Seven years ago, Kumu Kahua Theatre considered shutting the doors and darkening its stage as it grappled with financial problems caused by the withdrawal of state funding. Now, the lights are burning brightly again.

“The theater is in a much healthier place now,” said Donna Blanchard, Kumu Kahua’s managing director, who was recruited here from Indiana in 2012 to rebuild and stabilize the theater’s finances. “We’ve ended our last two seasons in the black.”

KUMU KAHUA punctuates its season of performances with its annual Kala-Bash fundraiser today, with a goal of raising $10,000 towards its annual $350,000 budget.

“It’s our one and only fundraising event for the year,” Blanchard said.

After a few years being held elsewhere in Chinatown while renovations took place inside the theater facility, which is housed inside a stately former post office building constructed in 1871, the event has returned to Kumu Kahua’s grounds on Merchant Street. Some activities will take place in the small park fronting the facility.

The evening features Mika Kane, an ukulele virtuoso recently credited with giving the first “classical” ukulele recital at the University of Hawaii-Manoa as part of his music degree requirements, and Po’ai Lincoln, a chanter and singer who has spoken about the history of Hawaiian music.

“Several people brought up that they would really love to hear Hawaiian music,” Blanchard said.

Inside the theater, there will be a silent auction of items like clothing and meals from local businesses, as well as bid-attractors such as airline tickets from Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines.

Kume Kahua, with its original, locally written plays about Hawaii and Polynesia and the lives lived in this region – is “so unique and so valuable,” Blanchard said. She began to right the ship fairly soon after her arrival, and credits Kumu Kahua’s board and staff with bringing the theater back to solvency, with an emphasis on its mission.

“I haven’t found any other theaters devoted to communities with a specific geography,” Blanchard noted.

NEXT UP for the theater is its 49th season, which opens with a Aug. 22 premiere of “Ua Pau (It is Finished, Over, Destroyed),” the third and final play in celebrated Hawaii playwright Alani Apio’s “Kamau” trilogy about a family that loses its fishing grounds to hotel development and then must face the future working in the tourist industry.

The first two plays in the trilogy – “Kamau (To Perservere)” and “Kamau A‘e (Carrying Forward)” – “have been wildly popular,” Blanchard observed. “People have been waiting for the third installment.”

She is also looking ahead to a 50th season, which will offer something truly remarkable for a theater that just a few years ago was on the verge of closing – free tickets (with a reservation fee) for subscribers, with 20 tickets at each show also available free at the door.

Blanchard said the theater is also hoping to take its plays to the neighbor islands. “We’ve been taking shows to Maui every year, but when we lost support from the city and the state, they stopped taking shows to Lanai, Kauai and the Big Island,” she said. “We want to get back to those islands. We’re working on raising $600,000 to make that happen.”

Kumu Kahua’s artistic director Harry Wong is working with local, “beloved” playwrights to develop five plays for the 50th season. “Each one will represent one decade that we’ve been here,” Blanchard said.

“The organization opened in ’71, so we’ll represent all five decades.”

KALA-BASH 2019

Kumu Kahua Theatre’s annual fundraiser

>> Where: 46 Merchant St.

>> When: 6-8:30 p.m. (VIP entry 5:30 p.m.) today

>> Cost: $60 ($75 VIP)

>> Info: kumukahua.org