason Moore and Paul Fitzgerald+ (from the novel by Clyde Edgerton)
- Sister Calling My Name by Buzz McLaughlin+
- The Deer and the Antelope Play by Mark Dunn+ (later published by Dramatists Play Service)
- Benedictions by Judy Simpson Cook+ (premiere and workshop production)
- Home on the Range by Brooke Hailey Egan (workshop production)
- Could I Have This Dance? by Doug Haverty


Plays from the festival also went on to production or workshop at theatres around the country including Actor's Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival, Long Wharf, Steppenwolf, Sundance, Naked Angels, off-Broadway and feature film. BELOW: Literary Manager Claudia Carter Covington with one of the festival's playwrights Chris Stancich, Mark Eisman, Buzz McLaughlin, Colin McKay, and directors Alan Poindexter, Steve Umberger, Terry Loughlin, Ann Marie Costa. Eisman's play The Guy Upstairs and McLaughlin's play Sister Calling My Name later received their premieres at the Rep. (The Guy Upstairs was CRT's fastest moving new play, appearing in the festival in the spring and on the mainstage in the fall of the same year.)
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NEW PLAY FESTIVAL AFTERLIFE
- Julie Johnson by Wendy Hammond subsequently appeared in the Humana Festival/Actor's Theatre of Louisville, and was then made into a feature film with Courtney Love and Spalding Gray. Road Rage, another of Hammond's plays for the festival, went on to workshop at Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

-The Safety Net by Chris Kyle and The Old Settler by John Henry Redwood went on to off- Broadway production. (Kyle's work also includes the screenplays for the feature films K19: The Widowmaker, Alexander, and Serena with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.)

- Angus MacLachlan, author of Bridge and other plays in the festival (and also a recurring Rep actor) wrote the screenplays for the Oscar©-nominated feature Junebug, and for Stone with Robert DeNiro and Ed Norton, as well as the films Goodbye to All That, Abundant Acreage Available and A Little Prayer (Sundance 2023), all of which he also directed.

- The Floatplane Notebooks co-author Jason Moore was later Tony Award© nominated for his direction of the musical Avenue Q on Broadway, and directed the feature films Pitch Perfect and Sisters. Floatplane co-author Paul Fitzgerald is a film, TV and stage actor, including a Broadway production of Noises Off.

 - Beth Henley's Signature, Laddy Sartin's Catfish Moon, Judy Simpson Cook's Benedictions and Buzz McLaughlin's Sister Calling My Name were all later published and produced by many U.S. theatres. Mark EIsman's The Guy Upstairs received a nomination for Best New American Play from American Theatre Critics Association.

THE VILLAGE / Partial Rep staff list  (Various staff titles during the decade conflated for the list)
- Steve Umberger, Founder & Artistic Director
- Keith Martin, Producer & Managing Director
- Debbie Fitts, General Manager
- Terry Loughlin, Resident Director
- Claudia Carter Covington, Literary Manager
- Carol Bellamy, Literary Associate
- Wendell Walters, Company Manager
- John Mayes, Margie O'Shea, Management Staff
- Mitzi Corrigan, Kasey Latham, Roger Durrett, Monica Kane, Production Management
- Jim Gloster, Jeff Brown, Bill Hurd, Tim Kottyan, Technical Direction
- Bev Seitz, Kari Bates, Amy Cervantes, Alli Kuehn Culp, Yolande Rubin Benton, Chris Jensen, Marketing & PR Staff
- Audrey M. Brown, Cubby Terry, Bill Munoz, Stage Management; Mary Barnes, Assistant
- Eric Winkenwerder, Todd Wren, Lighting Design
- Bob Croghan, Rebecca Cairns, Monica Kane, Costume Design
- Jim Gloster, Joe Gardner, Anna Sartin, Frank Ludwig, Scenic Design
- Fred Story, Gary Sivak, Sound Design
- Tim Parati, Sandra Gray, Charge Artists
- Matt Olin, Managing Director in transitional year
- Production Directors: Mark Woods, Alan Poindexter, Randell Haynes, Jack Beasley, Olympia Dukakis, John Carrafa, Ann Marie Costa, Claudia Carter Covington, Jim Patterson, Matthew Parent, Anthony Zerbe, Marion J. Caffey, Terry Loughlin, Steve Umberger
Below is one representation of recurring resident and visiting actors in multiple or leading roles during the Blumenthal decade
Terry Loughlin, Angus MacLachlan, Mary Lucy Bivins, Duke Ernsberger, Barbi VanSchaick, Kevin R. Free, Randell Haynes, Rebecca Koon, Graham Smith, Tamara Scott
Claudia Carter Covington, Alan Poindexter, April A. Jones, Mark Lazar, Breton Frazier, Brian LaFontaine, April Armstrong, Brian Robinson, Jamie Day, Michael Edwards
Rob Treveiler, Geddeth Smith, Neal Mayer, Cynthia Boorujy, Ben Epps, Katherine Goforth, David Sitler, Jim Gloster, Mitzi Corrigan, Jill Bloede, Raphael Nash Thompson, Tim Ross, Paige Johnston-Thomas

A typical Rep season had a roughly 60/40 casting balance of roles for Rep resident actors and visiting artists from annual casting in Charlotte, New York and Atlanta.


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With thanks to everyone who worked at the Rep, too many to name but all essential


OVERVIEW
The 73 plays produced under the administration above at the Blumenthal include 12 Best Play Tony Award© and/or Pulitzer Prize winners. 48 of the 73 were area premieres of notable work from the national scene. Playwrights represented include Donald Margulies, Alfred Uhry, Beth Henley, Neil Simon, Moises Kaufman, Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, John Patrick Shanley, Craig Lucas, John Henry Redwood, Emily Mann, David Mamet, Martin McDonough, Wendy Wasserstein, Jon Robin Baitz, A.R. Gurney, Athol Fugard, Edward Albee, John Guare, Alan Ayckbourn, and, among the classics, Moliere, Shaw and Shakespeare. The new play festival introduced 60+ scripts in staged readings, 34 of which were later fully produced by the Rep and numerous U.S. theatres. Festival playwrights include Rich Orloff, Kate Hawley, Deborah Brevoort, Jason Sherman, Lewis Black, and Joan Vail Thorne. 


With Playmakers Rep in Chapel Hill, Charlotte Rep was one of two LORT/AEA companies in N.C., developed during the pioneering 50 years (50's to 00's) when resident professional theatre companies were formed all over America in response to the escalating costs and unpredictable nature of Broadway and.commercial theatre, and a desire to make the art form accessible to more people. Starting as a fringe company producing contemporary plays, the Rep developed into a full-time professional Actors' Equity theatre offering a comprehensive range of work to serve a diverse and growing audience. In the last seasons for Umberger, Martin and staff, there were 3,500 subscribers, and attendance comparable to national averages. There was a balanced budget, cash reserve and no accumulated deficit, despite endemic development issues of the time including the lack of key support facilities for artist housing and rehearsal, storage, shop, and office space. During the Rep's years, no professional resident performing arts group was able to own or manage its own spaces - a situation navigated by all four of the Rep's leadership teams through the years and by those of other groups, but particularly affecting live theatre due to its large infrastructure demands. The operational model of the time created an unsustainable demand for in-kind support - a situation compounded in the Rep's later years by nationwide declines in season subscribers and unearned income.


In Martin's and Umberger's outgoing seasons (2001-02) earned income and expenses were on budget, and for the first time in five years, a modest deficit (just over $100,000) was caused by a combination of reduced unearned income (from the national downturn after the events of 9/11), and the costs of transitions to a new Rep leadership team (and 90% of the  staff) in 2002-03. From 2003 to 2005 the company accumulated a new deficit of $300,000+, and closed in February 2005 after 29 years in continuous operation. In the five years following, with fragile arts support further compromised by the 2008 recession, three other theatre companies also closed, leaving Charlotte - then the country's 15th most populous city (via U.S. Census) - with little hope of a full time theatre company. 20 years later, Charlotte Rep remained the only year-round resident professional Actors' Equity LORT-affiliated theatre in the city's history.


There was speculation that the controversial events surrounding Angels in America caused the Rep's closing, but the company operated for nine years after Angels and recorded its highest attendance ever during those years. While Angels may have created unexpected challenges, it also strengthened the Rep's artistic muscles, raised its national profile, and was the most lucrative production in Rep history. Audience response and surveys confirmed that Angels helped create short and long-term increases in attendance in subsequent seasons. 


The information on this page is mainly about the production aspects of the Rep. There was also an ongoing relationship with the public schools through which students attended productions, and staff and artists visited classrooms. There was an outreach program that included violence prevention productions through the touring arm Key Players, and a prolific program of seminars and talkbacks between artists and audiences, incorporating community leaders in fields related to production content. A huge debt of gratitude is owed to the hundreds of artists, staff members, technicians, trustees, press, friends, and especially the Rep's audiences, without whom the company would never have happened.


BEGINNINGS
Before the Blumenthal, the Rep had a 16 year life as Actors Contemporary Ensemble. Beginning in 1976, ACE was resident company in the newly renovated Spirit Square Arts Center (in both its theatres, Entertainment Place and Performance Place (later McGlohon Theatre) - and produced 70 plays, many of them area premieres including The Shadow Box, Children of a Lesser God, Bad Habits, A Texas Trilogy, The Foreigner, Fences, Who's Happy Now?, Talley's Folly, Miss Ever's Boys, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, and the productions pictured below.

- The Primary English Class* by Israel Horovitz; director Jane Hadley (J.A. Nelson, Libby Seymour. Allen Lane, Nancy Hamada, Graham Smith) 
- 1983 company: Katherine Goforth, Steve Boles, J.A. Nelson, Libby Seymour, Graham Smith, Susan Hunter, Kevin Reilly, Jane Hadley, Barbara Hird, Steve Umberger
- Noises Off* by Michael Frayn; director: Geoffrey Hitch (Angus MacLachlan, John Woodson, Rebecca Koon, Steve Umberger, Catherine Carlson, Claudia Carter Covington, Randell Haynes, Graham Smith, Catherine Smith, Hitch, stage manager Shelby Wirt)


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Above: 
- Terra Nova* by Ted Tally (Kevin Reilly, Jerry Colbert, David Canary, J.A. Nelson, Graham Smith, director: Steve Umberger)
- Da* by Hugh Leonard (Graham Smith, David Lenthall; director: Steve Umberger)
- Readthrough of Da (David Lenthall, Sheila Duell, Graham Smith, Mark Woods)
- Present Laughter by Noel Coward (Katherine Goforth, J.A. Nelson, Libby Seymour, Gladys Lavitan, director: Jane Hadley)
- Crimes of the Heart* by Beth Henley, regional premiere (Meg Kelly Rizzoli, Rebecca Koon, Kirtan Coan, director: Jane Hadley)
- Who's Happy Now?* by Oliver Hailey (Michael Dowell, Linda Pierce, Kirtan Coan, Lucius Houghton, John Woodson, director: Steve Umberger)
- The Robber Bridegroom*: Libby Seymour, Jonathan Hadley, Becky Kent Story, Barbara Hird, Graham Smith; co-directors: Jane Hadley and Steve Umberger

- Hadley and Umberger on stage with Academy Award winning actor Charlton Heston at the opening of The Robber Bridegroom* to open the company's seventh season. (A special thanks is due to Jane and Charles Hadley and Charles LaBorde, who were instrumental in the company's transition to becoming a professional theatre through support that included providing rehearsal and housing facilities at Queens College. It was Charles Hadley's work as dialect coach on the CBS miniseries Chiefs that brought Heston to the Rep.)



"I congratulate you on the marvelous reality that your city now has what every city deserves - a fully professional theatre."
Charlton Heston, to the CRT opening night audience, 1983 (reported in Charlotte Observer)



Actors Contemporary Ensemble founding four: Steve Umberger, Beverly Brown Lueke, Terri Haugen, Becky Kent Story / Key supporters: Kevin Campbell, Mary Montague, Connie Welsh, Jack Beasley, Libby Seymour, Charles Hadley, Charles LaBorde, David & Nancy Howe, Bob Sailstad, Della Freedman, Bill Rackley, Joe Gardner et al / Early Co-Artistic Director: Jane Hadley; Producing Director: Mark Woods / and many dedicated trustees, staff members, actors, technicians and audience members


Charlotte Rep image credits: Mitchell Kearney, Donna Bise, Rebecca Cairns, Joe Deese





© 2024 Steve Umberger