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The Pacific Repertory Theatre, originally known as the GroveMont Theatre, is a non-profit year-round theatre company based in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, United States. The company presents an annual season of ten to twelve productions, both stage plays and musicals.
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Pacific Repertory Theatre was founded in 1982 by Carmel-by-the-Sea resident Stephen Moorer, who served as its artistic director from 1983 to 2008 and has been its executive director since 2009. Kenneth Kelleher has been artistic director since 2008. The company's main venues are Carmel's Golden Bough Playhouse and the outdoor Forest Theater. In 1990, the company reactivated the annual Carmel Shakespeare Festival. The company gained attention for its series of Shakespeare plays titled Royal Blood: The Rise and Fall of Kings produced over the course of four summers beginning in 2001. This series included the first productions of Edward III and Thomas of Woodstock in the US.
Pacific Repertory Theatre (PacRep) is a professional theatre company located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. It is the only professional theatre company located on the Monterey Peninsula.[1] It is a member of the League of Resident Theatres[2] and presents a year-round season of plays and musicals.[3] The company stages its productions in three Carmel theatres:[4] the Golden Bough Playhouse,[1] the Circle Theatre,[5] and the Forest Theater.[2][6]
PacRep was founded in 1982 as GroveMont Theatre by Carmel-by-the-Sea resident Stephen Moorer, who served as its artistic director from 1983 to 2008 and has been its executive director since 2009.[7][8] In the 1980s, organization struggled to survive, with a $4,500 annual budget and no permanent place to perform. It was then governed by a board made up of six friends.[9] The organization's name changed to Pacific Repertory Theatre in 1994 when the company acquired the site of the Golden Bough Playhouse in downtown Carmel, and announced plans to establish a professional theatre for the region.[10][11] In 2001, to facilitate an appearance by Olympia Dukakis and Louis Zorich in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard,[12][13] the company entered into an agreement with Actors' Equity Association.[11][14] It is a member of the League of Resident Theatres.[2]
The European Foundation for Quality Management studied PacRep in a case study on financing for non-profit organizations which was originally published in 2006 in Above the Clouds: A Guide to Trends Changing the Way We Work: a Project, and again in that works 2017 re-publication by Routledge.[15] The Brookings Institution published a case study of PacRep as one of several in social entrepreneurship in the 2008 book The Search for Social Entrepreneurship.[16]
In 2008, PacRep named Kenneth Kelleher as artistic director and Moorer as executive director.[17] For the 2009 season, Kelleher directed David Hare's The Blue Room, an adaptation of La Ronde,[18] along with Man of La Mancha, Hamlet and As You Like It.[19]
Between September 2021 and September 2022, 14 out of 20 board members of the PacRep resigned. Disagreements over construction resulted in a board motion to terminate Moorer as executive director, but a vote was never taken. After this motion, board members told a reporter they had been threatened with lawsuits and that this had led to the mass resignation; Moorer denied making any threats.[8]
At the request of the Carmel Cultural Commission, PacRep began producing shows in 1984 at the outdoor Forest Theater, staging Robinson Jeffers' Medea.[20] In 1990, the company reactivated the old Carmel Shakespeare Festival (CSF) of the 1940s, playing in repertory at the Forest, Golden Bough, and Circle theatres, amidst growing interest in the Shakespeare Authorship Question.[21][22] Since that time, the company has continued to stage productions at the Forest Theater every September and October, expanding into August in 2000, when it became the only professional theater company in residence at the Forest Theater.[23] CSF has the largest budget of any of the California Shakespeare festivals.[2] In 2004 PacRep's artistic director Stephen Moorer was the recipient of the "Award of Artistic Excellence for Distinguished Achievements in the Advancement of Shakespearean Drama" at the eighth annual Edward de Vere Studies Conference at Concordia University.[24]
Following the closure of the 50-year-old Children's Experimental Theater in 2011, the City of Carmel awarded the year-round lease of the indoor Forest Theater to PacRep for its educational program, the School of Dramatic Arts.[25][26] In early 2022, the city of Carmel entered into a lease with PacRep for the nonprofit to manage the venue for the next five years, with a five-year renewal option;[27] the company continues to mount its own productions there, alongside those of other arts organizations, and holds civic events.[28][29]
Some of the plays staged at the CSF include Romeo and Juliet (1991),[30] Henry V (1994),[31] Julius Caesar (1994),[31] The Taming of the Shrew (1995),[32] The Merchant of Venice (1995),[32] Cymbeline (1996),[33] Henry IV, Part 1 (1996),[34] Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1996),[35] Coriolanus (1997),[36] Antony and Cleopatra (1998),[37] Much Ado About Nothing (1998),[37] King Lear (1999),[38] The Merry Wives of Windsor (1999),[39] A Midsummer Night's Dream (2000[40] and 2007),[41] The Winter's Tale (2002),[42] Macbeth (2007),[41] Troilus and Cressida (2008), and The Comedy of Errors (2008).[43] In 1999 the CSF included a revival of Lee Blessing's Fortinbras;[38] a play set immediately following the events of Hamlet.[44]
In 1997 PacRep produced a revival of Jean Anouilh's rarely performed Ardèle.[45] According to theatre scholar Amnon Kabatchnik, "the first major revival of Volpone in the twenty-first century was produced by the Pacific Repertory Theatre" in September 2000.[46]
The company gained wider attention for its series of Shakespeare plays titled Royal Blood: The Rise and Fall of Kings. Over the course of four summers beginning in 2001, it presented all of Shakespeare's histories in chronological order.[47][48] This included the first staging in the United States of the play Edward III (2001); the potential authorship of the play by Shakespeare is a subject of scholarly debate.[49] PacRep also presented the first American production of Thomas of Woodstock in 2001; another play controversially suggested as being authored by Shakespeare.[50][51] The decision to stage these plays alongside Richard II led the Shakespeare Oxford Society to hold its 25th annual conference in Carmel, California, so that conference members could also attend performances of these rarely staged works.[22][52]
In 2003 PacRep continued its Royal Blood play series with Part 1 and Part 2 of Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy of plays.[53] That same year the company presented a revival of Euripides' Medea, which was the final production staged by director Joseph Chaikin before his death later that year.[54] Also in 2003, the company revived Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story;[55] a production that it repeated in 2004.[56] In 2008, PacRep premiered Curtain Call by Gary Goldstein, who had won the Hyperion Playwriting Competition; a national competition instituted by PacRep.[57][58] Some other plays produced by the company include Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (2006),[59] Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage (2012),[60] and Cyrano de Bergerac (2017).[61]
Musicals produced by the company include Oliver! (2002),[62] High School Musical on Stage!,[63] Fiddler on the Roof (2012),[64] The Full Monty (2014),[65] Heathers: The Musical (2016),[66] Shrek the Musical (2018),[67] Chicago (2019),[68] Mary Poppins (2022),[69] and The Addams Family (2023).[70] The company staged the comic opera The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan in 2015.[71]
In 2020 the second phase of a three million dollar upgrade to the Golden Bough Playhouse was begun.[72] In 2024 the newly renovated playhouse re-opened with a PacRep production of Selina Fillinger's farce POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive.[73] Other 2024 productions included the musical 9 to 5[74] and Kate Hamill's stage adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.[75]
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