History

• Company History
• Performance History

Company History

Kansas City Repertory Theatre, the premier professional resident theatre company of the Kansas City metropolitan area, is now in its 43rd year.

During this long history, there have been only three artistic leaders. Peter Altman who just retired in July 2007 after his seventh season as producing artistic director. George Keathley was artistic director from 1985-2000, and founder Dr. Patricia McIlrath guided the theatre from 1964 until she retired in 1985.

Appointed chairman of the University of Kansas City (now UMKC) Theatre Department and director of the University Playhouse in 1954, Dr. McIlrath, believing in the importance of exposing theatre students to the rigors and demanding standards of professional theatre, long dreamed of establishing a company that could provide them such opportunities and also give Kansas City a notable stage company of its own. In 1964, she formed the UMKC Summer Repertory Theatre in the same era when many other companies destined to be recognized as leaders of the nationwide not-for-profit resident theatre movement (such as the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles) were also springing to life.

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 by Emlyn Williams and Private Lives by Noel Coward.

In 1967, the Rep became affiliated with Actors’ Equity Association, the national union of professional actors. As the theatre continued to develop, Dr. Mac launched an extensive touring program. The growing organization officially took the name “Missouri Repertory Theatre” in 1968, and steadily built an enhanced reputation. Actors and directors of national and international acclaim shared their talents with Kansas City actors and audiences.

Rep audiences were treated to a new level of quality and professionalism when, in 1979, the company moved into Helen F. Spencer Theatre in the newly-constructed UMKC Center for the Performing Arts. That same year marked the not-for-profit incorporation of Missouri Repertory Theatre, henceforth under the guidance of and supported by a volunteer board of civic leaders. The Rep, directed by that board, has now operated independently of UMKC for twenty-seven years; however, it maintains its strong commitment to and a close relationship with the university and its theatre training programs.

Dr. McIlrath retired in 1985 as artistic director after serving the Rep for more than twenty years. It was the end of an era. An extensive search for her 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 was able to build 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 and Peter Schaffer, and continued the classic tradition with Shakespeare, Sophocles and Moliere.  At his retirement in 2000, Keathley had personally directed 49 productions. Costin, who passed away in 2005, also retired in 2000, after completing thirty-six years at the administrative helm of the organization.

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 in Boston. Under his direction and that of the theatre’s board of directors, led by William C. Nelson, Kansas City Rep today is committed to building on its four-decade tradition, further expanding its audience, upgrading and diversifying its range of artists, extending its repertoire to include more new work and large-scale classics of literature and continuing to raise its standards of production.  The Board of Directors voted in 2004 to rename the company Kansas City Repertory Theatre to reflect better its identity, location and audience and that same year a major refurbishment of Spencer Theatre was completed.  In February 2007, the Rep’s longtime goal of opening a second theatre was attained with the opening of Copaken Stage, a new 315-seat downtown theatre.

Performance History