Curtain Raiser

WHEN THE HOUSE LIGHTS DIM this fall at the Oklahoma City Repertory Theater, audiences can expect to encounter work that might have felt alien to the local performing arts landscape just a few years ago.

Under the vision of its new thirty-seven-year-old artistic director Kelly Kerwin, a Yale School of Drama grad from Missouri who took on the role in July 2021, the theater that began two decades earlier is undergoing something of a revolution in the stories it tells and how it tells them.

The biggest change at OKC Rep is a hybrid model for bringing shows to the stage. In addition to producing plays in-house, similar to how most regional theaters operate, it’s also presenting groundbreaking work from outside companies and artists.

“It’s essentially a touring show, but not your big Broadway touring show,” Kerwin says of these external productions. “It’s a smaller, oftentimes more experimental, outside-the-box show.”

One such performance is the upcoming Under the Radar: On the Road, a collaboration with The Public Theater in New York City, where Kerwin served as a former associate producer. Presented in partnership with Oklahoma Contemporary at its Te Ata Theater on January 26–29, 2023, the traveling version of the New York company’s Under the Radar Festival will bring up-and-coming voices from the bleeding edge of contemporary theater to the middle of the country.

“We want to make more avant garde happen in the heartland,” Kerwin says.

In addition to the new model, Kerwin is also instituting a sliding scale admission system with a pay-what-you-can option, open to everyone.

“I think we’re doing some of the highest quality theater in the state of Oklahoma, and I don’t think that should only be for people who can afford it,” she says. “What’s the point of coming to middle America if you’re only going to make shows for the rich people here?”

Oklahoma City Repertory Theater will begin the 2022–2023 season on September 29, 2022. okcrep.org