- Since 2004, she's been executive producer of one of the country's oldest and largest theater companies, Theatre Memphis, now celebrating its first century with a refurbished home.

I'm Kacky Walton.

Thank you for joining me for A Conversation with Debbie Litch.

[lively piano music] Theatre Memphis has accomplished what very few community theaters across the country have been able to do.

And it's received a slew of local and national awards and recognition.

As the second oldest arts organization in Memphis, and one of the oldest and most successful community theaters in the country, this season, Theatre Memphis celebrates a century of entertaining the Memphis and Mid-South community.

Not bad for a theater whose first permanent home was in a former stable.

The theater's come a long way in those 100 years, from occupying a wing of the Pink Palace Museum that sat on the sloping concrete of a never-used indoor swimming pool to its current location on a two acre campus in the heart of Memphis that currently boasts a new $10 million expansion and renovation that will welcome audiences for the next 100 years and beyond.

Debbie Litch is the force of nature behind the recent restoration of Theatre Memphis.

She's been executive producer of the nonprofit since 2004, having previously held executive leadership positions with the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, the Memphis Symphony League, the Boca Raton Hotel and Club in Florida, and Royal Viking Cruise Line.

She's a woman who can get things done, whether it's behind the scenes or by taking the occasional step in front of the spotlight on stage.

And we'll get to that part a little later.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome the Executive Producer of Theatre Memphis, Debbie Litch.

- Hi, Kacky.

- I'm so glad that we get to sit down and have a chat.

- I am, too.

And welcome to Theatre Memphis.

- Well, this is my first...

I've been a hermit since COVID times.

You know, we're still sort of in the middle, on the end, hopefully, but this is my first time coming in and seeing everything.

And you're gonna take me on a little tour later, hopefully.

- Absolutely.

- It's just gorgeous.

It's just gorgeous.

And I know that everything you set out to accomplish has been accomplished.

- We did accomplish all of our goals.

And we started with functionality and bringing everything up to code.

And then at the same time, I said, "It can also be pretty."

[both laughing] - We're gonna talk about the specifics in just a little bit, but let me just start with this.

You're the first woman to lead Theatre Memphis after a succession of men, two of whom had decades-long tenures.

And they're considered legendary today.

So remind us of who they were and how their leadership shaped Theatre Memphis's early days.

- Absolutely, well, Eugart Yerian first.

And he came from California, the Pasadena Playhouse.

And actually he had two stints at Theatre Memphis.

There was a few years in between.

He was so successful the first time that they truly called him up after he went back to California to come again.

And again, he raised, I think, the bar and set the standard of excellence that Theatre Memphis achieved during those '40s, '50s.

And then of course, Sherwood Lohrey came in the early '60s and stayed consecutively 33 years.

So again, it was Sherwood's leadership starting at the Pink Palace when he first came.

But then he was adamant that Theatre Memphis needed its own place.

It needed to find a place out east.

And fortunately was the force behind finding this property.

And had the vision for the first build that we started in 1975 when we opened.

- Well, this is just such a great location.

It's centrally located.

I mean, I zipped over here this morning in probably a little over 10 minutes from midtown.

And people from out east can get here very quickly, too.

- And people downtown, midtown, it truly is a central location.

The interesting thing about this property is that Mayor Loeb was, of course, in office at that time.

And there were several organizations and businesses vying for this land.

One was an apartment building.

And so he decided that he did not want an apartment building 'cause he didn't know what would happen many, many years down the road.

And so here come a little group of board members from Theatre Memphis saying we need some property.

So that's how we achieved that and actually leased the property for the first 50 years, until last year.

- Until last year, what happened?

- Last year, we took a year and a half, but we went in front of the City Council.

And Mayor Strickland as well as great friends on the City Council voted to basically deed the property to us.

It's always gonna be a theater as long as we want it to be a theater.

And if this property ever becomes anything else or we go out of business, which hopefully that'll never happen.

- That won't happen.

- In any lifetime, that it would be deeded back to the city.

So again, did anything change?

No, but it's just nice to know that we have taken great care of it all of these years.

We've expanded it and made it look so nice now that we also are the owners of this property.

- That's a nice 100th birthday present.

- It really was a great birthday present.

- So when you first got here, what were your goals when you took the reins?

What what was your immediate overall, "I wanna do this"?

- Well, I have to tell you that in a financial situation, and I think from an artistic standpoint, Theatre Memphis had hit one of those low points.

And so I'm a person that loves the artistic side of it.

But I also love to read a financial statement and had been on the board actually, so I knew where we were financially.

And I know there were a couple of people in groups in town asking me if I had a death wish to come in because we did have about a $550,000 to $600,000 debt.

- Oh goodness.

- But the rich history that had gone before me stepping in and becoming the caretaker and the person on watch was so rich that I knew that if we could just get the community behind it and believe in ourselves and get the artistic standards back up to where they had been and beyond, as well as to get the financial situation in order that we could just not only survive but thrive.

- So well, you're talking money.

With any nonprofit raising money is top of mind.

And you're extremely good at it.

You've even won two Arts Memphis awards.

One is for business acumen, one's for financial excellence.

So I'm curious because you're also a talented actress and singer.

We're gonna talk about that in a little bit, too.

And I was just wondering, did you study business in school?

Did you have like a theater major and a business minor or flip that over?

- You know, it was flip flopped.

I had a mathematics major.

So even though business, but I always loved numbers, but I also had a theater and English minor.

So it's a good thing and a bad thing because the left side of the brain and the right side are constantly, - That's what I was gonna ask.

- At times they do work together.

And that's what I hope that we've been able to do these last 18 years.

- Oh my god.

Because I'm a theater person and I definitely have that other side of my brain.

The financial stuff I'm horrid at.

But you have, you're gifted on both sides of your brain.

- Well, I love that.

But again, truly, am I a great fundraiser?

I don't know about that.

It's just that when I'm passionate about something, and I'm passionate about the arts.

And I've been blessed to be with the performing arts, as well as visual arts with Brooks Museum, then it's an easy sell if you believe in the product and you believe in what it does for our community.

So again, I feel like I'm the fund gatherer.

I feel like the people that are on stage, the maestros, the artists that are creating their works, they are the fundraisers.

[Kacky laughing] And I just go and say, "You know, let's support that because aren't they amazing?"

But I do believe that we have to be great stewards and we have to deliver a product of excellence for people to invest in.

- Yeah.

One thing that I've always admired about Theatre Memphis, you have a core group of staff, but really it's the volunteers that make this happen.

I mean, they run the machine as far as getting show up and going.

- Well, they do.

And again, that's what community theater is all about.

It's a volunteer base.

Even though, I will say, that we have the greatest artistic professional staff, I think anywhere.

Of course, then I am partial and I admit it.

[Kacky laughing] And they are of course the nucleus in order to make sure that when the volunteers come in and they are sewing costumes or they're working in the shop or our volunteer artists that are on stage or working crew, that they all have all the tools that they need to be the very best.

- You know, when you come to Theatre Memphis, when you come to a show, you know, the sets are gonna be fantastic.

The lighting is gonna be amazing.

And the costumes, that's really it.

Don't even get me started.

I mean, the costumes, you know are gonna be absolutely fabulous.

And that's what you expect when you come to a show here.

And you guys deliver every single time.

- Well, I think that that has been one of the areas that Theatre Memphis has focused on and invested in.

It started, I think back with Sherwood, because again, he hired Andre Bruce Ward.

And who was here 40 years.

- Oh.

- And you can go down into the basements and see so many of his wonderful creations over the years.

So he helped set that standard and keep that standard even when we had years that we weren't at our very best.

But we now just focus on that with our... Jack Yates is our wonderful resident scenic designer.

Michael Compton, who is the overall master and the one that puts everything together from the production standpoint.

Amie Eoff, our resident costume designer and Mandy Heath, our resident lighting designer.

So again, they truly are just amazing artists.

And we just always want to make sure that we can train and mentor young people, or whatever age, to come and learn about these crafts if they want to be either on stage or work from a technical standpoint.

- Well, as far as Andre Bruce Ward and Amy and everybody else, I mean, you've got the Ostrander Awards to prove how good they are at their jobs.

- Well, they are.

I can't say enough fabulous things about them.

And I just think that we're blessed that we are able to be able to have them on our staff so that this way we can achieve that excellence.

I will say we don't take anything for granted because it's still one show at a time.

And we've got to deliver every time if we want to keep our audiences coming back.

And I think they expect, and they deserve to have that type of quality.

- Yeah, absolutely, sure.

Now people may not know, you've got two performance spaces here.

- Right.

- And so, I don't know if I'm preaching to the choir, but there may be people tuning in that aren't aware of it.

And so tell us about those spaces and how each come into play when you're crafting a season.

- Well, the Lohrey Stage is our main stage.

It's 411 seats.

- Named after Sherwood Lohrey.

- Exactly, and it was named after him when he retired in 1995.

But we do our large musicals and our large dramas or plays on that.

And so when you're programming, you wanna make sure that these are titles that can attract audiences in order to fill those 411 seats.

Then we have a Next Stage, which is a black box that can be in any configuration that we want to make it, but it seats basically 100 people.

So we do more contemporary or sometimes edgy, or then we do classic Shakespeare in there where you truly are on the sets yourself almost.

And you can experience exactly what the actors are portraying.

And so it really is a jewel box that I call it.

And then we go from one theater to the other and basically throughout 12 months a year.

- Wow.

Audiences love a big splash musical.

I'm one of 'em.

I'm a musical theater geek.

But Theatre Memphis also stages, as you mentioned, you know, more contemporary shows, maybe cutting edge, maybe a little gritty.

And I'm thinking of thought provoking shows like most recently you staged "American Son".

- Absolutely, and this was brought to our play-finding committee by the late Jerry Chipman.

And he was an amazing director, amazing actor, as we all know, but also he was a great leader and past president of our board.

But always bringing some great titles to the table.

And so again, this was pre-pandemic.

And we scheduled it for the season.

He was to direct and actually cast it.

But then of course, unexpectedly passed away.

- Right.

- And so decided, because I knew that if there was anyone that he would want to direct, it would be Jared Johnson.

So Jared stepped up.

And of course we all did it in honor and tribute to Jerry.

But we also knew that it was still timely because again, it took place in Miami at a police station when a mixed racial marriage couple who were estranged, but they came together because their son, something has happened to their son.

And again, it just unfolds throughout the evening, as far as what has happened.

Is he safe, number one.

Number two, has he had an altercation with police?

And so it was both sides of the issue of race as well as just everyday marriage and complications.

So again, you couldn't agree or totally agree or disagree with either side, but it certainly did make everyone think.

And hopefully people come out with more understanding and the ability to be able to put themselves in other people's shoes and look through their eyes.

- A mother's worried about her son.

- Exactly.

- That's first and foremost, a mom is worried about her son.

I mean, and the way that plays out, it's just so taut, it's so suspenseful.

- But it was outstanding.

It was realized fully as far as from our set and costumes.

So when you walked in there, you walked into the Miami police headquarters.

And so you were right there with those actors.

So again, it was emotional, it was hard.

Fortunately it was only 90 minutes.

So we didn't have to go back in act two and have to just be able to face this again.

So again, so proud that we presented it.

It was timely and those are the type of shows we want to do.

Not only on the Next Stage, but also on our main stage when we can.

- So looking back over your time here, what are are some of the other shows that you're particularly proud of?

- Well, you know, there's so many that I am so proud of.

Again, I love musicals as well, but I love a good drama.

But I feel that, you know, I'm most proud of the fact that we truly are trying to achieve one wonderful show at a time.

And the variety is there.

And I do have, you know, some favorites.

I have some favorite moments.

I love the fact that "Mamma Mia" basically oversold the entire time, but we kind of stacked the aces a little bit before we knew we were gonna be out with our construction.

And so we put that to open the season, knowing we're only doing a half season.

And then we put "Cats" right afterwards.

- Oh yeah.

- So to be able to do those two huge musicals, it was a killer for our staff, but they knew, "Hey, we're gonna get a little bit of a rest here."

- Right.

- But I will say that my all-time favorite act one finale, and I still talk about it, is "Crazy For You".

Jordan Nichols starred in it.

But Lindsay Roberts was one of the tap dancing, wonderful people in the show.

And every night she would throw this pan that he would have to step on and tap dance and hit that mark every time.

And it just brought the audience to a standing ovation at intermission before we'd even seen act two.

[both laughing] - Is there a wish, I'm sure you have a wishlist.

Like, "I would love to do X, Y, Z."

- I would, I'd love to do "Les Mis" if I could get... And I have so many people that want to be in it, to want to produce it as far as, or to build it, so want to direct it, music direct it.

So that's one that is on the list.

I think eventually we might get the rights to that.

"Phantom of the Opera" I don't know that we'll ever have those rights, because I think Andrew Lloyd Webber's holding those too close.

But yes, there are musicals.

But then sometimes it's fun to revisit some musicals that we've done.

- Absolutely.

- Which we have done this year during our hundredth anniversary season.

- That's right, that's right.

Oh, yeah, I know what you opened with.

And we're gonna get to that in sec.

But in addition to the 12 shows, this theater does a lot more than that because you have a really strong outreach effort program.

- We do a outreach education, community engagement program.

We love to go out to other areas besides just bringing young people or all ages into the theater to make a difference.

We have a partnership with the Grizzlies team mentoring program.

We have done some things with Madonna Day School, with Bodine, as well as Caritas Village.

We have also been out in Orange Mound with RedZone.

So again, we are looking for opportunities always to go and bring the theater arts in order to teach just basic life lessons and how to be a good person and to be a good team member and a good listener and a good speaker, because that's what theater does.

It teaches you confidence, self-esteem, and understanding of other people.

'Cause we have to do it together as a group.

- Yeah, I mean, you may not major in theater.

You may not have in your head that I'm gonna go be a big actor, but those skills are gonna take you through life.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- So I wanna talk about the renovation.

- Okay.

[both laughing] - When did you realize that it just had to be done?

And what things did you absolutely say must be done?

- Well, we knew we were gonna be celebrating our 100th anniversary.

So we started about two and a half, three years before that thinking, can we even be able to dream about renovating and expanding this facility, and the fundraiser and the monies that we would have to raise?

But we felt like that we were probably in a good position and had a possibility to do it because we were consistent in our excellence on our stage, because that's our mantra, consistent artistic excellence.

But we also knew that our audiences were attending and we were having capacity crowds.

We also knew that having capacity crowds, that the one area that people always were coming at intermission and after, we need more restrooms.

[Kacky laughing] It takes so long to get to the restroom during intermission.

So that was number one on the list was to expand.

So we've gone from 8 to 21, which I always say, and now announcing, there won't be a line at the restroom.

Now there will be a line at the bar [Kacky laughing] even though we can do up to three bars, sometimes that doesn't seem like it's enough.

But we also knew that we wanted to bring the standards as far as bring us up to code on ADA.

This area where we are seated right now, it was a lower lobby.

And it prevented people that might have handicap or challenges to be able to come and enjoy some of our parties.

So everything that we were able to do was brought up to the ADA standards, which was great.

Now you'll look behind us and you'll see a staircase.

Sort of threw myself on the sword for that one with our wonderful architects, as well as our contractors.

It was going to just go across.

And I said, "No, we gotta open it up.

"Every theater needs to have a stair-" - A grand staircase.

- So we were able to make that happen.

And also to add a south wing, a south corridor to this, which actually gave it its symmetrical look.

The interesting thing, Kacky, is that the original architect had drawn this originally.

And I found actually a slide that had this original drawing.

And again, because I guess of expense, they decided not to do it at the beginning.

So it was interesting that our current architect picked up on that and didn't know that it had originally been a thought.

And came, as I called it, to his audition with this of which we absolutely loved.

- I love it, I love that staircase.

- I do, too.

- So COVID hits, but you finally are able to eventually get back in the theater to present shows for the community.

And the first show, I think it... What a fabulous way to begin your 100th season was "Hello Dolly" starring you as Dolly Levi.

- Well, that part of it, I didn't know, you know, would happen.

But we chose that show because we knew that number one, it's a great period piece.

But also it's so funny and it's such a classic and happy.

And we wanted it to reflect our history in many, many ways.

And we'd only produced it one other time, even though we've done "The Matchmaker" the play before.

- Right.

- So felt like it was just would be a great, great opener.

And thought we would be doing it a year, back in actually 2020.

But it ended up being August of 2021.

So at the time we had to go to virtual auditions, which was the first time we'd ever done those.

And so I decided, and Jordan Nichols and Travis Bradley were the directors.

And I said, "You know, whatever your decision, "I just wanna throw my hat in the ring."

And it's always been one of those on my bucket list.

And I don't do many, many shows because I love showcasing and producing other people.

That is my greatest love.

But every now and then there might be a role or sometimes it's good just to go back to what made you fall in love with theater.

And made you realize that this needed to be your career and your life's path.

So I went through the full audition.

I had to continue to tape and sing and dance and do sides.

But again, it was a great experience.

We had a wonderful cast.

Everybody was so excited to be back - I know.

- And be able to rehearse and do a show on stage.

So again, I was blessed that I was able to be a little part of it, but again, it was just so wonderful to get the audiences and everybody back together.

- That's how it needed to be though, I think.

I mean, your passion is for this theater and everything that it offers to the community, but your passion is also on stage, so... - Well, it is, but- - I think it's perfect that you've starred in a show that opened up the new theater to everybody.

- Well, it gave, it did give me an opportunity to welcome everybody back.

I may not have been able to do the curtain speech that time even though it was taped.

[Kacky laughing] But I certainly did get to talk to everybody after we concluded the show.

- Well I must say too, as we're wrapping up.

And I wish we had more time to talk about this, but you do a fabulous Judy Garland.

You just do a fabulous Judy Garland.

- You're too kind.

- And I think everybody agrees with me, truly.

So I know you must have grown up with a great love for her talent.

- I did, absolutely.

- Well, you're absolutely wonderful.

And I can't wait to see your next stage triumph.

I know there will be many.

I was thinking, "Oh, I hope they let me include this."

thought since you're so good at Judy, maybe you could do the entire Carnegie Hall concert, like reenact the entire thing from start to finish.

Rufus Wainwright did it, you can do it, too.

[Debbie laughing] I know you can.

I know you can.

- Well, that's an interesting thought.

[both laughing] - Well, Debbie Litch, you're a delight to watch on stage.

And congratulations on everything that you've accomplished here during your time at Theatre Memphis.

This renovation is absolutely gorgeous.

And I know you're so proud of it.

And I know everybody in the theater community was so excited to see it finally come true.

- Well, I'm just so proud of this community coming and supporting us, because it takes everybody in order to make something like this happen.

- Well, Debbie Litch, you're going down in history because my dear, you are legendary as well.

And I wanna thank you for talking to me today.

- Oh, Kacky, I can't thank you enough for just being here and doing all the wonderful things that you do and loving the arts and promoting all of us.

- Aw, thanks Debbie.

[lively piano music] [acoustic guitar chords]