Underrepresented plays are finding a place with iTheatre Collaborative, a local theater company co-founded by Chris Haines and his wife Rosemary Close that has been producing plays for 12 years.
The company, which is based out of the Herberger Theater Center, has grown considerably in those 12 years and is working to fulfill its purpose: creating a space for theater that is sometimes marginalized in the Phoenix area.
“I just was frustrated with theater here in general in Phoenix,” Haines said. “Not so much content or quality, but I just felt like there was a level of theater, of type of plays, that weren’t being done or that were being dismissed or ignored over more commercial kind of theater.”
Out of that frustration sprung the idea to create his own theater company, one that would represent the works he wasn’t seeing represented.
“I love commercial theater, but that wasn’t what I was most passionate about, it was the lesser-known plays,” he said. “I felt like a lot of the avant-garde kind of theater, classics theater of the absurd, was just being forgotten about here in Phoenix.”
Thus far, iTheatre Collaborative has performed more than 40 productions, including an annual Holiday Cabaret in collaboration with the ASU West campus.
Its most recent production was “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” which played at the Herberger Theater Center’s black box stage and featured issues of how race is portrayed in the media.
iTheatre Collaborative has been involved in a number of festivals and conferences that Haines hopes will mark Phoenix as a place that celebrates arts and culture.
From 2005 to 2007, the National Black Theatre Festival, the Black Arts Movement Festival and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference all invited the iTheatre Collaborative to perform. The Last Frontier even flew 13 people from Phoenix to Valdez, Alaska, for their performance. When the recession hit in 2008, the festivals had less money and the national attention dropped. Despite the current decline in national recognition, the group hopes to get an invitation back to the National Black Theatre Festival this summer, Haines said.
“Hopefully (we’ll be) putting Phoenix on the map artistically and culturally, because that was happening for us in those shows that we were taking there,” he said. “(It’s) a recognition that there is something going on in Phoenix and it’s not just desert sun. I think there’s a perception nationally that there isn’t much about Phoenix, that it’s a mini version of Los Angeles without the film industry.”
The company has attracted return actors and directors over their 12 years of production, including Mike Traylor, who acted in “The Exonerated” and directed “At Home in the Zoo” during the 2011-2012 season and also directed “Bug” in 2009.
“I’m biased, of course, but I think it’s the best theater group in town, certainly of its size,” Traylor said. “We try to do different types of work, things that maybe no one else would touch. We just do good theater and enjoy doing it. It’s just a great place to be.”
However, the road has not been easy for this local group on the business side of things.
“I don’t know what I was thinking 12 years ago,” Haines said. “I spent 20 years of my career learning everything that I could about theater, so my thought was ‘I’m starting a theater company, oh, this will be easy because I’m just doing what I already love to do,’ but I had no management, administrative background, business background or anything like that.”
Rosemary Close, managing director and co-founder of the iTheatre Collaborative, has seen the difficulty of free publicity firsthand.
“You have no money, because the way we work, all of our money goes into the show,” Close said. “So getting the word out is probably the hardest. The art itself is so fabulous, but you can’t have the art without the money and the foundation and knowing how to run it.”
Despite these administrative struggles, the company has survived through 11 seasons and is in the beginning of its 12th. This season, Haines will finally get to fulfill one of his original dreams, he said.
“I think probably season-wise, the most exciting thing that we’re doing is the next play because it’s by a local playwright,” Haines said. “I’m so excited to be finally able to be do that; this was something I wanted to do 12 years ago.”
The company has grown into a unique group dedicated to providing interesting theater, according to several members of the company.
“It’s really wonderful to watch something come together and directing and creating something onstage,” Close said. “I love being in the theater. Do you know what I really like? The reactions of people’s faces while they’re watching the show. I love that, I love the people.”
Contact the reporter at miranda.reddy@asu.edu
