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Kansas City Rep’s Branding Campaign Opens
Door to Wider Audience
Regional theatre changes its name to diminish its perceived
association with local university, helping to broaden audience and donor base
When the Missouri Repertory Theatre changed its name to the Kansas City Repertory Theatre for its 2004-05 season, it surprised many of the citizens of the Kansas City area, especially those who thought the theatre was located in St. Louis.
But that was the point of the theatre’s rebranding effort, says Bill Prenevost, the Rep’s managing director. Although it distanced the theatre from its roots at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) dating back to 1964, it was necessary to broaden its appeal and ripen its chances for expansion.
During the 1990s, Prenevost explains, most regional theatres were booming, but the Missouri Rep’s revenues were flat. “When I first came here [in 2000], I wondered about that a lot. There was no real reason,” he says. “It wasn’t as though there was new management or other changes that people didn’t like. It wasn’t poorly managed. There was no real smoking gun.”
Prenevost took a close look at the deeper issues. One of them turned out to be the theatre’s name. “In a subtle way, with our name, we were reinforcing the perception that the Missouri Rep was only for the University of Missouri-Kansas City [UMKC],” he says. “We wanted to get across that we were a part of the entire Kansas City metro area.”
Bridging the great divide
To a non-Kansas City native, a Kansas City-based theatre setting a goal to
be recognized as a part of Kansas City seems a little, well, under-ambitious.
But in Kansas City, that isn’t as straightforward as it would appear.
A state line runs through Kansas City, and though an astute tourist might
notice that the roads are in a little better shape on the Kansas side, and
the gas is just slightly cheaper on the Missouri side, the state line is virtually
invisible—to non-natives, that is.
To a Kansas City native that nearly undetectable state line is a great divide. A couple of years ago, the Kansas City Area Development Council launched a “One KC” campaign to convince local businesses that to the outside world there’s just one Kansas City, and that the Missouri businesses and the Kansas businesses needed to work together.
“We could have been a poster child for that campaign,” Prenevost says. “Ticket sales were about 50/50 Missouri and Kansas, but nearly all the donors came from Missouri. The Kansas City, Kansas, people didn’t see us as one of them.”
“For people who’ve moved here from somewhere else, the state line isn’t insurmountable. For the old-timers though, it really is a sort of mental barrier,” says Laura Muir, Kansas City Rep’s communications director. “Even worse, we surveyed people right here in K.C., and a surprising number of people assumed the Missouri Rep was in St. Louis, or even Branson.”
Says Prenevost, “It has been very hard to change these deeply entrenched perceptions of us, even though the reality hasn’t matched the perception for years. We have to be relentless about our branding efforts.”
Graduating from UMKC
Prenevost says the most formidable obstacle created by their old name was
the link to UMKC. Having the “Missouri Rep” holding productions
on a University of Missouri campus gave people the impression that the theatre
was a university theatre, which was not the case.
“It is hard for some of our benefactors on campus to realize that, although our association has brought us many benefits, it has some drawbacks, too,” Prenevost says. Although the University does partially fund the theatre, their that financial support is less than 20 percent of the theatre’s annual $6.3 million budget.
“Attracting donors is difficult when the perception is that we’re completely funded by the University,” Prenevost says. “And unfortunately, attracting an audience can be difficult, too. People assume the productions will be academic. In academia, that’s a compliment. To a theatre-going public, though, ‘academic’ translates to ‘dry’ and ‘stuffy.’ If the University wants us to rely less on its funding, it has to give us the room to build a bigger audience. And it’s hard to convince a larger audience that we’re not stuffy if we’ve got UMKC tattooed across our foreheads.”
In addition, the link to the University created the false assumption that the productions were student productions. Although the Rep continues to be the professional company-in-residence on the campus, it has been incorporated as a separate not-for-profit entity with its own board of trustees since 1979.
“We certainly draw on the talent of the dramatic arts department at the University—and we make a real effort to make sure that all students going through their MFA program gets at least one role in one of our productions,” says Prenevost. “But we’re not a training ground for young actors. The whole economic structure of a university theatre is different. They use a lot of free talent, perhaps with some paid actors sprinkled in. That hasn’t been the case here for years. We’re a LORT [League of Resident Theatres] contracted theatre. And that implies a certain standard that we strive to uphold.”
Expanding to a smaller venue
Although the rebranding efforts have been a key—even vital—element
in the Rep’s goals, other changes are afoot at Kansas City Rep.
Many theatres’ wish lists include a larger venue. The Rep wants to add a smaller one. The Helen F. Spencer Theatre on campus has 630 seats. “Some productions are just artistically better in a more intimate setting,” Prenevost says. “We put on six plays a year, and each runs a minimum of 24 performances. We’d like to eventually double the number of shows we produce. An additional, smaller venue could help us achieve both goals.”
As luck would have it, a major revitalization project is occurring in downtown Kansas City. Developers envision the city’s “Power and Light” district as a vibrant downtown entertainment scene. Most of the Power and Light redevelopment projects are expected to open in 2007. The opportunity to open a smaller venue, centrally located, and appealing to the audience the Rep was wooing—young, downtown professionals—sounded like a dream come true. The costs associated with such a move were more nightmarish than dreamlike, though.
But an opportunity came up that made a downtown venue not only possible but also realistic. H&R Block was building a large complex in the Power and Light district—one of the first big building projects scheduled to open. H&R Block wanted meeting facilities large enough, with 150 seats or so, to hold infrequent staff meetings. Kansas City Rep was able to arrange a deal to share the space and the construction costs.
“We asked them to upgrade the number of seats and to fulfill our technical requirements, and we just pay for the incremental costs,” Prenevost says. “It makes it affordable for us.” The new downtown stage, still unnamed, will seat 315 people. A $7 million capital campaign will soon be launched to help pay for the new theatre ($4.2 million), as well as to bolster the Rep’s endowment.
In preparation for the new stage and increased production schedule, the Rep has begun producing plays at smaller, rented venues, such as Kansas City’s 250-seat Union Station stage. “The expansion is being done in a gradual way, so it should be less stressful financially and operationally,” Prenevost says.
Kansas City Rep currently employs nearly 250 artists, technicians and administrators. There are no plans to increase the size of the staff when the new theatre is opened. “We don’t have the resources to reward our employees financially for making it through the hard work,” Prenevost sighs. “Luckily, we’ve got a really great staff, and they’re excited about the changes. Because I can’t pretend it’s not going to be more work. I can only hope it’s worth it.”
Critics target ‘outsiders’
As the Rep slowly succeeds in changing the entrenched perceptions it feels
hindered its growth, it also faces criticism for making changes that Prenevost
says were in the works or occurring for years.
For instance, some locals complain that under Artistic Director Peter Altman, who came to the Rep in 1999, and Prenevost, who arrived the following year, more and more roles are going to actors outside Kansas City. Prenevost says that although they do cast nationally, at least half the cast of most shows—and all of their annual production of “A Christmas Carol”—comes from the Kansas City area.
“We have a nice solid core of equity actors in K.C.,” Prenevost says. “Even more than reside in St. Louis. It’s always a balancing act. We try to balance local talent and outside talent, and we try to nurture local talent without compromising our artistic integrity. We’re the only LORT theatre in K.C., so we have certain production and equity requirements that set us apart.”
Prenevost says the trend toward casting outside the area was in place before he and Altman arrived. The previous managing director and artistic director retired at about the same time. “Our former leadership was much more entrenched in the University than Peter or me,” Prenevost says. “But it was a planned transition, not a coup. We may have ventured a little further down that path—and possibly a little faster—than our predecessors, but the direction hasn’t changed as much as people assume.”
A less academic tone
“I think some long-time subscribers may say—and I think it’s
fair—that our choice of productions is much less academic,” Prenevost
says. “And Peter has introduced musical theatre to the Rep.” They
have also staged more premier productions (three during the 2004-05 season)
and have begun collaborating on co-productions of expensive shows, like the
recent staging of “The Voysey Inheritance” with San Francisco’s
ACT.
The theatre is now being marketed as Major League PlayMaking. “Kansas City is a big sports town,” explains Prenevost. “What we want people to see is that we’re the NFL of theatre. You can expect to see a particular level of playing when you go to an NFL game. You can expect to see a particular production quality when you come here. Not every performance will be a winner for every member of the audience, but they can know that we’ll meet certain standards every time.”
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