Театр Round House празднует 50-летие: от уроков под деревом до профессиональной сцены

The legend of Round House Theatre started under a tree in Rockville. The story – as told to Bethesda Today by Danisha Crosby, a longtime Round House staff member who joined the theater in 1992 – goes that founder June Allen posted flyers around the neighborhood offering theater classes under a tree. “And enough kids showed up that she convinced the City of Rockville to actually let her offer some theater classes,” Crosby told Bethesda Today on Aug 18 at Round House Theatre’s main stage in Bethesda. From that auspicious start in 1970, Round House Theatre has grown from an educational theater program to a professional regional powerhouse, earning 253 Helen Hayes Award nominations and 60 wins while continuing to serve more than 5,000 students each year through its education programs. The theater company opens its 50th anniversary season on Sept. 9 with August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, co-produced with Olney Theatre Center. “We have a long history with August Wilson. We also have a long history with co-producing with Olney Theatre,” Round House Theater Artistic Director Ryan Rilette told Bethesda Today on Aug. 18. “So to do both of those things at the start of the 50th season feels like a real, a very Round House kind of thing.” June’s early educational theatre efforts were dubbed Street 70 after the year it began – 1970 – and the places where performers staged works: intersections and in shopping-center parking lots. By 1977, the organization had a permanent home in the former Bushey Drive Elementary School in Wheaton, a circular building that became Round House Theatre. “When I started with Round House—and it’s funny to explain to people, like, why Round House—but it was literally a round building,” Crosby said. “We laughingly talked about the fact that we did theater in a pie wedge.” Crosby recalled that during student matinees, a copy machine used by county employees above the theater was so loud that it could be heard by audiences. “When I think about how much we’ve grown up … I used to have to go upstairs and knock on the county door and be like, ‘Stop copying,’” Crosby said. “And now we’re here and we have the education center in downtown Silver Spring and our rehearsal space.” The theater’s rehearsal space and offices are in the Silver Spring Civic Building. In 1993, Round House began its transition from a county-run program into an independent nonprofit theater organization. “I think the county also realized we were outgrowing it being a good idea for us to be a department of the county,” Crosby said. “Everybody kind of sat down around the table and went, ‘This has outgrown being a county program.’” The organization has continued to grow during Rilette’s tenure, who is entering his 15th season at Round House. “When I got here, we were still about a $3 to $4 million company a year. We’re now a $10 million company a year,” Rilette said. “We are nominated and winning more awards than almost every theater in town.” Education has remained a central part of Round House and actor Derrick Truby is an example of it coming full circle: as a middle school student he attended Round House summer camp and this fall, he is returning as a professional actor in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. “If I could really summarize here, I think that the thing that I learned the most from Round House or the impact that it had on me was that it really, in a lot of ways, was a foundation to not only what work I do, but how to work,” Truby said. Now, Truby is rehearsing in the same building where some of Round House’s camps are being held. “What I can say is what I loved back then still exists now,” Truby said. “You have educators and children collaborating together to find spaces in the theatrical landscape that works for them, that they enjoy, that they want to gravitate to.” Round House’s education programs include its Teen Performance Company, a pre-professional program for high school students. “The entire company, the entire artistic ensemble, are high school students,” Crosby said. “So it has a high school director, a high school set designer, a high school dramaturg. All of them are high school students.” The students also work with professional mentors throughout the process. “All of our kids are paired with a professional mentor,” Crosby said. “There’s a grown-up going, ‘Hey, my job is to support your artistic vision and also teach you.’” Round House also works with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) through after-school programming and free student matinees. “We have this relatively new partnership where we’re going into elementary schools,” Crosby said. “We were at five schools last year. So we were at a different school, a different after-school program every day of the week last year, serving primarily community schools and schools with high FARMs rates, schools that have kids that really sort of need extra support.” For its anniversary season, Round House plans to offer 50 free events as part of its celebration. “We didn’t want to do it in a way that just felt like we were bringing out the biggest hits,” Rilette said. “We wanted to do something that was forward looking, but also honored the past.” Looking beyond the anniversary, Rilette said Round House’s next chapter does not necessarily involve becoming a larger theater. “It’s not about getting big for us,” Rilette said. “It’s about how do we work more efficiently and continue to do the kind of deep work that we’ve been doing?”