Donna Blanchard

Donna Blanchard says she had always thought, ever since high school, that "there’s more to art for me than just performance and entertainment" — and she found it here in Hawaii.

It was the intimate, 100-seat Kumu Kahua Theatre, founded in 1971, at 46 Merchant St. in downtown Honolulu, which she joined in January as its managing director.

An award-winning actor, director and producer who has worked with theaters throughout the continental Midwest, Blanchard was brought in to help revive the theater financially after it stumbled in recent years during the worsened economy.

At the 136-seat Chicago Street Theatre in Valparaiso, Ind., where she had worked previously, she helped double its grant income, box office revenue and volunteer participation, and quadrupled its business partnerships during the 31⁄2 years she was there as its managing director.When she started, the audiences were often just 25 percent or less of capacity; when she left, almost every single performance of the 2009/2010 season was sold out. Her work with that theater prompted Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to name her a Distinguished Hoosier.

But it wasn’t just the prospect of turning around Kumu Kahua’s finances that lured her here. More important was that it is a "theater of place," meaning it focuses on stories set in Hawaii or the Pacific Rim, or on any topic written by a resident of Hawaii.

Blanchard said she became intrigued with "community story work" through the late American playwright Jo Carson, who, she said, was "one of these people who traveled around to communities and gathered stories and wrote plays, and then helped people produce those works within those communities."

With Carson as her role model, Blanchard said, "I started looking around at it, and tried to figure out how I could be a part of it."

She went on a job board for arts organizations, and not too long afterward was in touch with Jason Kanda, president of the Kumu Kahua Theatre board, and "it was a pretty quick process after that."

Blanchard, 47, graduated from Lowell High School in northwest Indiana, outside of Chicago, and has a bachelor’s in fine arts from the Professional Actors’ Conservatory of Wright State University, in Dayton, Ohio. She now lives in Kailua.

QUESTION: You were brought in at the beginning of this year to help rescue Kumu Kahua Theatre from a financial crisis, right?

ANSWER: Yeah, well, to not only rescue it but to build its stability and general health and run it for seasons to come.

Q: What was the nature of the crisis and how has it been going since you took over?

A: Well, the theater had received funding from the state, National Endowment for the Arts grants and the Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts, but in this economy, that money just isn’t there as much as it used to be. So little by little it had been disappearing and the theater just didn’t have the personnel or wherewithal to react to that.

This organization has always primarily focused on the art itself, and that never waned. The art was never made to suffer. They just realized that they were getting themselves into a financial situation that was untenable. So that was the crisis. And the community really came forward to help.

Q: What happened?

A: People donated to the theater. Literally, members of the community came forward and gave generous donations and ensured that the theater was able to pay its bills.

Q: What is the annual budget right now of the theater?

A: That’s all in flux at the moment. The budget that we are in currently is about $250,000. The budget for next year is $290,000.

Q: What’s the status of the legislative grants? Any more coming back that way for you?

A: There is no sign of that happening.

Q: Does the theater ever receive funding from the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs? That would seem to be an obvious source, but maybe not.

A: We have received funds from OHA when our shows are strictly Hawaiian-focused. That’s not always the case, as some of our plays focus on other peoples here.

Q: So where’s the new money coming from?

A: Grantors, sponsors, as well as corporate donations.

Q: And you’ve been having an easy time of that?

A: (Laughter) I wouldn’t say an easy time of it. You know, my theory of coming into this, my theory of arts organizations, is when you have a really good quality product, you just have to tell people about it. And then you let those people know that in order to continue this, we need your input.

Q: And the good quality product —  how would you describe it?

A: I describe it as “theater of place,” which is rarely found. That is what I set out looking for. I would have gone anywhere for it. It just so happened that I found it in Hawaii.

Q: So it’s unique …

A: It is. A couple of years ago I became very enthralled with this idea of theater of place, where theater is a tool that builds knowledge and understanding from the outside in, where people coming to see the shows are learning about the actual community in which they are seated at that moment. But it also is a tool for development for the artists and the volunteers who come together to create the work, because they are expressing themselves literally. So I really set out looking for a brick-and mortar theater wholly devoted to that, and I didn’t find it anywhere else. Just from my limited research, this is the only one I found in the United States.

Q: Who have you been working with to raise money? Any particular people or corporations that you would want to mention?

A: At this point there’s a lot pending for the next season, so I really can’t. But I can say we’ve been applying for every feasible grant available, and there are several different corporations that we been talking with as well.

One initiative that I’m working on is partnerships and in-kind sponsorships. We already have a couple of restaurants that we’re partnering with. We have what we call dining partners. Big City Diner, Grand Cafe & Bakery and Whole Foods are some of our dining partners. We’re also starting some partnerships with organizations that we’re just exchanging marketing opportunities with. One is our neighbor here, the Plaza Club, and the Honolulu Club.

But what I really want people to know is that this work is extraordinary, and the better we do it here, the more opportunities we’re going to have to share this work and — I honestly believe — make a better world through art.

Q: Since Kumu Kahua Theatre specializes in plays and themes about Hawaii, have you learned to speak pidgin yet?

A: (Laughter) I’ve learned to understand it when I hear it, and that was a learning curve. The first play that I read was Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s “Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre.” I read her poems on which her play is based, and I had to come into the theater and ask for some translations.

Q: Whom did you turn to for that?

A: Harry Wong, our artistic director.

Q: What does Harry as the artistic director do?

A: Everything that I don’t. (Laughter) He works with our play development committee to help to put together a slate of shows for the board to vote on each year to select. … He works with the directors and the production teams to make sure that our work is artistically brilliant. He directs at least one of the shows annually. He coordinates and organizes our playwriting contests that we have every year.

Q: What are the actual economics of a play?

A: Well, now that’s a short question with a very long answer. (Laughter) You have your upfront costs of buying materials to build a set, costumes, assuring we have props. … There’s also a percentage of administrative costs that goes into it. We’re looking in the neighborhood of about $45,000 per production.

Q: If you have a staff of only three, who are these people that come in and do this?

A: They are volunteers. Somebody just asked me the other day: “And where do you find your actors?” And I said, “There’s never any trouble finding actors.” (Laughter). And I think because of the caliber of the work that we do here, we tend to attract some really incredible talent.

You know, I moved out here never having even seen a show here. I’d never been west of Colorado before I came here. I came here because of the mission, the work of the theater, and because I did my research and learned about the community support for this work, and that told me this is a community I want to be involved in. And then I saw the first show and thought, “Wow, they’re talented, too. How wonderful!”

Q: How active are you in the production of these plays?

A: I’m an actor and a director myself, but I’m not involved in that capacity here. Harry directed “Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre” and asked me to attend one of the rehearsals and give him my artistic opinion, and I’m happy to do that, but I’m not involved as an artist actively.

Q: Are any of the plays in Hawaiian?

A: Not in our current season, but we are looking at adding … Do you know what our “Dark Night” series is?

Q: No.

A: OK. Well, in the theater vernacular, a dark night is any night that there’s nothing going on on the stage. And one of the things that strongly intrigued me about the organization is that it had this “Dark Night” series, which is an opportunity for artists to bring their work into the theater for a night or a weekend or two weekends.

Q: Kind of like “open mic night”?

A: It’s a little more formal than that. An artist needs to put together a proposal that the board looks at and determines which ones are going to be on the stage here. So we are looking at a series of Hawaiian-language plays to use as part of the “Dark Night” series.

Q: Are there people out there writing plays in Hawaiian?

A: Well, yeah, they have to be because Harry’s got some scripts. I don’t speak the language, so I haven’t delved into them … But these will be presented in Hawaiian.

Q: What’s the interaction with the University of Hawaii, or any of the colleges?

A: We work very actively with the UH, particularly in set design. Those students work with us for credits. And we’re extending that reach. … We’re building and strengthening relationships with other colleges and universities on the island as well.

Q: What have you got going for the next few months? Anything in particular you can mention?

A: Well, gosh, this weekend we’ve got the Maoli Film Festival here. We have one board member in particular who really did the legwork getting those films together. It fits very nicely with our mission. We really took on that project as part of the financial crisis. We use it as a fundraiser. That involvement started as a conversation about finding a way to support the theater. We could have the films here and we could charge people to see them and the theater would keep a percentage of those funds. It turned out to be just a perfect marriage.

Q: How many people came to see your plays last year?

A: About 4,000. And I can tell you that about 85 percent of our audience is residents.

Q: I’m surprised they’re not all, to tell you the truth.

A: Yeah, well, part of my mission is to bring more visitors into the theater. You know, … I went to Waikiki Beach for the first time last weekend — that’s like Vegas with a tan — a whole ’nother world. (Laughter)  But when I go on vacation, I want to go to the restaurant where the fishermen hang out. I don’t want to necessarily go to … Disney World. So when those type of people come here, we just need to figure out how to tell them there’s a theater here.

Even in our own neighborhood (downtown Honolulu) I constantly hear this: “I didn’t know there was a theater there.” So at this point we’re just really looking for people who know there’s a theater here and who feel it’s important and will help us spread the word about it.