Over the last two decades, several prominent local theater companies in Charlotte have disappeared. Now one of them is staging a comeback after over a decade away.
Carolina Actors Studio Theatre, also known as CAST, returns Feb. 27-March 16 with the play “Alabaster,” a darkly comic drama by Audrey Cefaly. It also returns with big hopes for the future.
CAST last performed in June 2014. Its abrupt closure, announced shortly before opening night of its then final production called “Gruesome Playground Injuries” surprised many in the community. At the time, the board cited funding woes and dwindling audiences.
The company had formed in 1992 and won numerous awards throughout its tenure, including two consecutive wins as Theatre Company of the Year by the Metrolina Theatre Association. CAST was known for experiential productions that immersed audience members in the world of its plays.
“Our lobbies were all part of the show, our ushers were part of the show… even the tickets were part of the show,” said Michael Simmons, longtime managing artistic director of the company. In one production, for example, CAST turned the entire theater into a West Texas Honky-Tonk, with ushers wearing cowboy hats and boots, and tickets were .45 caliber bullets.
Simmons aims to recreate a comparable atmosphere and commitment to quality, directing CAST’s first show back.
Why is CAST returning now?
Simmons started considering a CAST revival about a year and a half ago. He and his wife, Victoria (who previously served as CAST’s business and box office manager), kept running into former patrons and artists while attending shows around the community.
“So many people that were part of the CAST family have been living in a vacuum and they’ve approached us and said ‘Look, you know, we want to bring the level of work that we used to do back … start working professionally again. It’s been a long drought.’
“COVID kind of beat everybody down and… I guess it’s serendipitous because our schedules have opened up,” said Simmons, who retired in 2019 from his day job as a commercial airline pilot.
He and Victoria moved to a 54-acre farm in Lancaster County, S.C., where they care for a dozen rescue animals including a horse, several donkeys, goats, cats and dogs.
The idea of a return started to get serious last May, when Cynthia Farbman Harris and her husband Michael Harris, longtime collaborators on and off-stage with the company, visited the Simmons at their farm.
Cynthia Farbman Harris, an actress and opera singer, performed frequently with the company and Michael Harris, a former board president, directed and acted in many of their productions. Both garnered awards for their work at CAST.
The friends reminisced about the old days and the Harrises pitched a few potential show ideas for a CAST revival. They also said they could help fund production costs.
Cynthia Farbman Harris told The Charlotte Observer that she and her husband had watched a steady decline in Charlotte’s theater scene over the years and wanted to do something about it. They recently launched Actors Collaborative Theater, a production company for actors to help produce high-quality regional productions.
“You’re either part of the problem or you’re part of the solution. And we decided that we were going to take this risk and be … hopefully, part of the solution.”
She hopes to “spark a light” by creating more theater in the community and maybe encourage others to do the same.
Why ‘Alabaster’ for the first show?
Harris said she fell in love with the script for “Alabaster,” the first time she read it. Originally announced for Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte’s 2022-23 season, she auditioned for the show but then Actor’s Theatre folded in 2022.
Harris held on to the script and couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Audrey Cefaly’s writing is so real and raw and impactful… It just grabbed me when I read it, in a very unpretentious way, you know. And it wasn’t trying to sell me anything or preach anything to me,” said Harris, who will play the role of Alice, a renowned photographer, at CAST.
Harris also loved the idea of working with Simmons again, whom she described as an intensive and collaborative director. She said he prioritizes script work, acting exercises and extensive preparation.
Most companies rehearse about four to six weeks, but CAST shows usually spend 12 weeks rehearsing productions. “Alabaster” rehearsals began in late November.
She also knew Simmons had the technical ability and creativity to stretch every dollar on a limited budget and create a special experience for the audience.
“We’re not getting any grants funding from the city or the (ASC)… We have to make every dollar go as far as we can but (Simmons) really is a magician.”
The more Simmons read the script, the more powerful he found it. And as he and the company dove into the material, he recognized a shared theme of “resurrection” between the play and CAST’s own journey.
In the play, a tornado rips through a family farm in Alabama, killing everything and everyone but one woman and her two goats. She’s left badly scarred, physically and emotionally, and living in total isolation from the outside world.
“And so as we’re going through that process, we’re thinking well isn’t that true about the theater?” Simmons said.
“So yeah, okay, we’ve been dead for 10 years, or have we? Maybe it’s time to resurrect CAST, maybe it’s time to bring back the level of theater that we were known for producing, and quit whining about it, quit complaining about it, quit hiding from the world, get out there and do it. And that’s where we’re at.”
Confronting challenges
Simmons is grateful to have both seasoned CAST alums and new artists helping bring “Alabaster” to life. But there also have been many challenges.
The first was finding an affordable place to rehearse and perform. CAST’s last home in NoDa included two theaters and a dance studio. That meant they could easily schedule rehearsals and even work on multiple productions simultaneously.
Harris remembered a time when more than a dozen independent companies operated in Charlotte, using warehouse spaces to rehearse and perform. Many of those spots no longer exist. And the redevelopment of Spirit Square, home to two theaters, is still under way as part of the larger 7th and Tryon project.
Both Simmons and Harris said they were lucky to connect with The Mint Museum. The Randolph Road museum has been a great partner, they said. They rehearse in the museum’s Van Every Auditorium, and also put on their shows there.
But because the auditorium is also used for other events, Harris rented a house for the company to rehearse in as needed.
Simmons said he knows patrons will have expectations and performing in a rented theater also comes with some new limitations.
“I don’t think the Mint Museum is going to let us, you know, put a bunch of barn debris out in front of their theater as part of the tornado wreckage,” he said. But he’s got some “top secret” ideas to work around those issues.
Actors Collaborative Theatre is also upgrading the space with the addition of a new overhead lighting grid system, with the help of Wild West Lighting. Harris said that improvement will also benefit The Mint and other local theater companies.
Another big challenge is getting the word out to past patrons that CAST is back.
Over the last decade, the company’s old customer records were purged by its former ticketing and bulk email providers. And Simmons said the group cannot access its old Facebook page, with more than 4,000 followers, since the original administrator moved out of the country and took the password with him.
CAST has since launched a new page and social media presence.
What’s next for CAST
After “Alabaster,” CAST. will partner with Actors Collaborative Theater to produce several other shows.
In November, the company will perform Christopher Durang’s Tony Award-winning comedy, “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.” It’s intended in part as an homage to Durang, a playwright known for his satire, who died last April 2024. In its previous iteration, CAST had produced many Durang productions.
The company also plans a 2026 production of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” a play that Simmons has long wanted to direct and the Harrises would love to perform in.
Simmons said he’s also in conversations with Dee Abdullah, one of CAST’s original co-founders, and prominent local director Corliss Lee, about helming other productions still to be announced for 2025.
For Simmons, now 71, there was also a caveat to his return. He and his wife like the serenity of the farm, and their roles as stewards of the land and the animals. He would resurrect CAST. but with the stipulation that he’d soon turn over the reins to the next generation.
He’s got a long list of potential inheritors — former interns, performers, designers and other arts professionals — many of whom are lending a hand while pursuing theater out of state.
”We couldn’t have done everything that we did in CAST if we didn’t have all those people that you don’t know about because you don’t see them,” he said.
“It’s like okay, y’all, need to come back.”
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This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 5:49 AM.
