As Trice recalled, the shift to summer seasons has been a journey since he joined the organization’s leadership in 2019 on the heels of a financially induced shutdown. The company was just starting to produce again when the pandemic hit. During the pandemic lockdown, Trice said they had to take a long, hard look at their expenses, making drastic cuts along the way. Eventually, Trice explained, the company (which had a budget of around $3 million as of 2023) reached an inflection point.
The thought is that this shift will make room for Arkansas Rep to increase their community education programming that had previously, as Trice put it, “been considered ancillary because we were always just going from show to show basically year-round.” Broadnax, who will write and direct the 2025 SummerStage season opener Me & the Devil, also sees this change as a chance for the Rep to stand out in a community where the theatre options have grown from just the Rep and the local dinner theatre that were around when he was younger. (Even nearby Fayetteville’s now 20-year-old TheatreSquared didn’t exist when Broadnax was growing up.) The hope, he explained, is that finding a new niche will help establish the theatre as a summer destination for new works to grow and top talent to take the stage.
“Our goal is to officially be the state’s theatre,” Broadnax said. “I want to be a beacon of possibility for people in my state—that you don’t have to be from New York City or D.C. or California in order to participate in the arts at a high, professional level.”
That hometown pride shone through in conversations with all of Arkansas Rep’s leadership, from Broadnax to Trice to Martin. To borrow a phrase from Martin, when it comes to the Rep, for the three of them, “all roads lead back to that place.” Nothing can replace the value added by having leaders from a theatre’s community, surrounded by family and friends, and acutely aware of the ways that that community has ebbed, flowed, and grown over the years.
“There’s nothing like knowledge that comes from being in your hometown,” added Trice. “Those connections can’t be replicated when you go into a new community. You can do your best to try to learn what makes them tick, but when you’re born of it, it’s just part of your DNA.”
That’s why Martin feels certain that folks around the city and state will be excited to see Broadnax return home.
“I’ve never been more excited and proud to see someone that I consider a mentor and who I hold in such high esteem step into this role at this moment in time where there is so much doom and gloom and bad news for our industry,” Martin said. “I’m just so grateful that someone with the kind of spirit of generosity, with the clarity of vision and with the deep, deep understanding of the city that he’s trying to serve and the legacy and history of this institution that he’s trying to serve, gets to step into this role.”
Looking ahead to his tenure, Broadnax said he wants to show folks from Arkansas and the South in general that there are great opportunities and chances for exposure in their region. He hopes his personal journey to Broadway and back again can serve as inspiration, allowing artists in the region to feel empowered, and to see working with Arkansas Rep as the first step of a journey that can go anywhere. After all, Broadnax said, it’s tough for folks to know who they are, or who they can be, until they see their reflection.
“That’s what regional theatres should do—reflect the community that they are a part of,” Broadnax said. “I hope people think that Steve, their very own, took his knowledge and experience and things I’m continuing to learn and brought them home to my community. I want this to be the mountaintop of the South.”
Jerald Raymond Pierce is the managing editor of American Theatre.
