There’s no need to travel to New York City or even Washington, D.C. for world-premiere theatre productions and award-winning plays. Howard Community College is home to Rep Stage, the only professional regional theatre in the country in residence at a community college.

Kill Move Paradise with Dylan J. Fleming as Isa, Jonathan Del Palmer as Grif, Christian R. Gibbs as Daz, Tendo Nsubuga as Tiny

Rep Stage is a member of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union that ensures actors receive a fair wage, health insurance, and pension plans. AEA actors and stage managers also receive protection against unfair treatment. Although Rep Stage is located on a college campus, the artists are professional actors, directors, playwrights, and designers. With its local focus, most of its artists hail from the Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., region. Still, there are opportunities for student collaboration, through HCC’s Theatre Department and Entertainment Technology Program. Many students participate as backstage crew members while working toward certification as theatre technicians, and at times, student actors have been cast as well.

Artistic communities tend to be more open-minded, accepting, and empathetic, but you will find hierarchy, preconceptions, and prejudices in any human environment. Following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the theatre strengthened its pledge to equality, diversity, and inclusion with a formal statement of commitment to anti-racism, which reads, in part:

What good are the stories of injustices on our stage if we are not willing to disrupt those same injustices in our organization and personal lives? Rep Stage views the work of anti-racism as integral to the art we create, the people that work at our theatre, and the communities we serve.

Rep Stage acknowledges its complicity in upholding and benefiting from the systemic structures that have caused harm and inequity. As we work to change these practices, we commit to an anti-racist theatre ethos which actively reduces harm, prevents harm, and repairs relationships while acknowledging the past and re-imagining the future.

Producing Artistic Director Joseph W. Ritsch

Rep Stage approaches anti-racism from several angles, including the topics portrayed, access to trauma counselors for actors who may be triggered by the subject matter, the presence of a mental health counselor, who is available to audience members during certain performances, and an equitable representation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in regards to casting and the creative teams. 

In the upcoming production of The Glass Menagerie, Producing Artistic Director Joseph W. Ritsch is leading a cast that embodies a more modern family versus the all-White nuclear family, as written by White playwright Tennessee Williams. Casting was not limited by race; family members are portrayed by actors who are Black, White, and biracial. 

“You have biological family, chosen family, adoptive families, and blended families. I was interested in taking the concept of family and turning it on its side from how it has historically been presented when performed,” Ritsch said. At the same time, it was important to Ritsch to have ongoing conversations around the casting choices so that the actors feel supported and safe in roles that historically were not written for them and give them agency in the process of mounting the production.

E2 with Dane Figueroa Edidi as Isabella and Zack Powell as Edward

Looking ahead to the 2022–2023 season, Rep Stage is looking at the productions lost due to the pandemic, including Dane Figueroa Edidi’s Ghost/Writer. Cleverly, Rep Stage presented it earlier as a radio play instead. The postponed Songs for a New World is also being considered. In addition, drag artist Sunrize will likely return, whose in-person performance of Sunrize “With a Z” Off-Off…OFF Broadway last November, sold out all three shows while raising money for HCC’s student food pantry. Ritsch (who brings the songstress to life) is considering a 2022 holiday event featuring Sunrize — a modern musical alternative to A Christmas Carol.

To purchase tickets to The Glass Menagerie. https://www.repstage.org/tickets/index.html

Main Image: Sweeney Todd with V. Savoy McIIwain as Sweeney Todd and Justine Icy Moral as Beggar Woman

Photography by: Katie Ellen Simons Barth