North Carolina Stage Company

The mission of North Carolina Stage Company (NC Stage) is to build an artistic community that extends to include audiences, students, and local businesses as well as actors, directors and designers. We identify, develop and share works of theatre to provide access to outstanding contemporary, classic and new works that make the unfamiliar relevant and the familiar new. We focus on expressing the playwright’s intent and the connection to the human experience. In every play we do, we try to find its core truth and express it with honesty and sincerity, whether it is a French farce, a rock musical about a transgendered immigrant, or a classic like Hamlet. We believe that the most effective way to do this is by using skilled professionals in design, directing, and acting and we synthesize these elements into productions that create a relationship of shared experience. We believe in taking the work seriously, but not taking ourselves too seriously. We create a safe and productive working environment and value artists. We place a high priority on customers and community partners, on providing affordable theatre, are welcoming and approachable, and give patrons a sense of ownership. There is a strong culture of teamwork—artists, administrators, and volunteers working with a common sense of purpose, a commitment to the work and the audience.

NC Stage performs in a 101-seat house on a thrust stage for which we are the sole leaseholder and have a very reasonable and secure long-term lease. This creates an intimate, personal experience that supports our efforts to build deep relationships with our actors and audiences.

• NC Stage Mainstage Productions - NC Stage produces a diverse season of five plays including drama and comedy, contemporary and classic, minimalist and realistic. We prioritize unique and gripping use of language as well as compelling characters and stories. Our audiences value the rich material we take on as part of our programming. The majority of our selections have won Tonys, Drama Desks, and Pulitzers.

• Catalyst Series – In between Mainstage plays, NC Stage hosts The Catalyst Series, forgoing the traditional rental model in favor of a shared risk/shared reward model of additional programming in our space. The Catalyst Series engages artists of all stripes in theatre, story telling, music, and dance. We absorb the risk of producing, providing free space for performances, as well as technical, artistic, and marketing support. In exchange, we take a percentage of ticket sales.

• Stages Education Program - NC Stage uses skilled theatre professionals to teach in-house classes in theatre, after school community programs and arts in education residencies in schools. The values of NC Stage are rooted in sincerity and attention to detail and are a basic principal of our education efforts. Students and teachers value the work we do in taking students’ work to a next level of focus and determination. Beyond basic tenets of acting and theatre, our education program uses theatre skills to help classroom teachers teach core curricula, in everything from history, literature and even geometry.