A group of residents in South Louisville are creating community theater in their neighborhood. The South End Theatre Society opened this year, and they’re gearing up for their debut performance next month.
LPM’s Giselle Rhoden talked to founder Roy Brumley about the organization’s mission and its upcoming production.
This interview was edited for clarity and length.
Giselle Rhoden: How did you get into community theater? Do you come from a theater background?
Roy Brumley: I got involved in community theater about two years ago. I come from an arts background. I've always been really into music, and started music production years ago, and all my kids are musically inclined. My daughter actually introduced me to theater. Many, many years ago, when she was a junior in high school. She took me to a play which was “Rock of Ages.” I'm an ‘80s kid, so I gravitated to that very, very well. Since then, I've learned that it's a jukebox musical, and those have kind of become one of my favorites, but that was how I kind of got involved in theater.
GR: Where did you find the inspiration to start a theater company in South Louisville, and it sounds like the area of town was intentional?
RB: Absolutely, I've been a South End resident since I was 9 years old, so pretty much my entire adult life. The inspiration really came from that spark after dinner. A friend of ours and her husband and my wife, she is an actor, and was acting in several plays at community theaters around the area. One night after a play, having dinner, I said, “I don't know why we don't have this in the South End. Why are we driving all the way to Shelby County and Clarksville?” And I still do, because they've got amazing programs. But why don't we have this in our area? And that was kind of the beginning of the dream that started years ago when my daughter first graduated, because we started talking about doing something in the South End. So I was like, “Let's just do a nonprofit community theater, make an outlet to support the arts in the South End.” That was February of this year, and we're finally able to — after fundraising and community support — we're finally able to put on our first show.
GR: What are some of the challenges of starting a community theatre, especially in an area where there aren’t many?
RB: I think the largest challenge that any theater company faces is fundraising, you know, finding the money to overcome all of those battles and the costs that are associated, especially in a theater like we're starting where we don't have a location yet. So we have to actually rent a venue. Luckily, we've got an amazing community supporter in Shirley's Way. They do a lot for the South End, but they stepped up and really helped us out to get us started.
My wife has a saying about me and it's that “Rome wasn't built in a day because Roy wasn't building it.” I'm very impatient. I just want to go. And once II want to do something. I just want to do it. I want to run right into it. It was a lot of hurry up and wait. So that was the hardest part. The community was awesome. I mean, we had just an amazing amount of people come out for our first audition. We didn't know if we were going to have five people come to auditions or the 50-plus that we did. We have 30-plus volunteers helping us out with our first production. So the community has been needing this for a long time. I think they, I think they've needed it, and now my job is to make them realize that they want it as well.
GR: You have your first show Steel Magnolias on Nov. 7-8, which is based on the 1989 film starring Dolly Parton and Julia Roberts. Why was this the production for your debut performance?
RB: A lot of thought went into that. We wanted to do something that was more mainstream, something that had recognition, something with a smaller cast, because, again, we were a startup. I think it is a very relatable show for this area. You know, all the southern charm. It's actually set in Louisiana. But Louisiana and, you know, the French Connection with Louisville, it is very, very relatable to this area.
Another thing that I would like to say about rehearsal is a big shout-out to the public school system. We were allowed to use elementary schools to be able to rehearse every evening. So again, that's just community coming together to make something happen. It also is just an amazing play. There are six actors in the show. If you come to this play, you're going to laugh. You're going to cry. I've been at rehearsals every evening, and I mean, I'm tearing up at these rehearsals. So I just can't wait till they give it their all in the actual performance.
GR: What other types of productions can we expect from the South End Theatre society in the future?
RB: I would love to do a musical soon. That's definitely something we want to do. But we're going to, we're going to put on another show before July of next year, and then I think we'll be caught up to where we can be like every other community theater and announce our show for the full next year. So four to five shows maybe a year. So we don't really know what's next. We've got several on the burner, but nothing's quite cooking yet.
In five years from now, I would like us to be investing in our own location, to have a home, to to have some place to rehearse. But that's my five year plan. I would love to have a place that we could call our home.
