OUR STORY

1976

Producing Director Ron Himes, an undergrad at Washington University in St. Louis founded the Phoenix Theatre Troupe (named later The St. Louis Black Repertory Company) taking The Troupe on the road and touring college campuses, community centers, and art and theatre festivals.

1970s

The Black Rep creates its award-winning Education and Community Program that is still maintained today.

The program includes classes and workshops for adults and youth, touring productions, a Summer Performing Arts Program, a Teen Tech Program, and Professional Fellowships, which create opportunities for youth with a love and talent for theatre to hone their craft and discover their personal talent. 

The Company’s fellowship is also created, which supports the transition from academia to a career in the theatre for recent college graduates and young theatre professionals. Alumni of The Black Rep Professional Fellowship Program are now working in arts organizations across the country and the world.

1980

After drawing large crowds and support, The Company takes up residence in St. Louis in the former Greeley Presbyterian Church’s sanctuary, renovating the interior into its first home, The 23rd Street Theatre, fondly dubbed The Miracle on 23rd Street.

1980s

The Company produces six months of theatre and begans to hire guest actors, directors, designers, and choreographers locally and nationally to work with its resident acting company. The Company also produces six months of dance with its resident dance company and soon begins to present regional dance companies, as well as productions and/or presentations of spoken word, music and independent film series. Later in the ’80s, the focus is narrowed to producing theatre.

1986

The Company becomes the only African-American theatre in the Midwest to operate under contract with the Actor’s Equity Association, guaranteeing union wages to its actors and stage managers.

1990s

The decade brought many honors and accolades including Ron Himes receiving The Better Family Life’s Creative Artist Award (1997); an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Missouri — St. Louis (1993), and from Washington University (1997); and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Life and Legacy Award from the National Pan-Hellenic Alumni Council (1997). The Ron Himes Scholarship Fund was established in 1993 at Webster University in St. Louis.

1991

After a multimillion-dollar renovation, The Company moves into the former First Congregation Church building, located in the heart of the Grand Center arts and education district in the St. Louis Midtown area. The church is renamed as the Grandel Square Theatre. 

2003

The Black Rep began performing one production a season and in 2013 began performing three main stage productions in the 656-seat Edison Theater on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, producing quality professional dramas, comedies and musicals by primarily African-American and playwrights from throughout the African Diaspora.

2017

Ron Himes is awarded The Larry Leon Hamlin Producer Award at the National Black Theatre Festival, an award that recognizes the great contributions made by producers to the American Theatre and the entertainment industry.

2019

In January 2019, “Canfield Drive,” a portrait of two reporters with opposing viewpoints in Ferguson, MO, following the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown, premiered to sold-out audiences in St. Louis and travelled to the National Black Theatre Festival in August of that year.

2020

At the opening of “Two Trains Running,” The Black Rep is presented with the August Wilson American Century Cycle Award, honoring companies that have staged all 10 of Wilson’s works. With that production The Company has now produced seven of the plays in chronological order, three of which have completed the cycle twice.

In late 2020 The Black Rep was among the close to 100 Black theatres across the country to receive support from THE BLACK SEED - a first-of-its-kind national strategic initiative focused on creating impact for Black theatre institutions, made possible by a lead gift of $5 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with support from major donors - Bloomberg Philanthropies, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and the New York Community Trust.

The Black Rep and the Nebraska Repertory Theatre, created a partnership — #realchange. Events have featured streamed performances as well as conversations with actors, scholars, activists, and audience members.

2021

The Black Rep intends to emerge from the pandemic with work that continues to celebrate the rich canon of African American literature for the American stage while continuing to add to it with new, contemporary work by new voices.