With a population of roughly 16,000, Corinth, Miss., might seem like a peculiar place to start a professional theatre organization.
This train of thought is exactly what Patrick Hudson, managing director of the Corinth Area Arts Council and producing artistic director for the Mississippi Repertory Theatre, has actively tried to challenge.
The Mississippi Repertory Theatre, based out of the Coliseum Civic Center in Corinth, is a professional theater on a journey to share classic and modern plays in towns across the state.
Hudson started the Mississippi Repertory Theatre after witnessing the impact that regional theater can have in a small town.
“I spent a year at a regional theater in Virginia, in a town that’s the size of Water Valley. You’d miss it if you didn’t look up,” Hudson said. “This theater employs 156 people full-time year-round, and they have another 200 part-time employees. It made me realize it is possible to grow professional arts organizations without being in New York City, Atlanta or Memphis.”
The Mississippi Repertory Theatre’s most recent production was a regional tour of the classic “Barefoot in the Park” by playwright Neil Simon. Premiering on Broadway in 1963, the romantic comedy ultimately found its way to cities in Mississippi including Corinth, New Albany, Ripley and Oxford.
Unfortunately, the latter two productions were canceled due to low turnout.
According to Hudson, theater dies when people don’t have access to it.
“When all you see is a (bad) community theater production of ‘Hamlet’ you don’t want to go see any more Shakespeare. It doesn’t inspire you anymore and then you just block that part of culture,” Hudson said. “That’s how Mississippians get locked into that closed-minded, unwilling-to-think outside-of-the-box mentality. It’s because they’re not given the opportunities to be exposed to that culture.”
One of the overarching goals in creating the Mississippi Repertory Theatre was to highlight the performance arts professionals in Mississippi that otherwise don’t receive many resources and opportunities.
Although Mississippi has a thriving arts culture when it comes to music like the blues, Hudson explained that the musical accomplishments of the state often overshadow other kinds of performance art, leaving much untapped potential.
“I love the whole music culture of Mississippi but the performing arts don’t get enough praise,” Hudson said. “Leontyne Price, the famous opera singer, is one of the first famous and one of the first famous Black opera singers in the world. She is from Mississippi, and a small town in Mississippi at that.”
The long-term goal is to have the Corinth-based program gain national recognition as a member of the Legion of Resident Theatres, a professional regional theater association that provides actors with benefits, such as a living wage and access to other professional plays and playwrights.
“There are 33 regional theaters in the country right now that are recognized as true regional theaters and to join that league is hard,” Hudson said. “It’s so hard to get there because they can’t afford to pay salaries. So we’re experimenting not only with starting a theater in Mississippi and starting in a small town, but we’re also experimenting with how we can get a theater off the ground in a nontraditional sense.”
Additionally, upon joining the Legion of Resident Theatres, actors from other regions who are members of the Actors Equity Association would be able to work for the Mississippi Repertory Theatre, bring their own artistic experiences and cultures to Mississippi and expand upon the state’s collective artistic scene. Furthermore, with the Mississippi Repertory Theatre’s focus on Mississippi playwrights, joining LORT would give professional Actors Equity Association actors exposure to all of the creative genius Mississippi has to offer.
While the tour of “Barefoot in the Park” has come to an end, the Mississippi Repertory Theatre is getting ready to get on the stage again with the play “Kentucky Spring.” Being the second company to ever perform this piece, they’re working to expand upon and inspire the creative expeditions of other small Mississippi communities.
The Mississippi Repertory Theatre also has plans to welcome some new, local playwrights into the fold.
“We’re working with some playwrights right now that are Mississippi playwrights,” Hudson said. “That’s how their shows get on a national level and that’s how they get published and become recognizable.”
For more information on the Mississippi Repertory Theatre, you can visit their website here.
