A year ago this October, we stepped into the spotlight under a new name that encompasses everything we do as an organization. We chose Theatre 605 because we take our mission to tell stories and change lives to every corner of South Dakota. Our work has long reached far beyond the little theatre in the woods where it began, and we are so proud to have showcased that over the last year as Theatre 605.
Since 1946, when Dr. Warren M. “Doc” Lee of the University of South Dakota first brought professional theatre to the Black Hills, this nonprofit has carried a simple conviction into every corner of the state: that theatre is not a luxury reserved for a few, but a way for communities to gather, for young people to find their voices, and for all of us to recognize ourselves in one another’s stories. As we celebrate the last year, we thought we’d show you how Theatre 605 shows up for South Dakota, and why your support is what makes it possible.
We show up as you’ve always known us. One thing that has never changed is that the Black Hills Playhouse didn’t go anywhere. When we first announced our name change, we reminded patrons, “You’ve known us all along,” and over the last year, that has remained a steadfast truth. This summer, the Black Hills Playhouse marked its 80th season with 250 Years and Counting, four plays presented in honor of America’s Semiquincentennial. As the only professional theatre in South Dakota and one of the oldest summer stock theatres in the country, the Playhouse is a cultural landmark that welcomes visitors from across the nation into Custer State Park and offers South Dakotans a professional stage of their own. It is also a place where careers are built. Each season, actors, designers, and technicians selected through nationwide auditions come from across the United States to live, rehearse, and perform among the pines.
We show up in your hometown. For more than 25 years, Theatre 605 Tours has sent teams of professional actor/directors down county roads and across the prairie to spend a week bringing plays to life in communities large and small. This year alone, they have visited more than 40 communities, with more still to come. In each town, our artists cast anywhere from 20 to 55 local students, kindergarten through high school, in a full musical with costumes, lights, set, and sound. By the end of the week, those children take the stage in front of the parents, grandparents, teachers, and neighbors who have watched them grow up.
We show up by meeting people where they are. This guides Expanding Stage in Sioux Falls, where, in partnership with DakotAbilities, our teaching artists adapt every element of a production so that performers of all ages and abilities can shine. Jen Luke, Theatre 605’s Artistic Director of educational programming, shared, “Shivers! really spoke to us because of the way Roberta’s story looks at what it means to be different. Our Expanding Stage actors have a wide range of support needs, and some are non-verbal, use wheelchairs, or need extra support onstage. We know firsthand that being different doesn’t mean being less. We love that this play gives us a chance to explore that message with our actors while celebrating what makes each of them unique.”
We show up for the next generation. This summer, Theatre 605 Jr. Camps celebrated its tenth anniversary by moving to a new home on the University of South Dakota campus in Vermillion. This was an exciting change, bringing nearly 90 campers back to the very university where Doc Lee’s dream first took root. For one week, students worked in a professional theatre facility alongside a wider circle of working artists, learning lines and choreography, running the technical side of the show, and discovering the confidence that comes from building something together from the first read-through to the final bow.
What moves us most is how these programs connect throughout the years and across the state. We have watched children who first stepped onstage during a Tours residency in their own town go on to become Jr. campers, and then return as members of our professional summer company at the Black Hills Playhouse.
None of this happens by accident. Theatre 605 is a nonprofit, and while ticket sales and program fees carry part of the load, our mission and impact are sustained by the generosity of donors, partners, and grant funders. A gift to Theatre 605 travels further than you might imagine: it helps send a touring team to a town two hundred miles from the nearest stage, opens camp up to a young person who could not afford the opportunity otherwise, keeps an inclusive program welcoming to everyone who wants to take part, and preserves a historic playhouse for the generations still to come.
Our new name gave us a way to say more clearly what has been true for more than eighty years: that this organization belongs to all of South Dakota.
As you consider your giving this season, we hope you will consider supporting Theatre 605 and help us continue telling stories and changing lives in every corner of the 605.