On September 16 the Journeymen Theater Company will be the first theater group to take the stage in the newly remodeled and expanded Just Off Broadway Theater. The Journeymen are one of the many homeless theater companies in Kansas City.
This is where the Just Off Broadway Theater comes in.
“Our mission,” says Harold Kierns, President of the theater, “is to assist theater groups to do productions of a quality they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.”
In 1910, the large stone walls at 3051 Penn Valley Park housed the horse stables for the Kansas City, Missouri police dept. By the time the 90’s rolled around the space was empty and the City began to discuss turning the building into a theater. In 1996, before this idea could come to fruition, the building burnt down.
Fortunately for theaters like the Journeymen, the theater project had a strong advocate. Terry Dobson, who was the Executive Director of the Kansas City Mo Parks and Recreation Department in 1996, decided to carry out the idea of turning the address into a theater and used the insurance money to build a proper facility for this.
Along with the Parks and Recreation department the just Off Broadway Theater Association has developed a vision for the space. This vision includes “Enhancing the Kansas City arts community, while also providing flexible and adaptable space for arts organizations, artists and other community entities”
When the doors to the JOBT opened officially in 2000, the theater was a very modest site. A black box theater with no real lobby, modest bathrooms and a small ticket window made up the front of the house. There wasn’t really such a thing as backstage. The actors had a small room to get ready but no private bathrooms they had to share the ones up front with guests.
To those who love the theater like Kierns there was always something special about the place.
“We are the only theater in town with stone walls and a grassy mall.” Says Kierns
When you speak about the reason the JOBT closed its doors last August don’t make the mistake of calling it remodeling. Kierns will be quick to correct you by explaining it is actually a “completion project.”
As far as those involved with the JOBTA are concerned the project was never completed in 2000 but they had to make do with the funding that was available at the time.
10 years later, a city TIF fund has provided 900,000 dollars to the completion project and the city has kicked in another 120,000.
What will over a million dollars bring to the theater?
Kierns says that the JOBT wanted four things from the project: a bigger lobby, additional work and storage areas, a second event space and dressing rooms that met Actor’s Equity standards. All of this and the board wanted to make sure those stone walls and the grassy mall were preserved.
Once all of these changes are made, the theater is sure to have a different feel but the mission of the theater will remain .
Kierns says the JOBT wants to still provide opportunities for those theaters companies but we also want to improve the quality of what they have to work with.
One way the theater plans to do this is to change a few policies.
In the past when a theater company had rented the space they would receive the keys to the building and be in charge of everything from the first day of rehearsal to the final bow of the performance. The theater companies were responsible for box office, concessions and general cleaning and housekeeping of the facility.
The result of this policy was what Kierns calls “variations in quality”.
The completed JOBT will no longer be handed over for months at a time to visiting theater companies. Instead the theater’s board will be in charge of making sure the box office is being ran, concessions are available and the theater itself is clean and ready for show time.
In keeping with the new theater this will help to improve the quality of the productions for both the theater companies, who will no longer have to worry about these details, and for the patrons, who will receive consistency when they attend shows at the JOBT.
“What’s new,” says Kierns, “is this is a collaboration between the JOBT and the theater company.”
It seems that there are many theater companies in Kansas City who are ready to begin collaborating with JOBT. Kierns says the first four months after the theater opens are set.
The theater will be dark for another five months but when the lights finally do come back up lets hope the homeless theater companies of Kansas City find their way back to a more inviting space.
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