![]() She graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in fashion merchandising - “Which also makes me love the theater because I love all the costumes and I love the visuals” - and moved to Dallas, where Trice attended Southern Methodist University and lived for a time before pursuing his career in New York.īuchanan attended Little Rock’s Mount St. Hair & Makeup by LORI WENGER | Shot on location at The Repīorn in Texarkana, Buchanan moved to Little Rock when she was 12 and calls the city home. The grand plans for StageDoor Social were put on ice. So, naturally, a world health crisis broke out and, almost immediately, The Rep was once again forced to shut down all operations. “He said, ‘I really want to get a real united group,’” Buchanan says. Guests were able to traverse the theater and see its inner workings and were treated to a rallying speech by Trice. We gave everybody a code to go through the actual stage door.” In January 2020, The Rep held a kickoff party for the group. ![]() The theater launched a 2019 spring schedule that included the Bob Fosse musical “Chicago,” and by fall Buchanan was involved, trying to formulate what StageDoor Social would look like. The suspension was short-lived, however, as The Rep rallied financially, thanks in part to a fundraising committee that raised $2.33 million, and named Trice, who had been serving as an advisor, to the newly created position of executive artistic director. The theater continued its summer education program, then suspended all operations that August. The last production of the year, the play “God of Carnage,” was canceled, and then-producing artistic director John Miller-Stephany stepped down after more than two years. This eventually became the source of its woes when The Rep was forced to suspend operations in spring of 2018 after failing to meet fundraising and ticket sales goals, capping years of declining box office numbers. My parents have a star on a dressing room door downstairs.”Īlong with ticket sales, the theater operates through grants and money raised from donations, fundraisers and other events. Through partnerships, The Rep has also supported emerging playwrights and arts-centered community projects.Ī mainstay of downtown Little Rock and Main Street’s Creative Corridor, the theater has built a devoted following, which includes people like Buchanan and her family. It produces one children’s production a year and offers its Summer Musical Theatre Intensive program for teens and young adults. With an annual attendance of around 70,000, The Rep employs a mix of local actors and award-winning performers from around the country. “The theater itself is in great shape,” Buchanan says. The theater has a main stage that seats 385 while its nearby black box theater seats 99. Work was completed in 1988 and the building underwent a renovation in 2012. It debuted that year with a production of “The Threepenny Opera” at its first location in the Hunter Memorial Methodist Church in Little Rock.Ī fundraising campaign helped the theater obtain a loan of close to $2 million to buy and renovate its current home, the Galloway Building on Main Street. The state’s largest nonprofit professional theater company, The Rep was founded by Cliff Baker in 1976. KATIE BUCHANAN, supporter of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre Different Stages ![]() … This is purely going to be about reengaging with us and enjoying what our community has to offer. I think if there’s any risk we’re facing right now it’s just the sort of inertia and apathy, I think, with a lot of folks these past two years. Everybody’s got to get back in the habit. Taking a clear-eyed view of The Rep’s challenges through the prism of its recent past, Trice says success hinges on one thing and one thing only. StageDoor Social is more than just a social function. “He wanted me to be in a think tank to come up with that,” says Buchanan of the contemporary group of supporters she’s organized under the name she concocted. Trice, a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer who had returned to his hometown to serve his beloved local theater, didn’t forget the offer. “I said, ‘I’ll do anything you need me to do otherwise, volunteerwise.’” “I didn’t want to do that again,” she says. Trice had once asked Buchanan to work with him on the theater events side, but Buchanan, a one-time special events director with the Dallas Opera, demurred. StageDoor Social is a subscriber experience aimed at harnessing a new generation of theatergoers through a membership package that includes tickets to special performances and access to pre- and post-show events and parties. After bleak periods in limbo caused by financial woes and the COVID-19 pandemic, The Rep is back with a schedule of performances produced by Trice and a fresh group of supporters organized by Buchanan.
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