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.
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.
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'sThe 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]
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 by the 1990s.[23] In 2000, it became the only professional theater company in residence at the Forest Theater.[24] 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.[25]
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.[26][27] 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;[28] the company continues to mount its own productions there, alongside those of other arts organizations, and holds civic events.[29][30]
In 1997 PacRep produced a revival of Jean Anouilh's rarely performed Ardèle.[46] 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.[47]
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.[48][49] 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.[50] PacRep also presented the first American production of Thomas of Woodstock in 2001; another play controversially suggested as being authored by Shakespeare.[51][52] 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][53]
^Blum, Terry (January 2002). "Spotlight On Carmel: Stephen Moorer". Monterey County Theatre Alliance. Archived from the original on October 4, 2008. Retrieved July 20, 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
Evans, Nancy M.; Evans, Neil A. (1998). Monterey Peninsula Exploring. Worldview Associates Inc. ISBN9780963214331.
Hartley, Andrew James (2011). "Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance Spaces". In Streete, Adrian; Burnett, Mark Thornton; Wray, Ramona (eds.). The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN9780748635245.
Tumielewicz, P. J.; Lyons, Peg, eds. (2009). "Pacific Repertory Theatre". Summer Theatre Directory 2009: A National Guide to Summer Employment for Professionals and Students. Theatre Directories. ISBN978-0-933919-69-3.