Playhouse 2000’s new director inherits a 30-year institution — and a fly rail that still runs on ropes

The royalties for Fiddler on the Roof had been locked up for years. A national tour had the rights, and community theaters across the country were shut out. When the tour finally ended and the rights opened up this season, Amy Goodyear saw her moment.

Not just for the show. For Jeffrey Brown.

Brown, the long-time executive director of Playhouse 2000, had wanted for years to perform in a production alongside his wife, Jane, who retired from the company two years ago. Fiddler was the vehicle — a proper, audience-beloved sendoff for a director who built the organization into what it is. They got their show. Goodyear got her transition.

“Jeffrey, believe me, you will — it will be like you don’t miss him,” Goodyear said Thursday on Lead Live’s Nonprofit Week. “He is still going to be around. He is directing two shows in the season next year.”

Goodyear is the incoming executive director of Playhouse 2000 and the Kathleen C. Cailloux City Center for the Performing Arts. She has been with the organization since 2007, when she joined as an actor. Brown, who originally joined in a consulting capacity in 2010, will support her in that same role for the next 12 to 15 months. Playhouse 2000 was chartered in 1998 and approaches its 30th anniversary in 2028 — longevity Goodyear described as genuinely rare in the volatile world of community theater.

The organization runs what amounts to two separate companies under a single 501(c)(3) structure. The first manages the Cailloux City Center — scheduling, rentals, and coordination for groups including the Symphony of the Hills — across two venues: the 822-seat Cailloux Theater and the VK Garage Theater, a former working automotive garage from the 1950s and early 1980s that was purchased and renovated into an intimate performance space. The second produces nine original shows annually — six mainstage productions and three youth theater productions — built from scratch with local talent.

“We manage the facility and bring shows in and manage our renters like the Symphony of the Hills and all these other groups,” Goodyear said. “And at the same time we produce nine shows of our own from scratch. So we’re really two separate companies. But we are one.”

Operating an 822-seat theater in a town of Kerrville’s size requires a particular kind of financial realism. The organization receives contracted support from the City of Kerrville and must raise private funds to cover the difference. Post-pandemic, theaters everywhere have struggled to pull audiences off their couches — even Broadway, Goodyear noted. For Playhouse 2000, a realistic measure of success for a given production is 150 to 400 seats filled, depending on the act.

The local talent pool places honest constraints on what Goodyear can produce. Kerrville does not have the deep bench of “triple threats” — performers who can act, sing, and dance at a high level simultaneously — that a metropolitan market would offer. When someone asks if Playhouse 2000 will ever produce Phantom of the Opera, her answer is no.

“A Broadway vision and a community theater reality,” she said, summarizing her production philosophy. She looks for pieces her active acting base can absolutely “smash” — and programs them alongside bold, experimental work that might not always connect but keeps the theater honest about its purpose.

“Art is meant to teach and delight,” she said. “And so some things delight and some things teach and some things do both. You need a balance.”

Her infrastructure wish list is less artistic than structural. When asked about a pipe dream, Goodyear did not name a show. She named the fly rail — the system of ropes and pulleys that raises and lowers set pieces, lighting electrics, the orchestra shell, and the American flag from the ceiling of the Cailloux Theater. The current system is entirely hand-operated, a classic but limiting setup with higher operational risk than modern automated alternatives. Upgrading it would open the venue to a substantially broader range of staging possibilities.

Coming up: A Michael Jackson tribute Oct. 30 featuring a world-class impersonator from the Las Vegas Legends tour with a full live band and dancers performing Thriller the night before Halloween. Take Three — the group that recorded the official soundtrack for Netflix’s The Witcher — performs a November matinee. Red Herring, a Cold War-era screwball farce, runs Nov. 6-22 in the VK Garage Theater. Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some!) runs Dec. 4-20. Larry Gatlin is also on the calendar. A private season pass announcement event for next year’s full community theater lineup is Oct. 10, with season passes going on sale immediately after.

Full calendar and tickets: caillouxtheater.com. Questions for Goodyear: amy@caillouxtheater.com.