Just Off Broadway closing for construction

The lights are out at Just Off Broadway Theatre in preparation for a grand reopening in April 2011 with an enlarged lobby, equity standard dressing rooms, a second performance/event space and a new management philosophy. This week the KCMO Board of Parks Commissioners approved a lease extension with JOBTA until 2016. During that meeting, Commissioner Stackhouse expressed her hope that the Parks Department would obtain a qualified contractor for the planned improvements to the Theatre. The Board of JOBTA is in the process of preparing for the addition of an Executive Director for theatre operations and fund raising.

In the 1990s, Terry Dopson, then Executive Director of the Parks Department, began conversations with several theatrical companies that had no quality theatre available for their performances. He proposed that the Parks Department build a theatre in their storage facility at 3051 Central. When that facility burned, the department took the insurance money and built the existing Just Off Broadway Theatre within the still standing stone walls of that building. Mr. Dopson and the Parks Department supported the formation of the Just Off Broadway Theatre Association to operate the theatre.

The first performances were held in 2000. In the next ten years, JOBTA has served as a theatre venue for more than sixty performing arts and film companies who have produced almost 200 shows and 1000 performances for audiences numbering more than 40,000.

This year the Board of Just Off Broadway Theatre Association, under the guidance of Bob Rohlf, former executive director of Starlight Theatre, has developed a new Strategic Plan. When the lights go up next April, that plan will be implemented in a revitalized and expanded theatre.


more at Just Off Broadway