News

Playhouse puts YouTheatre on hiatus

By Bill Moss, Published: December 26, 2014

FLAT ROCK — Flat Rock Playhouse has put its YouTheatre programs on hiatus for four months while administrators work with parents, teachers and other constituents to "make it right," the Playhouse's artistic director said last week.

Lisa K. Bryant, who is the highest ranking administrator of the Playhouse, spoke to the Hendersonville Kiwanis Club last week about the theater's longtime link to education and her own emphasis on education as she leads the organization.
Bryant was hired as associate artistic director in the summer of 2013, took over the production management role on an interim basis last summer and was promoted to the position fulltime in October. In remarks to the civic club, she acknowledged that the theater had been through tumultuous times.
"I don't know if you've heard, we've been in the news once or twice over the past couple of years," she said, drawing chuckles. One of her goals, she added, is to respond to "a lot of challenging messaging about the Playhouse that's been out there for a long time — some of it we own, some of it we deserve, some of it we marched right down that road and we're paying for it now."
"First and foremost we want to be of service," she said. "We've done a lot of asking up to this point — 'please give us, please give us, please give us.' And I want to do a lot of, 'What can we do for you, what can we bring to you?'"
Wearing a red YouTheatre "Rock Out" hoodie, Bryant asserted her passion for the youth programs as a key part of the mission of the State Theatre of North Carolina.
Lisa K. Bryant"For me, there are two pillars: There's the one that we've done for 62 years really pretty well and that's production, and then there's the other pillar that's under construction right now and that's what I call the education pillar. Education has always been an important part of the Playhouse. It is what we were founded on by Robroy Farquhar. It went hand in hand with the professional side of what we did."

Overhaul of youth programming

Its legacy of education notwithstanding, she said, the Playhouse has not always managed the education side as well as it could have.
"As it pertains to the YouTheatre and conversations we're having there, the truth is we are suspending classes for one semester and we're doing this for one semester because we need a serious overhaul in our K-12 programming," she said. "It's been on a steady decline for the last five years in enrollment and this semester it's the lowest enrollment we've had that we can remember."
Instead of being integrated into the theater's productions, the YouTheatre program "has sort of lived in its own silo and not been a real part of our whole Playhouse community ... We have never actually taken the time to make it right. This year I said, 'I would really like to make that right.'"
Bryant brings education bona fides to the table.
An actor who first joined the Playhouse as an apprentice in 1994, Bryant started teaching at the YouTheatre in 2000 and has instructed young people in acting, voice and dance and directed them in shows. She spent three years as the theater teacher at North Henderson High School, growing participation by 500 percent. She holds a masters degree in theater. She's married to John Bryant, a former teacher and principal who is assistant schools superintendent in Henderson County.
"I'm dedicated to education," she said. "I understand education, my husband is an educator and because I understand it and because I'm dedicated to it we're taking a four-month timeout to make it right."
Classes for young people will resume this summer. The 2015 season opens with the YouTheatre production of "The Wizard of Oz."
"We will be conducting ballet classes, we will be having a technical theater class and we will have classes that extend from 'The Wizard of Oz' all through the spring," Bryant said.

Business manager job remains open

For now Bryant, only the fourth artistic director in the theater's 62-year history, is managing day-to-day operations without a side-by-side leader on the business side. Managing director Hillary Hart left in October for a similar role at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The Playhouse Board of Trustees has not filled the job and probably won't until later next year, treasurer Brian Dillon said last week.
The Playhouse won approval last week from the Village of Flat Rock to subdivide about two acres containing a house used for apprentice lodging. The Playhouse plans to sell the log house and land and lease it back. The new owner plans a major interior renovation of the house, Dillon told the Village Planning Board. The upgraded living quarters could also fit into the theater's plans for youth programming and education, Dillon and Bryant said.
Speaking to the Kiwanis Club, Bryant promised that Playhouse administrators would reach out to parents, teachers and others to "participate in conversations with us" about how the Playhouse will structure the youth education piece of its mission.