1. History

2. Mission

3. Productions

4. Achievements

5. References

6. External links

Kitchen Theatre Company (KTC) is a non-profit professional theater company in Ithaca, New York that focuses on making “bold, intimate, and engaging"^[1] theater. The Kitchen was founded in 1991^[2] and is now in its 27th season. KTC is a member of the Theatre Communications Group and operates under a Small Professional Theater contract with the Actors’ Equity Association.

History

Kitchen Theatre Company was the dream of a group of talented and determined theater artists. In 1991, they created a place where they could work together and hone their craft. Led by Matt Tauber and Tim O'Brien, the Kitchen Theatre Company’s productions were infused with the high energy and drive of hungry young artists setting out to change the world. For the fourth through the sixth seasons, Norm Johnson, Jr. took up the artistic reins. Norm championed the challenging and difficult over easy entertainment.

KTC resided at the Clinton House from 1995 to 2009. In 2010, Kitchen Theatre Company (KTC) moved to 417 W. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street, making history by becoming the first theater company in Ithaca to own its own location. The completion of the building represented the culmination of a dream of Kitchen Theatre Company staff and board. The Campaign for a Bold, New Space, led by co-chairs Percy Browning, KTC Past Board President, and Greg Hartz, CEO Tompkins Trust Company, along with KTC Artistic Director Emerita, Rachel Lampert and Managing Director, Stephen Nunley, successfully raised $1.2M to construct a LEED-certified green building that includes a 99-seat thrust stage space, dressing rooms, green room, scene shop, inner lobby, outer lobby/art gallery, hospitality bar, box office, and a striking glass entranceway called "the beacon" that welcomes all to the Kitchen's new home.

Artistic Director Emerita Rachel Lampert led the company from 1997 to 2017. Rachel’s passion and experience in creating new works brought the artistic quality and funding to new levels. Along the way, she shared her own theatre adventures, used the theatre in exciting new ways, engaged underserved audiences and gave younger artists, especially women, many opportunities including early career directorial assignments to Wendy Dann, Michele Minnick and Katie Pearl and produced new works by Darian Dauchan, Wendy Dann and Brian Dykstra.

Lampert retired at the end of the 2016-2017 season, and M. Bevin O’Gara took the helm as the company’s new Producing Artistic Director. O’Gara came to the Kitchen from Boston, where she was Associate Producer at the Huntington Theatre and directed productions throughout the Boston area.

Mission

The Kitchen’s mission statement says that:

In its intimate performance space, Kitchen Theatre Company (KTC) creates professional theater that challenges the intellect, excites the imagination, informs and entertains. KTC nurtures a community of diverse artists and brings excellent art to the community and beyond.

Productions

Production highlights include:

• Rob Ackerman’s play Call Me Waldo premiered at the KTC in January 2012 and was produced later the same year in NYC by the Working Theatre.^[3]
• Kitchen Theatre Artistic Director Rachel Lampert and composer Larry Pressgrove (music director, title of show) have written five musicals together, all of which premiered at the Kitchen Theatre.^[4] Their musical The Angle of the Sun premiered at the Kitchen and was then presented at the New York Musical Theatre Festival.^[5]
• Rachel Lampert's play The Soup Comes Last premiered at the Kitchen and then moved to the 59e59th street theater.^[6] Her play Precious Nonsense premiered at the Kitchen and had its second production at Circle Bar-B Dinner Theater in Santa Barbara, CA.^[7]
• Four new plays by Brian Dykstra have had their first full productions at the Kitchen Theatre Company: Brian Dykstra Selling Out (2012)The Two of You (2009), A Play on Words (2010, then played at 59E59 Street Theatres in the America’s Off Broadway Festival) and Strangerhorse (2007).^[8]
• The Drunken City by Adam Bock was commissioned by the KTC and had its world premiere in 2005.The New York City premiere was in 2008 at Playwrights Horizons.^[9]
• First productions of plays by Rachel Axler (Archaeology, 2009^[10]) and Tanya Barfield (Pecan Tan, 2005^[11]).

Achievements

• 2014 Best Theatre Company (Best of Ithaca 2014).^[12]
• 2011 Best Theatre Company (Best of Ithaca 2011).^[13]
• 2008 Syracuse Live Theater Award, Best Production of the Summer Season (Souvenir by Stephen Temperley, directed by Sara Lampert Hoover^[14]).
• Since 2007, the Kitchen Theatre Company has received operating support from the Shubert Organization,^[15] a national foundation dedicated to sustaining and advancing the live performing arts in the United States.
• 2006 Best Small Business of the Year Award, Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce.^[16] The Kitchen was the first not-for-profit recipient of this award.
• 2005 Syracuse Live Theatre Award, Best Actor in a Season (Karl Gregory in Fully Committed by Becky Mode^[17]).
• 2005 Syracuse Live Theater Award, Best Actress of the Summer Season (Rachel Lampert in The Soup Comes Last^[18]).

References

External links

• Official website
• Facebook
• [https://twitter.com/KitchenTheatre Twitter]
• Blog

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