Interview with Aimee Hayes, Managing Director of the Southern Rep:

First, three questions about the event itself:

1. Was your physical plant (theatre) damaged by Katrina? Has it been rebuilt, and if so, how was this financed?

Southern Rep was not damaged in Katrina. However they did not know this right away and had a very scary time of it waiting when Canal place caught on fire, and people looting all but destroyed it. They didn’t know until they came back whether it had burnt down. The Artistic Director came back in October to see what had happened and subsequently the Southern Rep worked out of Atlanta and Miami to do part of the season in Miami, a partner in the National New Play Network, Miami’s New Theatre, premiered in April 2006, Miami herald voted it best new play. Jan 17 2007 it premiered at the Southern Rep.

2. Did your organization hold any specific events directly after the event to encourage rebuilding of physical and/or social structures?

They held a welcome back party where they invited all the subscribers and friends of the theatre, and because they had no shows they rolled over the subscriptions for the last season to this one.

3. How did the disaster affect your patron base?

They went through their mail service, and found that due to K they had lost 1/5 of the people on their members' list. Aimee says this is a rolling phenomenon and she expects the list to go up and down as it regularly does, though it was hit hard by K as so many people left town.

And a few questions about post-K regeneration:

1. How has your programme of events changed since Katrina? Is there a new focus in your work at all?

Southern Rep commissioned 2 plays after the storm: worked with John Bigunet, first guest columnist for the NY times after K and wrote a great many columns for them. The AD at Southern Rep, Ryan Rilette, encouraged him to write about Katrina, see http://www.southernrep.com/news_20070325.php for how wildly successful it was. It won the National New Play network's prize that year, the play is called “Rising Water” and it ran this past spring, and was the theatre’s best selling play in their theatre's history.

Approached by, his plays are always socially centre, issue based plays, Joe Sutton, Catherine Silloux, Tirell McCraney, the original idea was that they would work on 3 separate stories that would deal with the aftermath whereas Rising Water was during, but The Breach was given several prestigious grants, the ideas that they would do readings of this along with gulf coast, they did 5 readings in dec and January of this last year, just had a reading of it at the Alliance in Atlanta and the Arena Stage in DC, and it was just picked up by the Seattle rep, but the world premiere of the show will be at Southern Rep. Rising water is being picked up by lots of theatres. 1sth show of 0607 season; with “Callie’s Tally” by Betsy Howie. And, it was the theatre's 20^th anniversary last year.

New Plays for New Orleans is their mission, and has been since Ryan Rilette took over. He came in and was the founder and AD of a theatre in NY, had a lot of experience doing New Work, and when he first came they focused on southern voices, so at their theatre they only do plays classed as world premiere or at least a southern premiere. This season they are doing Doubt, because there is a tour of it going on, and the major theatres in NOLA where it was supposed to be on but the theatre was destroyed, so the Southern Rep were given the rights. (one positive thing coming out of K!)

[I asked if the closing of the big theatres had caused an influx of those theatres' audiences on SR's audience but she says that the Big theatre in town was the Saenger, but it was never really the competition as SR focuses on new writing and Saenger used to do major musicals and big shows like that, drawing a different audience base.]

TCG ranks them as tier 2, almost tier 3 company.

2. Has theatre attendance bounced back? How do numbers compare to before the event?

Numbers are completely skewed; Rising Water was biggest hit in history, and their "city series" has been very successful too. One show which may tie in to the Storyville connection although the story is not set there, “the last madam” is the story of how in the 50s, there was the last madam of a local establishment...the play was written by a local playwright and local director, ran for 8 weeks and was a huge huge hit.

Aimee said that "People have really turned to the arts for solace, that’s a big word but they have turned to them for distraction. It’s really a grind dealing with insurance companies and crooked politicians, people want to see NOLA and they want to remember, and they want to get away. The Rabbi District Variety Show, and that is my contribution to getting it away for a while." And note that this will actually be part of ATHE's productions on the 28^th or 27^th. Something going on that may be of interest: Vote Lear: a theatrical manifesto, by the same person who wrote "the last madam." He really things Lear is the perfect play to use for where NOLA is right now.

3. Is there anything special that your theatre is doing/has done since Katrina that ATHE should know about? What do you want the larger theater base to know about your current work?

The Lieutenant of Inishmore: we’re doing something ridiculous and there were jokes and the special effects guy from the NY run is coming, anything with a live cat has got to draw interest...

Mainly, what questions do you want the rest of us to be asking (of you/ourselves?) What do you want us to take back to the classroom/stage?

One thing that should be said in a conversation about SR is that after the hurricane, Ryan Rilette had to let go of everybody. Aimee says, we’re not the kind of company who can afford to hold on to people without selling any tickets so Ryan ran the company by himself for 9-10 months, one MD stayed 5 months and then they got Aimee. Tech is back, lighting, but they are running on a skeleton crew and only very slowly coming back to the number of staff they used to have (they used to have development, marketing, all that kind of staff, now they are just a few interns and Aimee and Ryan with the technical folk back bit by bit).

The University, Tulane let all of its adjunct professors go, people in every field were laid off, and it was a very difficult time for professionals as many just outright lost their jobs.

In terms of the theatre's Future goals,:a lot of people moving here, well, a small trickle of activist-minded people are moving to NOLA, wanting to do something to help the city, getting the work commissioned and touring it. Southern Rep is part of the National New Play network, look at website www.nnpn.org, how they work is that "a tree doesn’t fall in a forest and no one hears it...we don't want plays to open in Oklahoma, do one show, and never be heard of again." That's why they operate under the "rolling world premiere," we’re always sharing plays with each other, Magic Theatre, Wooly Mammoth, Playwright Theare in NJ, mixed blood in Minneapolis, a great mix. get our work done, get local playwrights involved, conference is next weekend. it was born in 1999, 25 plays, 60 productions, great for productions. sunnekn living room, one of our nntn premiere there, etc.

For playwrights: check out the Marin theatre 2 playwriting awards with a cash award. in CA.

We're welcome to go and check them out when we visit; I can get back in touch with Aimee with people's further questions or to elaborate on anything of interest above, or if anyone would like to meet her when we're in NOLA.

Rock on.